The museum focussed on German tank developments since the beginning: World War I. Definitely an awesome museum. I’d recommend it for anyone interested in the subject.

During the interwar period and World War II, the Germans took the tank concept and built it into a very effective war machine. This museum is paradise for tank nerds like me.

This museum is also paradise for mechanical engineers too. Here is an interactive exhibit on the tank’s transmission. Yanking on the lever let you shift gears and one can see how the gears move around through the clear covering. Definitely real cool for people who are into that sort of stuff.

There are lots of tanks here. This is only one of the many rooms.

There’s also an exhibit showing how kids learn how to play war at a young age and it questions the morality whether or not this is okay. Ironically, when we were there, a group of children were going through the whole museum screaming about how the stuff in the museum was the coolest stuff ever.

Right behind that, was an exhibit of guns and how humans engineered death.

The exhibit on how armour piercing rounds work was especially cool.

And also the cool cross-sections.

What’s a tank musum if you can’t actually go inside one?

And of course, one can’t look at tanks without thinking of margaritas and Katy Perry…

After visiting the museum, we stopped in Hamburg to grab a bite to eat. We ate at this restaurant with a mysterious set menu where we knew neither the price nor what we would be served. We ended up eating different kinds of seafood over a few courses (swordfish, among them!), and it was ~40 euros!

Link to photo album: here

Unlike Shinto shrines in other places, these ones are quite simple in their architecture.

These people were trying to “listen” to the tree. I thought stethoscopes were needed to do that. Anyway, that tree trunk was huge.

Random chicken on the road. Doesn’t seem to be afraid of people.

And of course, lunch! Ise is famous for its udon, so that’s what we had at a restaurant called Ise Udon Okunoya. My lunch also came with a rice bowl with sashimi from local fish.

And I also had one piece of sushi that costed ¥1,000 (~$10). The main ingredient: Matsuzaka beef, a kind of beef that rivals even Kobe beef in quality. The beef is very soft and tender. When I put it in my mouth, I felt it melting apart by itself. $10 well spent.

Oharaimachi is a street with many traditional buildings and restaurants. There also lots of shops that sell different types of sake, and local foods for tourists.

Played this game where I shot a gun that shot out a small cork at towers of candies. Whatever I knocked down, I got to keep. Went home with a bag of candy

Links to photo albums: here

Back to the Future is definitely one of my favourite movies and since USJ had this ride there, I had to go (even if I saw it as a kid). It was a motion simulator ride where everyone sat in a Delorean that shook as the car traveled through time to places like Hill Valley in 2015 and eras like the time of the dinosaurs. Unfortunately, the dialogue was all in Japanese!

The Delorean outside the ride definitely attracted a lot of attention too.

Parts of the park was designed to look like an American city, but with one big difference: the streets are much cleaner in Japan. Part of this pseudo-American town was a recreation of Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.

The big gate into Jurassic park with the vegetation was a really nice touch too.

They really did a good job in making people feel like they were actually there – complete with a 10,000V electric fence, a broken jeep and raptors.

The Jurassic Park ride was really awesome too. As the roller coaster passes the destroyed gate and electric fence, dinosaurs begin to appear, and they are screaming and roaring. The acid spraying dinosaurs spray water at the visitors, and of course at the end, the almighty T-Rex appears as the roller coaster goes through a steep drop into the water, making a huge splash. I was soaked at the end of the ride.

I forgot how awesome Terminator 3D was when I was a kid. It was cool to see Terminators at the side of the theatre light up and start shooting things. Even cooler was when the screen showed Arnold riding a motorcycle and then having a real motorcycle come out of the screen and appear on stage fighting another actor playing T-1000.

At the Jaws ride, naturally there’d be a large shark on display right outside of it. The ride took visitors on a boat ride as the shark attacks. The boat driver, wielding a shotgun, begins to defend the passengers. Lots of splashing, with a fiery ending.

Because it is Japan, there has to be cute stuff and that is Snoopy. There aren’t many things cooler than flying Snoopy’s.

If people like old school American-style diners, they have that here too!

Definitely worth a visit if one is willing to spend 7000 yen. I certainly enjoyed reliving the same things I saw when I was a kid as an adult and it gave me quite a huge feeling of nostalgia.

