Day 4: Nagoya and Kyoto

Our rest in Tokyo was pretty short lived. We left early and headed for Nagoya. Nagoya is where you find Toyota City–home of Toyota headquarters. We had signed up to take a tour of the plant. We got to Nagoya, and took a train out into the burbs. From the Toyota station we took a cab out to the Toyota exhibition hall. It’s a long way out there to Toyota City. The complex is mind-bogglingly huge. Seriously, it’s like every building in the area was related to the company somehow.

When we got into the exhibition hall we walked into a presentation that occurs prior to the beginning of every tour. We walked into this Japanese crowd oohing and aahing over this trumpet playing robot. I don’t know how it works, or really like, whether it’s actually blowing air into the darn thing or just pretending. Regardless, it looked pretty cool. The second part of the presentation involved some sort of proof of concept personal transportation device. There was this CG video played on an overhead screen that showed the vehicle on the highways. To me it just seems unrealistic. I mean, if a Mack truck and that device played a game of chicken, there would no doubt be a bunch of splatter on the road.

After the presentations, we were herded onto buses to take us over to one of the manufacturing plants. It took us 15 minutes to get there from the exhibition hall. As we were taken deep into the bowels of the company, the scenery fully reminded me of some sort of scene from a Bond movie where a fight scene takes place in a warehouse of sorts. Crazy. Out of the four main areas, we were shown welding and assembly. Now, welding sure is an interesting area. We were taken above the production lines. As the frames went along, they’d stop and then this army of robot arms would just go nuts welding things into place. It was mesmerizing. The movements they made were so precise. It seemed like the robots were quite alive and had minds of their own. I’m not usually one to dwell on such things, but that is a feat of engineering. Now, robots didn’t do all of the work. There are some manned stations too to manually weld some parts together. It was all pretty damn cool.

After welding we were sent over to assembly where we really got to see things taking shape. I mean, in welding, what we saw were just frames. They were merely shells. By the time they’re in assembly they’re really more recognizably vehicles. Does that make sense? For this area, instead of robots, most stations were manned. People were busy at their stations, doing the things they do best. On this one production line, where the Prius and Camry were being put together, we saw this one person go into each car and honk the horn just to make sure that it was working. It was fun to watch. I noticed that down the line, some cars had steering wheels on the left side while others had it on the right. It showed that the production line isn’t just for Japan, but a lot of those cars would eventually hit foreign shores. It was pretty damn cool.

So, that was Nagoya. For there we made a quick jump on over to Kyoto. Whoo, if there’s any place in the country that has a distinctly “Japanese” feel to it, this city is it. It’s a big mix of traditional and modern, all living together in some weird symbiotic existence. It’s a really interesting place to visit, and really it’s a pity that I didn’t have so much time to spend there. Anyway, my friend took me over to Kiyomizu-dera which is a temple complex. We got off the bus and started hiking up this steep road. The road was lined with food outlets and souvenir shops. If I had time I would have at least stopped frequently to see if there was anything that I wanted to take home. Alas, I was just busy rushing through. About halfway up the hill, it started to rain a little bit. I thought nothing of it and kept heading up. My friend had already seen the place twice, so he told me that he’d just be waiting along the souvenir street while I’d check the place out. I agreed. As I kept going up the hill, the rain started pouring harder and harder. Inside the temple complex, there really wasn’t much choice but to go out into the rain if I wanted to see all that needed to be seen there. I eventually got to the souvenir area and decided ot pick up a charm or two. The lady inside asked me flat out, daijōbu desu ka (are you alright)? I said I was alright, and kept on going deeper in. Yes I was soaked, but I was enjoying the rain. I mean, considering the situation I was in, this was all quite unreal. Did you know that Kiyomizu means “pure water”? Well, I sure got it that day. I hit a point though where I just got tired of being in the rain. So, instead of heading further in I just started making my way back. As I was returning, I passed by many couples and got some amused looks. Hey, look at that foreigner that’s soaked to the bone! Yeah, that was me! All I did was put on a smile and move on like nothing was wrong. I felt fine.

We took the bus over to the Gion district and walked back to the hotel from there. I got changed into something dry, after which we took the bus over to a restaurant in the northwest end. We ate at a place where my friend’s boss used to work (to learn Japanese, apparently). My friend made a call ato his boss, and the boss made a call to the restaurant asking them to treat us well. The place was really awesome. The restaurant was called Kushinhachi which really roughly translates to “8 skewers”. It specialized in skewered food. You sit at a bar around the pit area where the cooks are. Off the menu you can pick fried stuff, or grilled stuff and they’d set it all out in front of you. With most skewers costing ¥50 – ¥150, it was all cheap but filling. I loved the place! When people would walk in, the cooks would all pause and greet the people rather loudly. They’d do the same when people leave the restaurant. It was all quite charming.

Ah, Kyoto was a lot of fun. Again, I wish I had more time to take in more of the cultural bits. It’s OK though. The little memories that I carry with me are valuable enough.