Thursday: Tokyo has a Ferris Wheel?

Well I never knew... but, out by the famous Tokyo Dome is this amusement park!

Thursday: Early Spring in Tokyo

On the walk over, a few vivid flowers.

Thursday: Welcome to Tokyo University!

The famous Red Gate to the University, where our conference is today.

Wednesday: Toyota, Nissan, and.... Pinky!

Well I did tell you posts would become more boring on plant tour day. And that turned out to be very true: we were barred from taking photos at any one of the three plants, and the few photos I did sneak are stuck on my Japanese cell phone with no way to load them onto this laptop! Dang it. But anyway...

The day started cool and rainy and ended clear and cold (40 degrees?) with wind. We all (two dozen people?) piled into a bus for a trip first to a small Toyota plant (one that specializes in short runs of various models), which was cool. Then another 1.5 hours to visit a supplier plant, that made EDM equipment (you can look it up if bored): they did have cool toys like pure tungsten ingots. For the chemist among you (you know who you are, Ian!), they had on hand vats of these two cool Mad Scientist chemicals: strontium hydroxide octohydrate and (trade name) Dowex MD "mixed ion exchange resin." Hope nothing blows up! Then Bento on the Bus and another 1.5 hours to Yokohama, and Nissan's main engine plant. Many cool machine tools but for the exotic car fans among you (you know who you are, etc.), we saw the shop where every Nissan GTR engine is hand-built by elite craftsmen. Bizarre clean room, electric wrenches (versus typical air-powered tools, which "might let in dust"), Nissan's most qualified workers, etc. Each guy builds an entire engine himself, 375 steps. Then they run 'em for an hour to break them in... you could see the exhaust headers glowing red. Nice.

Then another hour and home to hotel. Whew.

Now, why, would you ask, is there a photo of a strange Japanese candy on this page? Well, fans of Pinky (you know who you are, Natalie!) know that I was in search of same here. I looked in 7-11s, in Lawson's, in Sunkus, in Family Mart, in AM/PM, in subway stations, repeatedly, and.... no Pinky! But tonight, on my evening stroll, I passed a dumpy grocery store and said to myself "Might as well check;" and there, lo and behold, was... PINKY! Three flavors!

Mission accomplished, I can go to sleep now. Tomorrow is Conference Day 1, at Tokyo University. THIS time I will bring my camera!

Love to all... Dad

Wednesday: Dad Shows Off

Just finished visiting Central Motor Works (I am sure you all know ALL about that factory!) and am on the bus with some 20 people off to next plant (2nd of 3). Exciting stuff for a factory rat like me (technical term). Actually very inspiring to see Toyota at work.

But this post is about showing off, so here goes. Sitting on bus, with laptop, with Japanese miracle-portable-wifi box, I am online while moving. To prove it, a photo of my bento box lunch provided on bus. Which I already ate. I would give a small fortune to find the same kind of food in the USA: not a close approximation, but the real thing! Yum!

Tuesday part 8 - Conclusion

It would not be a trip to Japan without showing an advertisement of slightly dubious intent. If any of you can figure this one out, let me know! Okay, that's it for now, off to bed for me before a long day tomorrow, which includes a trip to a Nissan plant in Yokohama (as well as two other factories).

Tuesday part 7 - Shopping

While I haven't found any Pinky yet (I will keep looking!), I have visited some shopping areas in search of a few things. Here for example is the latest T-shirt assortment from Graniph... a different look for them. And also a store which to me looks like it was MADE for Ian, though I wonder if the Japanese are aware of the slightly doofy connotation of "duffer"!