The Impossible factory building in Enschede.

We arrived at 13:00 at a very regular-looking factory building and waited in the cantina for a bit, then Andre (the managing director) came and gave a short introduction about the short company history. Then we got split into 4 small groups and walked through the whole factory, getting explanations on how the machines work and how they managed to get everything up and running again. Almost all of the machines are old Polaroid machines that got saved from the dumpster, so it's even more amazing they managed to reassemble everything and produce this amazing new film. The film works completely different than the original Polaroid film as the chemicals weren't available anymore and Polaroid still owns the patents. Impossible is quite literally re-inventing instant photography.
The first machine we saw was a machine that produced 8x10 film, they recently assembled it and got it up and running. Instead of peel-apart film this is integral film in a special cartridge. Since Polaroid discontinued the film, there was no way to get any new film. Our guide said they will soon begin selling the new film, so far they only sold it to specific clients, also the FBI.

Our guide talking about how they are making new Impossible 8x10 film. Unlike the old peel-apart film, the new type is integral.

This machine assembles the 8x10 integral film.

This machine produces the negatives for the 8x10 film.

A Polaroid camera for 8x10 inch film.

This machine spreads the developer paste on the 8x10 integral film.

The next stop was a giant camera producing the biggest photos I've ever seen. There are only 2 cameras like this in the world, it's basically a giant SX-70, even with big rolls to automatically eject the film and spread the paste. The new film is integral as well.

The biggest Polaroid photo ever, the amount of detail is incredible!

The most giant polaroid camera ever.

Next stop was the reactor chamber, where the developer paste gets made.

The reactor room where the developer paste gets mixed.

Then we went to the assembly line for the small film cartridges, almost everything happened there. Most machines were stopped. Some had to operate in darkness, so it was very interesting to see those from the inside. People who operate these machines have to work in complete darkness, any light would destroy a whole batch of film.

The Impossible project emerged out of a few truckloads of junk that they bought from Polaroid. Most of the machines were reassembled out of this.

The assembly line. In the non-lit part are spare machines.

Developer pockets are made in this machine.

I don't know exactly what this machine does, it seems it feeds the materials into the machine that assembles the film.

The film gets assembled here, usually this part happens in the dark.

Boxes full of film.

After that we went to the laboratory where developer paste gets developed and tested. They're currently working on a new formula which will be used in the next released film.

Impossible employees talking about new film.

The laboratory where the developer paste gets developed.

Test photos of early Impossible film where the uneven spreading of the developer paste was an issue.

The test photo setup.

The warehouse was the last stop, they had a special cooling room for storing the film before it gets shipped. Next to it was an office where they refurbished and repaired old cameras. You can get your SX-70 fixed there, they have the parts and knowledge!

Cameras get repaired/refurbished there. They have lots of SX-70s.

SX-70 spare parts.

André was nice enough to sign a photo I made of him using PX680 First Flush film. (hence the funky colors)

Back at the cantina we talked to the employees and other people, of course it was nice having so many people interested in instant photography in one place. We had an interesting chat and then went to meet André in his office. He is an awesome guy and took his time to talk with everyone who came there. I showed him my little cartoon art badges I made using Impossible PX70 film and he really liked them! We talked about the future plans and just how great the whole project in general is and I got a nice signed photo on first flush film. Before leaving, we stocked up some discounted film at the factory outlet store and went back home.

To anyone interested, doing that tour is definitely worth it if you're interested. Unlike other companies, they went out of their way to show us everything and there was no place where we weren't allowed to take photos. (I doubt they have to fear much competition in this sector though)

Small shops in Akihabara.

They're selling individual components.

This one was like a museum, except that everything was for sale.

Of course, LEDs.

After exploring the parts shops, we went to this huge thing, Yodobashi Camera. It's bigger than most malls in Europe, 7 floors full of electronics and Camera equipment. We looked around there and were happy to still find a huge section dedicated to analog photography. Also instant photography still seems to be used widely in Japan. We also saw a 3D camera which took 3D photos and could display them on a 3D screen. It wasn't even available in Europe yet and not expensive, so not-buying it wasn't an option. Expect some nice 3D photos soon!

Yodobashi Camera, too big to fit on a photo.

The analog photography section in Yodobashi Camera.

A Fujitsu Instax.

After spending all that money we decided to have a coffee and went into the next coffeeshop we found, which was an authentic Viennese coffeehouse in the middle of Akihabara. Unlike many other things which only pretend they're authentic, this was pretty authentic (albeit pricy) experience.

A viennese coffeshop in the middle of Tokyo.

Akihabara station was busy, luckily we were taller than most people.

We split up since Thomas' mom wanted to go shopping and with the hour we had, we decided to try to find the relocated Pokémon Center. It wasn't too hard to find, and we spend around 30 minutes looking at really well-made merchandise while listening to the very catchy Pokémon Center tune. We bought some cute stuff and went back to the hotel to meet up with Thomas' parents, Kio and Takako.

