Diving Into the World of Shit

The Miraikan, or the Museum of Emerging Sciences as it's called in English, is considered to be one of the best museums in Japan, showcasing the brilliance of Japanese innovation and technology. It's where you would go to meet Asimo or Geminoid F, for instance. On top of its excellent permanent exhibition, the Miraikan also has special exhibitions - none of which seemed particularly fascinating enough to merit its own visit - especially alone, since very few of my friends here care for science. I reconsidered my stance for the current one, though.
 Between the months of August until the first week of October, the Miraikan cordially invited visitors to explore the world of shit and toilets, in a highly interactive exhibition suitable for people of all ages. I know, right? How could I miss this. I don't think they could pull this off as successfully anywhere else in the world. Of course I went.

As easy as it would be for me to make up what follows, note that everything below is true.

 It all starts off pretty rationally, see. A talking turd is wondering why he won't get flushed down the toilet. A face appears upon its lid, and it yells angrily that it's sick of humans that look down upon toilet-kind for no reason, and refuses to ever flush again. "We think of people as being our friends," the toilet said, "but we've never been thanked!" The turd turns to the audience and implores us all to at least try to understand the toilet's point of view, and that everything would be so much better if humanity knew about the importance of toilets. I was immediately hooked. 10/10 for the intro.

You never get to do this elsewhere!

Well logically, the first step in understanding toilets is understanding our own shit. So the museum brings you into a hall of learning about the consistency and smell and shape of our feces. Here, I was told of the benefits of examining one's own feces as a means of self-diagnosis. Entrants were also invited to compare samples of shit (not real ones, but models,) which children were thrilled to do.
In another corner of the room, three different aromas were stored into metallic cylinders. One with a pleasant smell, one with the smell of shit, one with 90% pleasant smell and 10% smell of shit. The point was, that it's very hard to overpower the smell of shit. I didn't actually try smelling from the cylinders. "Gross!" people would say after smelling the 'smell of shit' sample. No, really? Could it possibly smell like...shit?

Of course, there was all kinds of scientific facts and such on nearby panels, and believe it or not, I actually took the time to read those too. But let's move on, because that's not as much fun.
The next room was also very interactive, and visitors were welcome to try to sculpt their last bowel movement out of play dough given to them by the kind staff. Why not, I thought, as I took the play dough from the nice lady and molded it upon the surface of the small porcelain toilet on the counter in front of me.
 I came up with this.

Diagnose this!

I censored it for the kids.

It made the lady smile, so that's a win in my book. I don't actually remember what my last shit looked like.
 I proceeded through the next door, and made it to the hall of wonderful toilets! Here, many different bathrooms were showcased, showing how different people could possibly be pleased by a little innovation when it came to bathrooms. There was one where the walls were all one-way windows. No one can see you inside, but you can see the people outside, kind of thing. In application, though, that'd be horribly awkward, taking a dump while seeing the person waiting to use the toilet next, just standing there, holding it in. There was an open room one (for daycare centers that want to be able to keep an eye on the kids while giving them their space) as well as one that turned peeing into a video game (but I've seen that type of thing before) and ultimately, the toilet of dreams unfulfilled!
 The latter one allowed visitors to write ideas for a new type of toilet on a post-it note and paste it on the wall.These included ones that would make everything smell awesome and that kind of thing. There was one odd drawing of a guy sticking his head of the toilet bowl.
Such potential! I came up with a fun one.

Soon after that, the moment had come. I had learned about poop. I had learned about toilets. But that brought me no closer to understanding the struggle of the talking toilet from the beginning. It was time to become one with the shit.

The sign literally read "Imagine yourself to be feces and see what lies beyond."

There was no turning back. I became one of the numerous shit heads in line to get flushed down the mega-toilet, and within moments, my turn had arrived. I slid down into the porcelain funnel, and found myself in a hallway made to look like sewers.
 "Hey, do you have a moment? Sir?" a voice stopped me, as I made my way to the end of the corridor amongst all the other shit heads. "Could you please take a picture of us?" A Japanese lady handed me her camera, and I took a picture of her and her nice family, with everyone wearing poop on their noggins. There was a giant screen displaying a beautiful sea in the background. I relished the moment, because I knew this would never, ever happen again.

Next step is Broadway.

As I shuffled my way to the exit amongst the crowd (relinquishing my poop hat on the way out) I found myself in a room with many, many toilet bowls. A dozen children were sitting in front of them. "Now do you understand all that we do for you?" said one of the toilet bowls - it was the one from the beginning! "From the bottom of your heart, say thank you!" There was an awkward silence. "Thanks...?" said a few of the kids sitting before the toilets.
 All of a sudden, faces appeared on every toilet bowl! And they joined their voices together and sang in a choir! They sang of the importance of toilets and shitting, and the future humanity would build together with their help!
 "I forgive humans now!" announced the main toilet guy.
I was relieved, and the exhibition made my realize it was about time I relieved myself in a different way, too. So I found the washroom on my way out and did that. Thank you, toilet.