3 years ago we hosted Ichiro Yoshida (75) who was studying at the senior university and we were able to stay with him and his wife Keiko in Nagoya. We went out to dinner with his son and his family.
Keiko`s brother drove us around and we visited Meiji Mura, a huge park where they have relocated old buildings from various parts of Japan. We dressed up in traditional Japanese clothes and wandered the streets. John could just fit the wooden shoes (geta) while I couldn`t fit the sandals they gave me.
A nephew of Ichiro`s took us to the Toyota factory where we did a tour of the assembly line. There were no people in the welding section of the line and the car bodies were all welded together by about 15 welding robots at about 12 different stations. It was an amazing sight. We weren`t allowed to take photos inside the factory. There was a robot with artificial lungs and it played a trumpet. The hybrid car was interesting with its petrol and electric motor.
We took a train with Ichiro to Nishio City to visit his daughter Kazuyo and her family. We ate at a miso restaurant and got invited by the owner to look at his miso factory which had been in his family for 10 generations. The soy beans were salted and left to ferment with a special bacteria for 3 years and huge rocks compressed the beans inside oak barrels.
Kazuyo also took us to a shrine where the leader of the 47 Samurai had a shrine and we were given green tea in a traditional room with a typical Japanese garden.
Later we ate a boxed meal called "bento". It was well laid out with raw fish, sea snails, pickles, soup, fish, vegetables and rice. It looked too beautiful to eat!
Ichiro took us to his English Conversation class and we met a few of his class mates for lunch. Two of the women were 65 and one was 75. It was a lot of fun and although they had very little English they were keen to speak. We also met two of them later and now they want to come to New Zealand and homestay with us!
We ate at a restaurant where we had to cook our own meal- a dish called okonomiyaki.
We visited a small village called Obara where they make paper in the traditional way from mulberry tree bark. A famous Japanese paper artist showed us how to make the paper. He lived in a thatched house and had persimmons drying in the sun.
We had a wonderful time in Nagoya with Ichiro and his family.