Links to more photos: here

The one purpose to come here would be to simply admire the old-style architecture. The area is quite big and we ended up spending about 2 and a half hours here. Apparently, only part of the palace grounds have been reconstructed since the Japanese occupation, so in the future, there are definitely going to be more to see here.

Upon entering the palace grounds, people are greeted by one of the main gates to the palace. The banner uses Chinese characters rather than Korean since in the past there was wide use of Chinese characters in the Korean language.

The pond with the pavilion was definitely the most beautiful location on the entire palace grounds.

The pagoda is also another impressive piece of traditional architecture. The construction has a Chinese feel to me, but I am definitely not an expert in Asian architecture. The National Folk Museum of Korea is also located here, and visitors are able to learn about the history of how the Korean people lived back then.

Those who enjoy nice walks around beautiful architecture and scenery should definitely come visit this place when travelling in Seoul.

Link to more photos: here

We took the Euro Tunnel crossing into France.  It is an underground train that cars can board that takes commuters across the English Channel.  It only took about 20 minutes and it departed from Folkestone to Calais.

The drive into Normany is quite nice too. We were a bit sad that the car’s (Volkswagen Golf TDI) top speed was only 180 km/h though (we tested that).

Our hotel was in Caen, and in the next morning we drove to Bayeux to meet the tour group. Our tour guide was a native from Normandy who used to serve in the French military. He knew quite a lot of the history behind the Battle of Normandy, so he was a really great guide.

When I got out of the car, I could immediately feel my allergies acting up.  Within a few minutes, my nose was extremely plugged and my eyes were itchy.  Worst of all, I left my medicine at the hotel.  My allergies stayed with me for the entire day.  It was the worst allergic reaction I’ve had in recent memory.

Longues-sur-Mer Battery

The first stop were the gun batteries at Longues-sur-Mer. It was part of Germany’s Atlantic Wall coastal fortifications.

The line of batteries were just situated on a large grass field.  There wasn’t really anything else in the area other than other bunkers that were part of the fortification.

Omaha Beach

I was surprised to see that the bunkers at Omaha Beach had all been taken away. Apparently the locals disposed of them since they didn’t want to keep such structures from their foes to stay.

The guide explained that the attack on D-Day began while the beach was at high tide, which meant the soldiers had to wade through more water than they would have during low tide. This meant the soldiers were slower and had a greater danger of drowning. Because of this, the American forces that invaded took heavy casualties. The guide also mentioned that a huge factor that caused the Germans to lose the battle was that they were running out of ammunition after killing so many attackers.  The water ran red for days.

Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial

Many soldiers who died during the Battle of Normandy are buried here. The fallen soldiers’ next of kin were given a choice as to whether the burial would take place in the US, or overseas.

The site was quite large. It probably took about 10-15 minutes to walk from one side to the other.

Pointe du Hoc

During the battle, the soldiers had to scale these cliffs just to get to the enemy and they did this while getting shot at.

I remember playing Call of Duty 2 a long time ago and there was a mission about this very battle. The bunker here was modeled pretty much the same too.

Before the battle began, the air force and navy heavily bombarded this area and so there are many craters here. After so many years, grass has grown over them.

The Hedgerows

The guide explained that while the Allies were gathering intelligence for their invasion planning, local French people had told the Allies that there’d be lots of hedgerows to watch out for. It never occurred to the Allies that the hedgerows in France were significantly taller than the hedgerows that they were used to and so they thought the soldiers could see over them. Nope, they’re way taller than a standing person.

When the paratroopers landed in the night, a lot of them couldn’t find each other. The Germans used this to their advantage and set many traps in and around the hedgerows.

To Be Continued…

Since this post is already getting quite long, I’ll be continuing the rest of the Normandy trip in a second post.

Links to photo albums:

• Normandy
• Normandy (Edward’s Photos)

British Museum

I had been here before, but I thought this would be a good place for Edward to visit, since I was showing him around a little bit.

Here’s some pictures of some ancient stuff.

Later that night, we walked around the Tower Bridge and along the river and got some good night time photos.

Night Time along the Thames

I recall doing a similar walk along the Thames when I came to London two years before.  At night, the Tower Bridge is all lit up.

There is also St. Paul’s Cathedral from afar.