The Tokyo Pokémon center.

Our last dinner in Japan..

...with a great view over the Tokyo central station.

Being hungry, we ended up in a restaurant 7 stories above the main train station with a wonderful view above Tokyo. We went back to the hotel afterwards with a short stop at a convenience store, said good-bye and spent the rest of the night packing cramming all the things in our suitscases.

Art store in Shinjuku.

A general photography store still selling all kinds of analog film.

After that we walked around in the extremely crowded streets of Shinjuku, went to a photography store and to a bookstore, where Maki got a great book about Japanese mammals for Henrieke. Since it was so crowded, we went back to the hotel and had some takeaway dinner on the room, afterwards we sat at Starbucks for about 2 hours, making drawings for each other!

Maki and Henrieke drawing.

Maki drawing.

A drawing for Maki by Henrieke.

A drawing Thomas did of Makis character Riku.

Tokyo central station at night.

Then it was time to say good-bye another time to Maki, we hope to meet her again soon!

Busy streets in Nara.

A pagoda

Wide-angle deer.

Henrieke, feeding a deer.

Deer.

After feeding deer and looking at temples, we had lunch at a very traditional Japanese restaurant, we even sat on the floor. The food was absolutely delicious!

Tasty japanese food. For some reason, they like to wrap it in leaves.

Our japanese friends.

After that we went to see more Temples, while everyone else was looking at a giant Buddha, we photographed deer and sat down at a buddhist statue and tried out life drawing.

Instant photography still is common in Japan.

Old-timey looking photos shot using Impossible PX680 first flush film.

The deer weren't shy at all.

Since it started raining, we went back to meet everyone and slowly went back to the train station. For the ride back we chose a faster train luckily which gave us more time to pack our things for the trip back to Tokyo tomorrow.

The mall looked very american, but that's because the whole concept of a mall is imported from America.

Disney store in Itami

The selection of products was obviously a bit different,

Nobody in the whole mall wasn't asian and we didnt encounter anyone speaking english. Everyone was very friendly though, talking japanese to us while we nodded and wondered whether they realize we don't understand a word. We also went to Toys'R'us and enjoyed looking at all the things. Contrary to popular belief, not everything was in the manga style that got popular in western countries. Also there was an awesome gaming arcade, sadly it was hard to play anything because we couldn't read any instructions.

Virtual horseracing, never saw anything like this.

Kaiko! We love hat game, but couldn't play it sadly.

Toilets offer sprays for different body parts, heated seats and fake flushing sounds for whatever reason. This was one of the more low-tech toilets.

We got some more food and then went back to the house, where Yuko and Rumi cooked a delicious dinner for us!

Mount Fuji

At the Kyoto train station we met up with Katsu and Rumi, friends of Thomas' parents from back in the 70s. After havin lunch at a hipster cafe, we went to an old Samurai castle, which was very interesting. The inside was very interesting and full with art from the 17th century, but it was strictly forbidden to take photos and even to sketch things.

Samurai castle in Kyoto

Afterwards we went to a temple, but we both spent most of the time in the shopping street that led to it. We found a small store that sold Studio Ghibli merchandise and bought a really nice print of Totoro on cloth to hang up in our apartment.

Studio Ghibli store

Girls in traditional japanese clothes

Buddhist temple in Kyoto

Kyoto

After the temple Katsu invited us to a chinese restaurant for dinner, we had a separate room and a course menu, getting to try lots of different chinese food. Afterwards we went to their house where we slept on a fouton on the floor, Japanese style!

A long waiting line at the Ueno Zoo

The Zoo contains Japans first Monorail

The Zoo is surrounded by the skyline of Tokyo

We went to the Zoo to meet up with Maki, a cartoon artist we know. After a very long line we managed to get in and met Maki and 2 other Artists, Tetsu with his son and Takeru. They were all true artists as they were basically sketching at all times, maing us feel bad with their dedication. The Zoo is the oldest one in Japan and had a lot to offer, such as Kangaroos, Civet cats and the oldest monorail in Japan. Especially exciting was the Aye-Aye house where we were able to see 5 Aye-Ayes!

Aye-Aye!

Lemurs with the Tokyo Skytree in the background

Tetsu, sketching with different media

We met up with even more artists after the Zoo visit and went to an Italian restaurant to have cake and sketch a bit together. The prices hurt our wallets a bit, but it was very much worth it for this a really nice artjam, probably the first where every single person was drawing! We didn't talk to everyone sadly as language barriers made that difficult, but everyone still had a great time. We drew something for Maki and found out that Tetsu is actually art director for marketing at Disney Tokyo! He also drew us awesome sketches of our characters.

Artjam with great japanese artists!

Maki, drawing adorable art

Drawings we made and drawings we got

Afterwards we were really tired again, and as we had to get up at 6 the next day we decided to go home. We went past Akihabara on the way and saw some nice japanese culture there. Also we got some bread and sushi at a small supermarket and pretty much passed out in bed back at the hotel.

