The parents and I went down to Toyota to visit one of my mother’s old friends from high school. Toyota is in Aichi prefecture near the city of Nagoya, and is the home to the Toyota car corporation and many of its factories. We took the shinkansen down to Nagoya where we meet my mom’s friend, and took another train to her house in Toyota. That evening we had dinner with her and her son’s family, where I acted as English teacher again to the kids.

In the morning, I took a walk around the area. It was much more rural than what I am used to around Tokyo. There was a beautiful river with people fishing in it and rice fields everywhere. Following the walk, we went to the Toyota factory for the factory tour. No pictures were allowed, but the factory was really interesting. I saw automated machines, computers everywhere, and conveyer belts that went in all directions. I saw cars going from the welding shop, where machines weld the parts and sparks fly everywhere, to assembly where people placed all the parts together to make a car.

After the factory, we had a lunch of ‘okonomiyaki’ and headed off to visit an old people’s home. Afterwards, we went hiking in the local hills. I of course followed the red torii up to the top of the mountain… well hill, it wasn’t very tall. The next morning ended our visit to Toyota.