Getting Naked with Strangers

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I had everyone up early again because of our set time for the Toyota Factory Tour. Unfortunately, the night before I couldn't get Luke to give me his WiFi password before he crashed for bed, so I didn't have the directions to get there. I made Fred in charge, so he downloaded some directions. Just before we were about to leave Luke popped out of his room surprising us because he was supposed to be at work already! Apparently the vacation to Hong Kong he just returned from plus hosting us was a bit too much, so he took a personal day. Heading out we grabbed food from the Lawson's Convenient Store on the way to take a subway to Toyota City (boys and their food). In Toyota City, we had to switch to another train. We must have looked lost because almost immediately a girl stopped to help us out. She pointed us in the right direction but we still just missed the train by seconds! The unlucky thing was the next one came in 25 minutes. That meant we missed the walk through of the museum by the factory - we had a quick 15 minute tour when we did make it. That wasn't a big deal though, because we still were able to get on the Factory Tour.
It was amazing to see the Toyota Production System (TPS) in real life! Fred and I were having a blast comparing what we had learned in classes versus what you truly see. They let us tour the welding shop. It was magical to watch the synchronization of all the robots doing the different welding stations in the line. The robots even bowed after each job and touched a home base that helped with keeping time and letting the line know when it could move the car on to the next step. Next they took us to the assembly line! My favorite parts were the sign board that played music when a problem arose so the assembler could get help immediately so the line could continue and the stocked shelves were rollers so the boxes of new material were easy to slide in the back. It was fascinating to see the flow of the factory and I could have spent much longer just watching. There was one part during the tour that you could try out some of the games that they use for training purposes for employees. It includes following instructions, some hand eye coordination, and beating a timer. I was bold and stepped up to the first one which was maneuvering a rope around some pegs in a specific order and direction. I almost beat the time from t he guy on the video challenging us! (I got 5 seconds instead of 4sec) At the end of the tour they even gave us a pen souvenir. We were dropped back off at the museum which gave us a few more minutes to see the place - like checking out the new fuel cell system where Toyota is making a car called Mirai which uses the chemical reaction of hydrogen and oxygen to propel the car. The only output is energy to run the car and water. Should be interesting to see if this catches on as well as the Prius did.
A couple trains later we made it back to Nagoya where we got lucky and were able to catch a super express bullet train to Kyoto (AKA no stops on the way) so it would only take us half an hour to get there. The trains here are absolutely amazing, especially the bullet ones that practically fly to the next destination. Fred was commenting on how we could see the tiny little mountains in the distance one second and the next we were driving right through them. The trip was so short it meant we had just enough time to eat some lunch and figure out what we were going to do first in Kyoto.
At the Kyoto Station we made up our directions to get to our Ryokan (a traditional Japanese hotel) in Arashiyama since I didn't get to download the direction (darn it Luke!). We managed just fine though. The Ryokan was quite the experience. After we arrived they moved us to a waiting area where we could sit while they took care of checking us in like scanning our passports and figuring out which room. Then they escorted us to the room we would be staying in on the third floor. I didn't really give the guys an idea of what to expect so their reaction was priceless. They were super impressed with the fancy room with little table for meals and small sitting area. We had a cute little garden outside our sliding door, too. We dropped off our stuff and headed out to explore before our Ryokan served us dinner at 7:30pm.
The first thing we hit was the Tenryu-ji Temple, but we arrived to late to go in so we put that on hold. Instead we walked a bit further and found the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove. It was a forest of giant bamboo. Fred had to basically drag Tyler and I away we were having so much fun taking pictures. From there we just explored the area. Since Kyoto is the original capital, the area is beautiful and since the capital moved to Tokyo much of the old architecture and buildings still survive. We found a cute little shrine and pond. We almost accidentally walked right into a tea house! Of course there were still vending machines of drinks all over the place (even the neighborhood areas we walked through), so Fred grabbed one more drink to add to his collage of drinks. This one turned out to be absolutely amazing! It was flavored like melon soda (pretty popular here) and ice cream (they love floats!) - somehow it actually tasted like that too. It as about time to head back so we began wandering down the main drag back to the Ryokan. On the way, some colors caught Fred's eye and we found this really fun train station with a Kimono light setup. That, of course, turned into more pictures. This country is one surprise after another.
We had some fun opening different cabinets at the Ryokan and found some yakutas (casual kimono outfits used for lounging). After some google video searching we managed to figure out how to put them on semi-correctly. That way we were properly attired for our traditional mulit-course Japanese dinner served to us in our room while we sat on cushions around our low little table. The food was to die for! We had course after course of amazing dishes even though we couldn't tell you what was in them. Our server was very kind and helped us out a couple times when we weren't sure how to proceed with eating some of the items. Sometimes they would serve dishes that you were meant to eat together or make your own mixture per your own tastes. One interesting course included a soup in a piece of was paper over a hot flame. We had to eventually blow out the flame to stop it from burning the paper. Not only did things taste great, but the arrangement of food was very appealing. We couldn't help but take pictures of it all! They closed down the dinner with some coffee and tea for us.
After dinner we did some research on Onsen (public baths) etiquette. These were the steps we were supposed to follow. (1) Strip down in the changing room to nothing (2) Enter the bath area and sit down at one of the stations near the wall to rinse yourself off (3) Take a dip in the bath (4) Return to the station to clean off, shampoo, etc. (5) Relax in the bath until ready to leave. The boys were lucky and had a partner in crime to try this with. Since it was just me, I headed into the ladies bath and followed along with the girls who were already in there were doing. It was interesting, but a little awkward. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I had a girl friend to chat with there or was with a bunch of people who were alone too. Instead I felt out of place and was melting in the super hot bath water, so headed out shortly after going in. It felt fantastic, though. They guys had a very different experience. As we had gotten on the elevator down to the main floor to go to the onsen, a man and his three little boys got on with us. They were going to the onsen as well. So it was Fred & Tyler along with that family. The man spent a lot of time in the sauna so the boys were running around like crazy and having fun messing with Fred & Tyler. In fact, some of them were spraying Fred with the rinse off hoses (you can see where this is going). So of course, Fred had to retaliate with two more hoses himself.
Back in the room, the staff had moved our little table and layed out 3 futons (flat mats on the floor) covered with heavy comfortors for each of us to sleep. It was basically one big slumber party! I had warned the guys I wanted to get started early, and since they were so excigted about what we had seen so far they were on the same page. While they went straight to bed, I attempted to do some blogging but this gigantic bug came flying over attracted to the light. After flicking him away, I gave up not wanting to attract any more of them and went to bed.

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