icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — 1/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1600 — full exif
Open Wide
dental patient in a plastic-like stupor
We took Anthony to KidZania yesterday, in Nishinomiya (near Kobe, about an hour and a half drive south from Kyoto). It's best described as “Vocational School meets Disneyland”... it's a place where kids get to pretend to be all kinds of things. The picture above is from the dental clinic, of course.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 66 mm — 1/80 sec, f/3.5, ISO 6400 — full exif
Getting Ready to Tackle the Blaze
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — 1/80 sec, f/3.5, ISO 6400 — full exif
Dousing the Fire
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — 1/100 sec, f/2.8, ISO 6400 — full exif
EMT Attends a Patient
KidZania is a two-story indoor area filled with more than 70 different “businesses” where the kids can participate as an employee or customer. They can move from business to business, with each event taking from 15 to 30 minutes, although, like Disneyland, much time is spent waiting your turn.
If they participate as an employee, they're paid (in KidZo monetary units), and if they participate as a customer, they must pay. The terms for each “business” are displayed out front... how much pay they'll get for participating, or how much it'll cost to participate.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 27 mm — 1/100 sec, f/4, ISO 3600 — full exif
A KidZania “Street”
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/100 sec, f/6.3, ISO 3600 — full exif
Electronics Repair
the lady at right is holding a description of a fuse
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 40 mm — 1/100 sec, f/3.2, ISO 6400 — full exif
Armored Transport
All the businesses mimic in many ways their real-life sponsors. Anyone in a Japanese city will immediately recognize the uniforms of the kids above as that of ALSOK (the Japan equivalent of “Brinks” in the US). “Midori” in the photo above that is a well-known big-chain electronics store.
(Those familiar with Japan may look at the Autobacs sign in the second picture and note, correctly, that Autobacs' sign is orange, not yellow. Indeed, the sign at KidZania was retina-searing pure orange, but it came out as yellow in the pictures due to the same technological limitations mentioned in this post on spot metering. The jumpsuits were the exact same orange as the sign, but come across as reddish in the photo due to white-balance issues and the horrible mix of every known type of lighting on earth.... just in very limited overall quantities. Sigh.)
Anyway, I couldn't find a business that I didn't immediately recognize. Even the generic government services like the KidZania police force and fire department were sponsored by well-known conpanies.
The well-known names and uniforms, of course, make it all the more fun and real for the kids. The lead “guard” in the photo above is about to walk by a delivery truck for Yamato Kuroneko (the Japan equivalent of Federal Express), whose uniforms Anthony tried to mimic in his deliveryman play a few years ago.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/125 sec, f/3.2, ISO 200 — full exif
Car Manufacture
this Mitsubishi awaits its passenger seat and door
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 125 mm — 1/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 3600 — full exif
Seiko Watch
for some reason, Seiko Watch's activity was a dance performance (????)
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 120 mm — 1/200 sec, f/3.5, ISO 6400 — full exif
Radio Broadcast
the kids get to use the most-excellent Sony MDR-V6 headphones
According to the sign above the kid at right, up to 10 kids can do this “job” at a time, and it takes about 30 minutes. Recommended for kids age 3 and above. Salary is 5 KidZo bucks. These kids were next in line, after the group inside was done.
The netting under their hats looks perfectly normal for someone in a bakery, but it's a general hygiene thing at KidZania... kids get a hair net to wear under whatever headgear goes with the uniform.
It was quite dark inside, so I had trouble getting good shots. I wonder how well the photojournalists in the shot below did with their Sony cameras, as they covered the KidZania fire department rolling on yet another fire....
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 175 mm — 1/60 sec, f/3.5, ISO 6400 — full exif
Photojournalists
KidZania seems to be fire prone, with the FD getting called out just about every 30 minutes. And there must be something in the water, because the city produces a lot of babies...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 28 mm — 1/250 sec, f/3.5, ISO 1100 — full exif
Another Look at the Maternity Ward
Other “businesses” include rent-a-car (where the kids actually get to drive a car), fashion boutique (designer or model), flight attendant, magician, building maintenance, ice-cream shop, hotel work (various positions), department store clerk / customer, financial consulting, flower shop, pet store, cell-phone sales, glass-making, barber / beautician, mayonnaise production, new-home sales, offset printing, pizza shop, train-conductor.... well, there are just oodles more.
