Pho Ga

Today we had a very futuristic day in Berlin!

We started the morning by visiting the Futurium Museum. This free museum offers a plethora of interactive exhibits about “the future”. 

Outside the Futurium

You start by getting a wristband which allows you to store interesting information and participate in various exhibits. At the end, you get a code which allows you to access the information you stored online. You can read about some of the exhibits that I stored here.  

We leaned about personalized medicine and the future of genetic treatment, we saw futuristic prosthesis like the third thumb and the pangolin, and we got our brainwaves measures. 

Inside the exhibits

Novel prosthesis 

The headband measured our “thoughts” using electroencephalography and  

displayed different emotions as different colours. 

There were also many interesting robots, like the robotic arm that wrote out questions for you to answer. When Liam replied that the robot could not do his job, the robotic arm got quite sad. 

I also met Paro, the therapeutic seal robot. Paro reacts to voice and touch and is actually used worldwide to stimulate patients with cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer's and Dementia. He was so cute, I wanted to take him home. 

Hugging Paro, the therapeutic seal robot

Apart from robots and medicine, we also learned about the future of sustainable electronic production, how to reduce your energy consumption, and what the important aspects of democracy are. 

There was also something in this museum that I got to check off my bucket list: listening to plants. In the basement, several plants are connected to electrodes which then convey the ultrasonic sounds they make through a hub and into headphones. It sounded like a constant, electronic tone with occasional variation… so cool!

Attending the plant concert

We also learned about the future of food production, agriculture, transportation, and city planning. There was so much information in this museum it was impossible to read everything! We would have stayed longer, but after 2.5 hours we were starving and ready for lunch. 

Sculpture marching industry and nature

Today was chilly, so I was craving something warm and comforting… like Pho! We had some lovely Vietnamese food at the Food Factory Market. My delicious chicken broth-based Pho kept me full all afternoon. 

Pho and spring rolls

Our next stop for the day was the East Side Gallery. This is a portion of the Berlin Wall which was painted by art students after the dismantling of the wall in 1989. The art conveys the sentiments of hope, peace, and freedom felt at the time. 

This portion of the wall is quite beautiful to walk by, unfortunately the neighbourhood it’s in is not as pleasant, so we didn’t spend much time here. 

After transiting back to the old town centre, we saw a few other notable landmarks. Firstly, the Berlin TV Tower. At 368m, this is Germany’s tallest structure and was originally built in East Germany to showcase the socialist power. 

The Berlin TV Tower

We visited Museum Island to admire the old buildings there and lastly walked through some more lovely squares. 

Altes Museum

Berlin Cathedral

Gendarmenmarkt

To re-energize, we got some great hot cocoa!

Enjoying some hot cocoa

And on our way home, we came across a super interesting exhibit put on by Volkswagen called “Iconic”. Here, they displayed various artifacts, videos, songs, and people who are icons from their respective decades. 

The perfect car!

We had lots of fun looking at cool cars, listening to hits from various years, and looking at various iconic objects. 

Iconic plastic chairs

Top 5 songs of the 2010s

Super cool yellow car