Hello...

....to everyone. I went to a Toyota factory last week. And right excited I was about it too, whacking great MACHINES I thought, ROBOTS, I thought, WOW!!!
It was pretty cool. We strolled above the factory floor of one of the 9 Toyota factories in the region (Aichi-Prefecture, the one wot has Nagoya in it is home to all of the Toyota factories in Japan.) This one in particular made smaller cars, in particular the Corolla, and the `Vitz`, (a snazzy little mid-sized number that has its own racing leagues over here, like Mini-7`s, but not as cool. Those of you familiar with Gran Turismo 3 on the PS2 will know the Vitz as an underpowered lump, curiously with its own championship in the Professional League). Anywhoo, above the factory floor we walked, we didn`t get to see all the super cool stuff like the stamping presses and the welding robots and the painting pool -dash it all- but we did get to see a fairly well oiled production process make some fairly well oiled machines and some, presumably, fairly OOS riddled line workers.
We started with the cars in their basic shape being guided around, over and below us on the nifty rack system- the fun thing is the car is bought in after being painted, the doors are mounted and straightened and checked out, then taken off. The doors then float around the factory on another conveyer system, presumably passing the time of day, than when the cars are finished having their sound-proofing, fuel tanks, dashes, seats, engines, running gear, pretty much everything elses installed, the doors appear out of nowhere, in order, the right colour and exactly on time for them to be slotted in and off it rolls. That was pretty nifty.
The chaps assembling the engines looked a little bored. There was one fellow whose job it was to attach 5 bolts to each engine as it rolled past on a conveyor, he was on a conveyer too, then would walk back to meet the next engine, for another 5 bolts, then he would walk back to the next engine.........
It was a very interesting time indeed. Walking out there was a commemorative wall made in 1989 for the 20 millionth vehicle to comke out of the factory....thats a lot of Corollas out there.
The town the Toyota factory was in was called....Toyota Town. And woe betide any poor chump fool　enough to NOT drive a Toyota in the town limits. According to the chaps at the factory if you don`t drive a Toyota you don`t get a parking space- making it a little difficult to get to work on time....which doesn`t show you off in a good light come worker review time.....and well, you know, if your not a team player and your can`t support the company....and what with all those unemployed people out there, many of whom presumably drive Toyotas....if you get what I mean....
Following the factory we were bundled off to the Toyota Stadium, 60,000 seat home of the 3rd Division Nagoya Whatsadoodles. It`s like Buller having a stadium that size. We took our seats during the stadium tour and our attention was drawn to the cables under them....they were heated seats...60,000 of them...in a 3rd division stadium...and, oh, don`t worry about the rain, because this 60,000 (heated) seat 3rd division stadium has....thats right, a retractable roof (rampant overfunded construction industry anyone??). It was pretty cool. Now if they could just spend some of their money on buying good players.....
Cold now. Leaves a stunning array of colours...right nice....
Looking forward to the Cosmic Wheels gig this weekend in the Minokamo.
Have fun all,
lots of love,
Berin