Everything is definitely much prettier when actually being there and with my point and shoot camera, it’s definitely hard to capture it all in photos.

English Breakfast

Definitely one of the most delicious breakfasts I’ve ever had. Back bacon is now one of my favourite foods. I also now have a greater appreciation for pan fried tomatoes.

If I recall correctly, the place is called Kiko’s Cafe and I highly recommend this place for anybody going to London.

Old Books

Our tourist map recommended an old second hand book store called Skoob Books. There, we found all sorts of old school books dating back to the early 20th century. I was able to pick up a 1928 edition of the Wealth of Nations for nine pounds. Edward managed to pick up an old anthology of George Orwell’s works for cheap too. Upon looking at my photo albums, it seems I got too carried away to take pictures of any of the old books.

In a different used book store, the books were so old that the owner put a lock on the door and would let customers in only when they rang the bell.  The books there were hundreds of years old and each book sold for at least hundreds of pounds if not thousands.

Princess Diana Loves Italian Food

For dinner, we ate at apparently one of Princess Diana’s favourite restaurants. And of course, this recommendation was very good.

I also highly recommend this place and it is called Da Mario.

Walking Tour

I did the walking tour last time I came to London, but I thought it’d be a good idea to do it again since Edward had never been to London before.  I didn’t really take much pictures here as I had taken so many the first time around.

Pub Grub

For lunch, we ate at a pub called The Lord Moon of the Mall with another person from Vancouver whom we met on the walking tour. I had previously been there before, and it was good last time, so I couldn’t really go wrong.

I think I was spoiled by the English breakfast and the pasta though because I didn’t think this place was as good as I remember.

HMS Belfast

Visiting the Belfast was one of the new things I did in London.  The HMS Belfast is a light naval cruiser that is now a museum and is parked on the Thames River. From the outside, the ship didn’t look that big to me, but it still took quite a while to see it all.

I even got to go inside the gun battery and inside there was a “simulation” of the batteries firing and it was very loud. I don’t know what I expected.

The tour takes the tourist to different rooms in the ship such as the sick bay, mess hall, chapel, among other places. As an engineer, the most interesting area for me to look at was the engine room. It’s amazing to see exactly what mechanisms can generate so much power to drive the ship.

Lots of ammo.

On the ship deck.

It just so happened that an airplane flew over as we were looking at the anti-aircraft gun.

A Comfortable Place to Travel

The biggest differences between travelling in Kiev and London is that in London, we can actually talk to people. We can read all the signs. It’s not sketchy at all. While this made travelling here super comfortable, it took away the excitement that being in a little bit of danger gave.  Even then, we still thought it was fun and we rather have done this than not at all.

Links to photo albums:

• British Museum (Edward’s Photos)
• London II
• London I

We almost missed our ride to the gun range too. We originally thought the tour was supposed to depart from the hostel, but it turned out the departure point was some 12 km away.

We could either take a taxi and be unsure of whether the taxi would be legit, or take the metro and have to watch out for pick pockets. Metro it was. It only costed us 2 UAH (equivalent of about 25 cents) per way. That made it the cheapest metro I’ve ever been on.

Our instructions were to meet him at a gas station by the metro station (which sounded super weird to me). We arrived at the gas station, but didn’t see the guy and wondered where the guy could be. For a bit I thought we weren’t going to make it to the gun tour.

We figured we’d ask the gas station attendant to borrow his phone. He didn’t speak English. It was only after a bit of charades were we able to call the hostel. At least the attendant being super helpful. We joked that the two Chinese guys asking him for help in the middle of nowhere (see below) in Kiev was the most interesting part of his day. We tried to tip him, but he politely declined.

The tour driver eventually arrives late and knocks on the window to signal us. The driver came in his own car and it was just a four seater. Looks like we’re the only ones going on the gun tour (sounds legit right?). He asked me if we were going to the shooting tour and so I said yes and off we went. Luckily he asked first, which showed that he was here for this purpose, which supported that the tour was legit and we weren’t going to get robbed or anything.

This guy’s car didn’t have seat belts. And because he was late, he drove way past the speed limit, and swerved through everyone. Despite that, I still felt quite self as he had really good control of his car. At least his car had suspensions unlike the Chernobyl tour van. Ten minutes later, we arrived at the gun range.

