qiball planetarium

This weekend I went to some new places both inside and outside of Chiba City, which is pretty exciting! For the sake of not having one super-long post, I'll be splitting up the weekend into a couple of posts instead.

On Friday, I went to Qiball for Aroma Night at the planetarium! I'm not sure if I can describe Qiball in one term, but it's a place that has a planetarium, science museum, business support center, child raising support center, and a children's exchange center (or something like that; sorry for the awkward translation). It's also where we had out Chiba orientation right after coming to Chiba!  We tried to go to the planetarium after orientation, but the last showing for the day had already ended, so when I found out the planetarium was having Aroma Night, I definitely wanted to go. Aroma Night is basically a show at the planetarium that is also accompanied by various scents - it's a monthly event, and every month they use a different aroma for the show. September's blend was grapefruit herb, or something like that.

So I met up with two friends, and none of us had been to the planetarium before so we were all really excited! I wasn't sure how crowded the event would be so we showed up a bit early, got tickets, and wandered around the museum shop for a bit before going in. When you're in the atrium of Qiball, you see the bottom half of this big globe way up in the air, which is actually the planetarium (which is on the 7th floor), and it's really cool to think that you were just in it.

When you walk in, the part of the planetarium that you watch is the top half of that giant globe, and all the seats even recline! We were all just sitting in our seats getting excited until the show started, and then it did! The lights dimmed and the stars and the scent came out, which was very relaxing. The show lasted 45 minutes, and it was basically 45 minutes of somebody with a very soothing voice explaining things to us about constellations and the moon. I thought it was cool because I could tell that it was a real person reading to us and pointing things out live, instead of a recording, which I thought was impressive.

Anyway, it was definitely an experience and I'm glad I went! I still haven't seen the science museum at all, which I want to (and probably won't be able to resist going to the the planetarium at the same time, haha), so I'm sure I'll be back at Qiball again sometime. :)