Musings on Life's Little Moments...: Nagoya and Toyota city

Bob's one request for this trip to Japan was to see the Toyota factory, so we allotted some time in the city of Nagoya, which is about an hour from the plant. This was a fun leg of our trip because I don't know anyone who has spent any time in Nagoya. Often in the military we look at friend's travel photos and get inspired to copy each others' vacations. So this was an adventure totally unique to us. (For now. We may have started a new trend!)

On our first afternoon in Nagoya we walked to Nagoya castle. Originally built in 1612, this stunning seven story structure burned down in May 1945 when the U.S. firebombed the area on one of our air-raids during WWII. But it has been beautifully restored and turned into a museum.

This was definitely one of my favorite sites from our trip!

The next day we journeyed by train to Toyota-shi (literally translated Toyota City) for our tour of the factory. They are free as long as you make a reservation online in advance on the Toyota website.

We arrived with enough time to wander around in their museum and show floor. Bob was so excited that I had a hard time getting him to stand still long enough to take a picture. Worth it, though!

Obviously we were not allowed to take our cameras or phones into the factory itself so I don't have any images from the two warehouses we went into. But trust me when I say that it was impressive! The spaces were huge and full of tracks leading partially constructed vehicles from one station to the next on their journey to becoming a brand new Toyota vehicle. I thought it was interesting learning about the Toyota business philosophy and the logic behind every little step of the process. There were some parts of the process that were totally automated, with robots doing all of the welding, etc. But I was pleasantly surprised to see how many people they still employ as mechanics working on assembling the vehicles and doing all the detail work by hand. They also had a great system (which is apparently pretty unusual) where if a worker needs help or something is going wrong, they just have to ring a bell and their superior will be right there, helping them get things going again. It was very quick, orderly and polite - totally the Japanese way. =^)

One of the most interesting things for me was watching the other people on the tour with us. This was one of the many times I felt SERIOUSLY under dressed. There we were in our jeans and tee shirts, and the rest of the people were in business suits. I think most of them were market researchers and things like that from all over the world. The tour guide seemed to get a kick out of the fact that we were there just because we love Toyota cars. =^)

We met this awesome German business professor named Andre on the tour and hung out with him for a good part of the day. It turns out he works for a university that is trying to expand its exchange program to parts of Asia and Australia so he's been traveling quite a bit, trying to make some contacts with schools in Japan. He spoke very good English and had a nice sense of humor. It was interesting talking to someone from Europe about things going on in Japan - particularly about the earthquake and tsunami and how Fukushima impacted nuclear policy in Germany. He and Nancy exchanged business cards so maybe we'll hear from him again next time he's traveling in the States.

After the plant tour, we went to the Toyota Automobile Museum and spent the afternoon oogling over some beautifully restored old cars, as well as some shiny new ones. James was particularly excited that they had his favorite car of all time - the Mercedes Gullwing - there on display. I'm really not a car person, but even I had fun on our Toyota-filled day in Nagoya.