CDs, Toyotas, and Movies

Due to the combination of me recording this with a digital camera and youtube being annoying, the sound in this video is waaay off. Just do your best to ignore it.


Okay, so for weeks 3-6, I had a classmate, David Ubari, who was working for Toyota in Venezuela, and spending a year in Japan for home research purposes. They sent him to Yamasa for a month to try and spice up his Japanese a bit. Anyways, he came, he saw, he did alright. When it was time to go, he promised his classmates he would set up a tour of the factory he worked at. This was extra-special, because he works at a factory that doesn't just produce Lexuses, it produces US Lexuses and happens to be the biggest Toyota factory in all of Nihon, and for that reason is very picky about giving tours.

Fast-forward to late November: David is on vacation, but another David from Toyota, this one South African, has taken his place at Yamasa and finished the details for us, allowing us to take the tour. So, armed with directions to the factory, in a small area called Tohara, I and 11 others set off to meet Dave on Friday, December 1st, which happens to be a holiday for us. Christian was given the instructions, so we followed his lead from Okazaki to Toyohashi, where we were supposed to switch trains to Tohara. Well, no one working in the station seemed to know where this Tohara was, and it was not on any of the train maps. So after lots of wandering and many phone calls, Christian gave up in the face of everyone else teasing him, and Albert, my 23 year old Korean American classmate, took over, swiftly discovering a different, special train station nearby that would get us to Tohara.

So in the end, it all worked out, although we were 10 or so minutes l late. Actually it's worth noting that the final leg of the journey had to be completed via taxi, so Friday marked the 3rd and 4th times that I rode a car in Japan. Seriously, I do not miss it, and I will be driving far less when I am back in the US.

Anyways, the tour itself was entirely in Japanese, but it was polite Japanese, which I understand much better than plain Japanese, so that was OK. Not that I needed someone speaking, because just watching the factory work speaks for itself. It is so incredibly awesome, it almost defies description. I've heard about how diligent Toyota is about putting their cars together well, and seeing it firsthand really gets the message across. I really can't see my first car not being a Prius or some other fuel-efficient Toyota-built machine at this point. Due to protection of trade secrets, I was not allowed to bring a camera, and I'm not sure if writing about this is all right, but hey, I'm just hapless gaijin, right?

Everything is first put together by machinery, supervised by workers moving along with the assembly line. Then, more workers come throught and check the parts. Multiple workers for each part, and often later down the line another worker might take a quick look at the same part just in case. It is an absolute wonder to watch the machines put each part together in perfect harmony with the assembly process. There is a red line dangling above the workers that emergency stops the assembly line, but apparently it rarely gets pressed. We watched this process of construction for about a half hour or so.

What really impressed me, though, was the end of the construction line. You literally watch them put on the finishing touches at one end, test the windows, radio, etc, in the middle, put a small amount of fuel in, and then at the other end someone hops in, turns the car on, and drives it away. It probably takes no more than 20 minutes for a car to start from absolutely nothing to being constructed and fully functional. Using this process, they literally produce thousands of cars a day. It's insane.

After leaving the factory, they drove us across the enormous company grounds, to a dock at a bay leading to the ocean, where there were 2 GIGANTIC monsters of ships being continuously loaded with Lexuses bound for New York, a voyage that takes 3 weeks, which is almost as long as this sentence has become. Being there by the sea made me miss Canada in a huge way, but no matter where I am, there's nothing I can do about it while Ontario is a frozen wasteland.

On the whole, though, it was an awesome once-in-a-lifetime experience that was actually way more fun and special than words on a blog could possibly convey. With nothing planned for my next 2 weekends before I return home, it may be the last such experience I have before leaving the country, and I'm not complaining.

So, after that was over, we all grabbed food in Toyohashi, since non of us had eaten all day, and hopped on the north-bound train. A handful of people, including Christian, Dale, and Dale's just-arrived wife, Cassie, got off at Okazaki, but the rest of us continued to the next station, in Anjo, the nearest town with a movie theater, because Casino Royale came out that day. From that part of the trip, I have two observations.

First, Anjo is way more lively than Okazaki, despite it's smaller size, and I wish I had discovered it and it's huge entertainment complex sooner.

Second, Casino Royale is insanely awesome. There is no doubt in my mind that it was the best James Bond movie ever, and that it will likely never be topped. It is just so good. Albert and I have already agreed that Christian needs to see, and we will happily take him and sit through every minute of the 2+hour movie, not one of which is wasted. Good lord, just thinking back on it gets me excited. What an excellent movie.

Except wait, last night Albert, using his Korean magic, downloaded The Departed, which hasn't even been released in Japan yet, and Christian and I watched it into the wee hours of the morning, and it wasn't just awesome, it was one of the best non-Miyazaki movies I've seen in a while, and when you consider the fact that we watched Howl's Moving Castle (a Miyazaki film, and quite possibly my favorite movie ever) for movie night on Thursday, I had amazing-movie-tastic weekend, plus the Toyota factory, plus multiple onsen visits.

In conclusion, I love Japan.