Health and Safety Center Factory Study Tour

I'm putting my Health and Safety Center Factory study tour essay on line because I think it might be interesting for people back home to read. At least read the parts that aren't me BSing.

Here it is:

For our first factory study tour we went to the Health and Safety Center. Located in the middle of Tokyo, near the skytree. I think that means we were near Shinamachi. The Health and safety centers purpose is to educate the Japanese public on what to do during natural disasters. As such, we went through 5 disaster simulations as well as watched an orientation video.
We began the visit by waiting in a waiting room for a half an hour and then being ushered into a movie theater to watch a movie about what to do during a disaster. The movie followed the life of a middle school boy before and after Tokyo was hit by a magnitude 7.3 earthquake. From a production standpoint the movie was amazingly cheesy. It started with the line “Its hard to believe, but my city has been completely destroyed” while showing a burning Tokyo in the background. It had various points about what to do during natural disasters, and how to help neighbors. What really stuck out to me though was the fact that the city had dedicated an entire building, a movie theater and a fairly high production value movie to preparing people for natural disasters. In Seattle we have earthquakes, but is amazing, and sobering to realize how serious the threat of natural disasters are to Japanese. Its not surprising though. Just look at Kobe to see why the Japanese feel the need to prepare for disasters.
After the movie we went to 5 disaster simulations. The first was a typhoon simulation. I was a bit worried that they wouldn't have shoes big enough for me. It turns out they did though, they put us in a room that was a bit windy and very rainy. It reminded me of home.
Then they took us to a fire simulator. Our job was to crouch walk though a smoke filled room and get out. If we stood up while we were doing this we would “die”. Sadly because the room was built for Japanese people and not people my size I died like five times.
We then went to probably the coolest simulation, an earthquake room. It simulated a magnitude 7.3 earthquake. I've been in an earthquake before, and I can say, that room did not simulate an earthquake properly. Something about the shaking felt off. The shaking is much worse in a real quake.
For the final simulator we pretended to put out fires, nothing special here. Fire extinguisher, fake fire. We drenched our fake house in water about ten times over until we were safe.
All in all the trip was a lot of fun, and now I feel much more prepared to handle disasters in Japan. Also, and more importantly, I understand how the Japanese feel about and prepare for natural disasters, that often effect the country. One thing I think they forgot though. Godzilla attack simulator.