A Visit to Lilliput

A couple of years ago I was pretty proud of myself when I somehow managed to assemble a small Lego model of the Eiffel Tower. That little model still occupies a prominent position in my TV room. The problem is that, after today, my little model seems pretty inconsequential.

The destination for my Hamburgian travels today was the famous Miniature World, apparently voted as the number 1 tourist attraction in the whole of Germany. When I bought my ticket some months ago, I also decided to pay extra for the so called "VR Experience", even though at the time I had no idea what it meant.

So today I woke up very early, and looked out the window to see the unfamiliar sight of grey skies and drizzling rain. This was in very big contrast to the hot and sunny weather we have had ever since I arrived here three days ago. So much for my idea of walking to the place. A taxi now seemed like the most sensible option.

After a chat with the hotel concierge, a taxi was arranged, and I was soon being driven the two or three km to the Miniature World building. Located in the harbour (hafen) precinct of the city, the attraction started 23 years ago. The aim was to build the world's biggest model railway.

Now 23 years later, they have certainly achieved that aim. With over 16 km of track at a scale of 1:87, it has developed into its own miniature fantasy land of trains, cities, harbours, stadiums, and even a huge airport. Populating this fantasy world are hundreds of thousands of tiny people. All of these have been carefully hand crafted and painted, and are posed in a myriad of different positions.

When I stepped through the door, I found myself smiling. I couldn't help it. It was a bit like being a kid all over again, such was the wonder of this place. You just had to get closer, and just watch the fascinating variety of what was actually going on.

Not only were the trains running, but there were also thousands of cars, all with their own headlights and taillights. The emergency vehicles all had the necessary blue flashing lights and the fire brigade were busy putting out a building fire, complete with jets of water. In Rio de Janeiro the Mardi Gras was in full throttle, complete with floats and hundreds of dancing girls. A day in Miniature World is 15 minutes long. When night comes, the place blazes with an untold number of lights.

If Gulliver discovered the miniature land of Lilliput in his famous travels, he would have felt quite at home here.

But of course I still had to find out about the VR Experience. I made my way through the maze of displays and finally found myself at something that looked like a portal to a parallel universe. And that is what it turned out to be.

A small group of nervous participants were ushered into a room where we were fitted with a full body vest, hand and feet bracelets and a huge headset. As soon as the headset was put on my huge head, I found myself grappling with what I was actually seeing and feeling.

The room was replaced by a whole vast space, complete with sound and motion. At first I did not want to move, but I discovered that we all had to work as a team to get through the course. When I looked down I found that my body was replaced by some weird yellow character. The rest of the team had also changed into similarly weird characters as well.

What followed next was 30 minutes of terror, wonder, confusion and fun, all rolled into one. It really is possible to find yourself believing the unbelievable. Those obstacles and dangers looked so real that I had to keep telling myself that this is a fabrication. The experience was so immersive that I soon found myself sweating profusely.

And so we faced dangers, walked tightropes and battled monsters, all against the backdrop of the displays in the building. When we finally reached the end of the challenge and were "returned back to our original size", and the helmets and other gear were removed. The weird feeling continued for some time afterwards.

The experience had been so real that I found myself starting to ask which was real - the world we had been in, or the familiar world that we live in every day? Maybe we really are living in a matrix after all?

We were finally shown what the room was really like where all our adventures had taken place. It was just an empty room, with a very small number of real objects that were pivotal to the experience. Another group of adventurers were having their experience, so we could watch and see just how ridiculous we must have looked.

After exploring some more of the displays, I emerged into the outside world and found the rain had stopped. That meant I would have to walk back to the hotel, since I had no excuse to catch a taxi.

In the attached images you can see one which shows what my group looked like in the real world, and also how we looked in the fantasy.Lue lisää