We fired a pistol to start off with first. Then it was what we came for. The AK-47.

The tour originally advertised firing an AK in automatic mode as well as shooting a Dragunov sniper, but instead of doing that we fired the AK in semiautomatic mode and shot a Mosin Nagant and a shotgun with a red dot sight. The kickback on these guns were way more than I expected. It felt like the whole gun flew back two inches. And I learned I’m not a very good shot. I also learned that the shotgun doesn’t have a lot of recoil and that it doesn’t take much effort to ready the next shot, unlike loading the next bullet on the bolt action rifle.

Between each clip, the guy at the gun range would ask us to go down range to retrieve our targets. I thought it was so weird that he’d make us do that. Each time I walked down, I made sure there was no one shooting. Luckily, they do care about safety and all was well.

Shooting these types of guns is something I’ve always wanted to do, but never could since these military grade weapons are common in Vancouver. It was definitely super fun and exciting.

On the way back, the tour guide drove at the same ridiculous speeds, and along the way he honked down a bus. We all got out of the car and he gave us each a USSR army canteen as a gift. Then he says, “you get off here and take this bus. It will take you back to the same metro station”.

It happened so suddenly, we had no idea what had just happened. He paid for our bus fare and he was gone. Being tourists, we had no idea how their bus system worked. We couldn’t even read the name of the metro station because it was all in Cyrillic. He could have screwed us over easily.

The bus was yellow and was the oldest piece of junk I’ve ever ridden in. But it got us back to the metro station and that’s all we cared about. If it had broken down, we would have been so screwed. After this experience, I wondered to myself why I did all those things despite such sketchiness. Still, all went well and now we have a good story to tell.

At Frankfurt Airport, when Edward and I lined up to check in, we were the only two Chinese people in line.  We seemed very out of place.  Some of the people gave us these stares that seemed to ask “why are you flying to Kiev?” We wanted to visit Chernobyl and shoot AK-47’s.

Our experience on the plane was dreadful.  Four crying babies/toddlers plus jet lag plus one hour delay was not a good combination. No sleep for me I guess.  Worst flight ever.

Awkward Car Ride

The hostel arranged transportation for us and so when we arrived, I looked for someone holding a sign with my name on it (first time ever!).  The driver was not happy at how we were late (not that we could do anything about it).

Probably since he was late, he drove like a maniac.  He drove way faster than the posted limits and passed every car on the highway.  The expected 45 min ride was reduced to almost 20 minutes.  The driver didn’t speak English.  No one said a word during the entire ride.  Awkward.

I had read before that people sometimes get driven to random places by taxi drivers before they get mugged.  By getting the hostel transportation, we minimized that risk.  Despite that, I was at peak alertness the whole time, making sure he was going the right general direction (I vaguely remembered the directions from the airport to the hostel).

Dream House Hostel

This is by far one of the hostels I’ve ever stayed at.  The staff were extremely helpful.  We asked them like a thousand questions and they happily answered them every time.  They treated security very seriously.  Kiev might not be safe, but I felt safe leaving my passport and cash in the locker in the room.

Security Measures

During our trip planning, we had read about the potential dangers in going to Kiev from the Canadian travel report about Ukraine.

The report tells travelers to “exercise a high degree of caution”.  It warns of dangers such as pickpockets, passport scams, armed robbery, racially motivated violence, muggings, etc.

Seeing how the hostel’s security was pretty good, we left our valuables in the room.  We each carried a decoy wallet with nothing in it except a scan of our passports and the cash we needed for the day.  No credit cards, no real ID, no cards at all.

If anybody steals a wallet, no big.  Better to lose $30 than all our money.  Nobody can scam us for our passports if we aren’t carrying it.  I didn’t even put on a hidden money belt.  The less I brought the better.  We felt pretty prepared, and luckily nothing happened.

Language

People in Kiev generally speak Ukranian or Russian.  I know neither.  I also don’t know the Cryllic writing system.  Even if I wanted to ask in English how to get somewhere, I can’t even pronounce the name of the place.  When I went to Greece, I could at least pick out the greek alphabet (side effect of studying math and physics), but in Kiev, I can’t even read anything.  Too bad.

