Today was our second totally free day of the trip. A few of us decided to sleep a little late and then make it to the internet cafe for about an hour. In response to a comment from a reader of my site, fanny packs are sexy. ‘Nuff said.
After the leaving Kameoka, we stopped in [...]
Today’s outing was to the farm of Dr. Stapp’s former landlord Hitomi-san. Hitomi-san is a gentleman farmer of sorts. He was born and how lives in a house that his family has owned for over 300 years. His family used to be known for their archery prowess and his family crest still has arrows on [...]
This morning was a little sad. Our host families came to see us off and I got to see Hiromi-san, Naho-chan, and the boys for the last time. I gave the boys one last piggy-back ride and twirled them around until none of us could stand up. Before too long, it was time to load [...]
Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding’s facility was a truly impressive place. One of the things that distinguished this factory from some of the others we’ve seen is scale. The main production building is a huge, 80 year old facility. All of the tools and workspaces are is much bigger than those we’ve seen to build cell [...]
I think I now have some sort of inkling of what a rock star feels like. Our destination for today was Hibi Elementary, an 80 year old school located in Tamano City and they absolutely loved us there. The kids at this school spent weeks preparing for our visit. We were warmly welcomed by the [...]
The first part of our morning was taken up by the trip to Tamano City near Okayama. We were seen off my E-Chan and made several train and bus exchanges to get to our destination. I discovered many wireless hotspots during our trip there but again, the bullet train moves to fast to use them. [...]
Today’s tour was at Sanyo in one of their cell phone plants. They start with a circuit board and all the tiny components. A machine then adds 95% of the circuits to the board, a precision task that requires the same movement at the same place every time. It does so much work that on [...]