Sega city offered 6 floors with all kinds of arcade games

We found the table-flipping arcade game. (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

The most expensive piece of Gouda cheese in the world. The price equals about 5,40€, for which you would get one kilo of cheese in the Netherlands.

The volcano and the artificial lake in Disney Sea.

The volcano spits fire every now and then.

We went quickly to the "Journey to the center of the earth" ride which is inside the big Volcano to get some fastpasses. Most of the waiting lines exceeded 2 hours, we found one ride that had a waiting line of only 10 minutes though, it was called Sindbad and featured very nicely made animatronics. After watching a musical acrobatic show both of us went around by ourselves as it was really hard to stay together in a group of 4.

The waiting time indicator for the Indiana Jones ride.

The park was beautifully themed!

The Nautilus ride.

A show at that was New York themed featuring Japanese people dressed up as Taxis.

One thing we noticed was Duffy. Japanese are literally obsessed with that character, most of the merchandise sold in the park was about Duffy, they had special shows with him and the whole park was themed for "Duffys Spring Voyage" that day.
After walking around more and having some steamed bread for lunch we went in the Volcano ride, which was nice but not the best ride we ever experienced. It uses the same system as test track in epcot and has nice animatronics and theming, you basically go deeper and deeper into the center of the earth and encounter strange creatures and sparkly lights. Then at one point the wagon accellerates and there is a drop, then the ride ends, it's pretty short.

They also had a big ship, we don't know what attraction it contains though.

A venetian boat that was actually running on tracks below the water.

The buildings looked very authentic.

After that we spontaneously decided to also go to Disneyland because there wouldn't be another chance to go there anymore. We were already pretty tired, but we couldn't let this chance for bragging rights slip away. Since it was after 3, we got the starlight passport, so we only paid 60$ for the ticket, also there was no waiting line at the entrance anymore. Everything felt very familiar immediatly as all the Disneyland parks resemble each other in a rough way.

This was where Main Street U.S.A. is located in other parks. There was a roof there, but still it looked very similar to the other Disney parks.

Obligatory Disneyland Churro photo.

Waiting times ranged from 120-280 minutes, so we didn't expect to do more than one ride. Most of the time we walked around and enjoyed the nice park. Eventually Thomas pushed to watch his favourite ride ever, Captain EO. So now we saw Captain EO in three different Disney parks.

Captain EO. Best ride ever!

Henrieke really wanted to ride Splash Mountain and since the lines didn't seem to get any shorter we decided to just endure the 1.5-hour waiting time. While we stood in line (and were typing the blogpost for our first day of the trip), we both wondered if we were just being dizzy, but then figured the whole building was moving since the lamps were shaking too. We didn't realize until much later that is was actually an earthquake! Splash Mountain was worth the wait, Henrieke will refrain from pointing out all the differences with the Splash Mountains in the other parks now.

Splash Mountain!

Brer Rabbit.

Awesome animatronics!

It was already late and our feet were very, very tired, so we headed for home catching a glimpse of the Electrical parade. Since we were starving, we went to McDonalds in our desperation. While not exactly typically japanese, it was very effective. We still had work to do back at the hotel, so it was a very long day!

The castle at in Disneyland Tokyo at night.

Japanese people are probably used to this.

Cartoon plane drawn by Henrieke and me.

At 9 am local time we arrived at Tokyo Narita airport, got ourselves some prepaid SIM-cards and took the train to Tokyo. In the hotel we pretty much dropped dead on the bed and after about 2 hours we met up more or less rejuvenated with Kio and Takako, friends of Thomas’ family.

The huge Tokyo Sky Tree, seen from the train. The tower is 634.0 m (2,080 ft) high.

Japanese Dinner with Thomas' Mom, Dad, Takako and Kio

We had very typical japanese food for.. lunch I guess. It made us realize on how much sushi we get in Austria is made to appeal to western people, Thomas was reluctant to try the raw shrimp one... Henrieke didn’t touch it. Some of it is very tasty though, once you know what to choose. Afterwards we took the taxi to Tokyo tower, a 332.5 m (1,091 ft) high structure that is loosely based on the Eiffel tower.

Tokyo tower, photographed from the base. While being higher than the Eiffel tower, the base is much smaller.

Tokyo Skyline at night, seen from Tokyo Tower.

Bonus picture.

Spaceferrets, one of them drawn by Andi Paar. Also Kiki.

Commissioned sketch, I like how this came out. I need to practice dymanic poses more!

Here are a few photos I shot last night. While I was hoping to have some time to get some long-exposure shots of fireworks it turned out that this year the police actually enforced the prohibition of fireworks on the city area, resulting in a rather visually unimpressive New Years eve. It was mostly just huge crowds people and annoying firecrackers, so I didn't quite get the nice shots I hoped for. In any case, I had a nice time at a party before and after trying to get photos, so I can't complain!

The State Opera in Vienna during New Year's eve

Fireworks near Heldenplatz.

One of many ambulances that I saw that night colors the fog blue.