Food

The first night we arrived in Kiev, we had no idea what kind of food was around here.  We couldn’t even read the menus anyway.  Picking a restaurant was a matter of randomly walking into a restaurant.  To our surprise, our random pick turned out to be Japanese food.  Interesting.  No pictures needed.  Vancouver has an abundance of Japanese restaurants.  Beer is worth taking a picture of though.  I can’t even read the label.

One of the hostel staff had recommended to us the Golden Dukat Coffee House.  I wish I took more pictures here, but I found someone else’s travel blog with good pictures of it!  Good coffee, good dessert.  And they have an English menu!

We were told that Borscht is one of the traditional soups in Ukraine.  When I tried it, its taste was so familiar and I had to think about where I had tried it before.  It tasted a lot like the vegetable soup that people can get at Hong Kong style cafes (羅宋湯).  I Googled it later, and apparently the Hong Kong recipe (while a little bit different) is a derivative of it.  What a coincidence.

Independence Square

By far the largest city square I have been to.  For me this was the place to see in Kiev.  The pictures here don’t do justice to how epic it was.

At the square, there would always be these people carrying pigeons around.  They kept coming up to me with me and I had no idea what they wanted.  Later I found out that apparently they’re trying to get tourists to take a picture with them holding a bird.  Not sure why that’s cool but okay.

There were also people dressed up like Mickey Mouse or Shrek trying to get little kids to take pictures with them for money.  They did this even when the temperature was above 30 degrees Celsius.

St. Andrew’s Church

Nearby our hostel, there was a nice church.  It’s architecture was quite different from anything I’d seen before.

Friendship Arch

This arch was built to commemorate the unification of Ukraine and Russia when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union.

Street Market

On the way from our hostel to Independence Square, we walked along a long stretch of road with many street vendors selling souvenirs, trinkets and other random stuff.  People there even sold gas masks, replica German WWII medals, and fake guns.

Trip Ideas for Next Time

After we came back to Vancouver, we found out that the hostel started offering tours to abandoned missile silos, helicopter rides, and Yak plane acrobatics!  If only the hostel were offering those tours.  We would have totally gone to those.  There’s always next time.

Links to photo albums:

• Kiev
• Kiev (Edward’s Photos)

Print Volume

This is the amount volume that the printer is able to print in.  Generally, the measurement is given by the three dimensions of a rectangular prism.  The thing to watch out for here is that just because a printer has a large print volume, it does not mean the printer can reliably print in all of it.  Say the design calls for a thin flat plate.  If the plate is too wide, then the edges of the plate will peel/warp during the print and the flat shape that was intended will be slightly curved.  To visualize what warping is, imagine a flat plate lying on the print bed as it is being printed.  Warping is when the corners of the plate start peeling off the base during a print.  Warping will be explained in a little more detail later on.

Resolution

This describes the accuracy of the nozzle’s positioning.  It is usually measured in microns or inches.  Clearly a smaller value means that the printer will be more accurate in its position.

Layer Thickness

Because the printer works by extruding layers of plastic, thinner layers allow for more fine details.  However, more layers means that the part will take longer to print (all other things being equal).

Print Speed

3D printing is generally a slow process, but a faster print speed could definitely help offset that.

Nozzle Diameter

A small nozzle diameter means that the extruded plastic will be narrow and thus allow for fine details.  It also improves the smoothness of the printed object.

Ease of Removing Parts off the Platform

Because during a print, the base of the part (ideally) should be firmly adhered to the print bed, one must take care when removing the part from the print bed.  In some cases, removing a part requires a little bit of force to pry the part off the print bed.  This application of force may affect the alignment of the print bed relative to the nozzle.  In lower quality printers this can permanently affect the alignment or require frequent re-calibration   Seeing how “rigid” the print bed assembly can help assess how the machine accuracy can be affect during part removal.  For example, if the print bed is mounted on really large support structure, then the affect of misalignment is less of a problem than a machine where the print bed is mounted in a smaller support.

Enclosure

Some printers enclose the part to be printed in a box and some don’t.  The reason an enclosure exists is so that the machine is able to prevent the part being printed from losing too much heat during print.  Loss of heat during a print negatively affects the adhesion of the printed plastic.  Also a larger temperature difference means the part will warp more.  Without an enclosure, heat is able to freely transfer to the ambient.  High quality printers generally have an enclosure.