There's a KidZania in Tokyo that Fumie had heard about from a friend, so when one opened here in March, she wanted to bring Anthony. As you might imagine, this kind of place is popular, so it's difficult to get a reservation (Fumie had made one months ago), and it's really expensive: $40 per kid, more than $20 per adult. Adults get absolutely nothing for their $20, except the ability to watch their kid. (And of course, it's worth it.)
There are two sessions per day, five or six hours long each; we went to the second one yesterday.
Here's the scene in the adjacent mall, waiting to get in...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/100 sec, f/9, ISO 2500 — full exif
Waiting To Be Let In
after about half of the 450 or so families have already been let in
They're very regimented. They check your reservation, put RFID bracelets on you that can't be removed without a special tool or a bone-cutting chainsaw, and give you a card that indicates your place in line. Noting the crowd, I casually asked the registration lady how many people came each day, to which she replied in service-field Japanese of the most humble and floral variety: “I'm not at liberty to divulge such information to you”. Whoa, just asking! It was very odd, as if I had asked a secret service agent “So, where will The President be most vulnerable?”. Weird.
Our group of three got entry position “G-18”. Each letter went from 1 through 60, and they had signs for up through “H-60”, so that means they're ready for up to 480 groups. Some groups might have just one parent and one adult, but many had multiple adults and multiple kids. I'll guess on average 2 adults and 1.75 kids per group, which would put the total crowd at 1,800 (and, for what it's worth, the total gross for the half-day session at $54,000).
When it came time to “load” the rope alleys with “G” groups, they called out each number one by one, and confirmed our group of three by name as we presented our “G-18” card. Our tickets were eventually checked, and our RFID bands rechecked, and finally we gained admittance. Anthony had many activities he wanted to try, but one was clearly on top of his must-do list, and so we made a bee-line directly there.... only to find out that he'd have to wait 20 minutes before getting to start.
But that begins a story left for another post....but as a hint, none of the activities that Anthony did have been mentioned in this post.
All the posts about KidZania are listed in (in reverse order) my KidZania category, or, you can just read them in order starting here.
Awesome. This would make my niece super happy. Thanks for your detailed shots and thoughtful captions. Cheers!
Wow! What a fascinating concept! Reminds me somewhat of the “Kids Science Museum” that began, I believe, in Toronto, Canada, in the 1970’s. Now, of course, they are everywhere. My guess is that Anthony headed right for the “Drive a Backhoe/other Huge Construction Vehicle exhibit. But I won’t hazard a guess on how one becomes a “customer” in the Maternity Ward there.
“All the businesses mimic in many ways their real-life sponsors.”
Did Lawsons sponsor a business? A bit of nostalgia for those of us with NE Ohio ties!!
Wow!
Hmmm. My guess is that Anthony went straight a construction crew of some sort. I see him as a heavy machinery operator.
Or maybe he has learned from his Daddy, and went to a Yakiniku restaurant, where he could pay Kidzo dollars to be able to do the cooking 🙂
Wow this is such an eye-opener for me! I wish I had something like this around while I was growing up.. I think it’s a wonderful experience for the children, and it exposes them to so many different jobs.. I was born and educated in Malaysia, and I think we should REALLY take a leaf out of Japan’s books. Everything seems so organized.. I really had fun looking through this post. Thanks!
He missed fire fighting? Now, that’s a surprise…. My vote is for driving a truck or flying a helicopter, but lets see 🙂
“And there must be something in the water, because the city produces a lot of babies…”, that’s hysterical. lol They wouldn’t happen to have a demolition department, would they? It would be kind of cool to destroy things with a wrecking ball.
Earnie
This is wonderful. What a great idea! I guess Anthony tried being an Astronaut and Paleontologist.
“But I won’t hazard a guess on how one becomes a “customer” in the Maternity Ward there.”
He he he that was funny!
from San Diego:
There’s also a “Wannado City” in Florida from the same creator — the first two KidZania locations are in Mexico.
This place seems amazing! Would love to take my kids there but they probably need a few more years, and a fairly long plane ride…
What a great concept! I would imagine kids have a blast here, I would’ve gone nuts with the firefighting station back when I was a kid.