Today began “Survival Training in Japan,” led by Goto. I had a traditional Japanese breakfast, Jim had a westerner/Japanese breakfast, and David just had a westerner breakfast. Then Goto took us to Toyota head quarters where we met A LOT of people. Of course the language barrier was there, many of the people we met did not speak English, and of course we don’t speak Japanese (trying to learn!!), but it was fun. We saw several Toyota Partner Robots (the whole reason we’re here), the labs where they’re worked on, and different parts of the Toyota factory. After that we had lunch, again traditional Japanese (for all of us), then after lunch we were introduced to EVERYONE, by standing in the front of a room, while Goto told everyone our names, and positions, and that we were from Toyota in the United States, here for training. Then we went to another Toyota plant in another city where we saw the “prep” area before shows. That was cool, they even demonstrated one of the robots playing a trumpet, and kind of dancing.
After that we went to Nagoya, to the Toyota museum. Again they had the Partner Robot there, and we watched another demonstration. That was really cool!!! Goto happened to be speaking with the attendant, and mentioned he invented several of it’s systems, and that we were here for training, she was very excited that she got to meet him, and us!!! If you ever visit Nagoya, I suggest going to the Toyota Museum, you can easily spend the whole day there, and admission is only 500 Yen. We only had about 2 hours before closing, so we rushed through it. But it covers the history about Toyota in extreme detail. Did you know that Toyota was originally a textile loom manufacturer? In fact Sakichi Toyoda was the inventor of the automatic loom. And his son Kiichiro Toyoda came to America to sell the patent of the Type G automatic loom, and saw all of the automobiles. When he went home, he got permission from Sakichi Toyoda to start making automobiles (which many people thought he was crazy). Just imagine if Kiichiro Toyoda took the advice of everyone who said he was crazy, Toyota would probably just be a loom manufacturing company.
Then we went out to dinner at a sushi bar. Excellent food, and boy did we eat a lot. One of the cool things about some of the restaurants in Japan is that the food is on a conveyor belt, and you just pull what you want. Of course this could lead to high costs, but it was only 2500 Yen for 4 people. Another cool thing is that a lot of places you eat, the dished are color coded for pricing. So they can tell the price right away. After dinner we came back to the hotel, at which time I decided to write this entry! Tomorrow we learn about riding the subway, trains, and buses! That should be very interesting. I am learning a bunch about how Yen work here too. It seems the average price range is 100 to 500 Yen for most items. The problem is, in places like restaurants, it is extremely easy to spend a lot, especially in one that you just grab and eat, and pay at the end. I do have to say I love the fact that there are no cents here, everything is single from 1 to whatever Yen you need, but no .01 or whatever Yen.
Okay well that’s about it for tonight!!!! I am gonna post some pics in the Japan album now….so be sure to view them as well!!!
Later,
-Fred Jr.