Variety of Printed Materials

A common material to print with is ABS.  Other materials such as PLA can be printed as well.  The use of the particular material can be quite dependent on the application of the printed part.  The cost of material also differs.  It is worthwhile to determine what material will be printed.  In many cases, ABS should be sufficient.

Warping

This is probably one of the biggest limitations of 3D printing.  Because of the use of heat during print, it is natural for the part to shrink as it cools down.  The problem is that the shrinkage is not uniform.  Some parts of the model shrink more than others and most of the time it is very unpredictable.  While there are some general guidelines that designers can follow to reduce warping, there are definitely some machine features that are good to have to help reduce warping even further.  Because the nature of the way the printer prints is that plastic is extruded layer by layer, the plastic layer at the very bottom is the first to cool down.  Cooling down means shrinkage.  This also means that as the bottom of the model shrinks, the printer is still printing on top of a slightly shrunken part.  Sometimes the shrinkage can be so bad that the part pulls itself off the print bed.  When the part is no longer securely adhered to the print bed, the part may slide around and ruin the entire print.  Warping is the enemy of 3D printing.

Below are some qualities of a machine that help reduce shrinkage:

• Heated print bed – a heated print bed keeps the plastic hot during the print and does not let the base cool down as much as if there were no heated print bed
• Enclosure – described above

There are more ways to reduce warping that the designer can do, but that is outside the scope of this article.

Number of Nozzles

A lot of printers just have the one print nozzle, but there are some with multiple.  This allows printing with multiple colours or in some cases printing with a water soluble support material.  Generally, support material has to be manually removed from the printed part, but if the support material is water soluble, this saves a lot of the manual labor involved in cleaning up the model.

Nozzle Maintenance

Through extended use, the nozzle can become quite dirty, that is black gunk starts building up on the surface of the nozzle.  If one is not careful, this can clog the print nozzle.  It is worthwhile to find out how often the nozzle needs to be replaced.  There are also other factors that may result in the need to replace a nozzle.  This is a recurring cost of maintaining the printer.  Some nozzles are cheaper and more common than others and it is worth it to see how often the nozzle needs to be replaced and how much it will cost each time.  Machines may come with extra nozzles.

Lubrication

Over time, moving parts may have to be lubricated.  Printers should come with a maintenance manual to help instruct the user how to do this.  It is also helpful to know the cost of the lubricant and how often it will be required.

Machine Lifetime Cost

Aside from the cost of the machine, operating a 3D printer can also incur the following costs:

• Shipping
• Insurance
• Brokerage fees
• Tools for removing support material
• Currency conversion
• Sales tax
• Print material (recurring)
• Replacement nozzles (recurring)
• Lubricants for moving parts (recurring)

As it can be seen, the extra costs can be quite significant.

Conclusion

Hopefully this has given a good general overview of some of the considerations in buying a 3D printer.  Different people will value different things in the printer and hopefully this subset of possible considerations for buying a 3D printer helps people make a decision as to what to look for in a printer.

On the way to the port, we came across MIB Headquarters, aka Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.

The boat tour took us around the south end of Manhattan, so we got a good view of the skyscrapers out in the financial district.

Eventually the boat made it to Liberty Island.

We saw the Statue of Liberty in all her glory.

The boat tour cruised slowly through all the sites to make sure that people could not only take pictures, but also could appreciate the beauty that they were seeing.

The next destination was Wall Street, the world’s centre of capitalism.

The Federal Hall is located right on Wall Street.

So is the New York Stock Exchange. I remember busting through here in Modern Warfare 3 with guns blazing trying to destroy the jammer on the roof… Across the street is the JP Morgan building, which was the Gotham Stock Exchange in The Dark Knight Rises.

The Bronze Bull in Wall Street also attracts a lot of attention.

Then we walked a few blocks and go really close to the Freedom Tower (officially known as One World Trade Center). It is built on the original site of the World Trade Center site. It’s also designed to be 1776 m tall, representative of the year that America became independent. Quite a symbolic value. At the base, there is a memorial dedicated to the victims of the terrorist attack. We wanted to see it, but going in required a reservation.

That was the last destination of our NYC tour.  The next destination was Washington DC, the capital of the USA.  It would be a few hours drive, so we wouldn’t tour the city until the day after.

More photos here