Nagoya

After a scenic three hour train ride we made it to Nagoya.  Our main plan for Nagoya was to go and see the Toyota factory, but unfortunately due to the earthquake they have shut down tours and some operations until May.  Luckily we got the next best thing, the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology, which was bigger and more awesome than the lonely planet would have you believe.

The whole museum is a hands-on experience which takes you through the Toyoda family business history, which started in textiles with the invention of an automatic loom and then moved into cars in the 1920’s.  There is a massive shed which houses about 50 looms and cotton spinning machines, from a late 1800’s version right up to the present day mega-loom which weaves tapestries.  As it was late afternoon and pretty quiet we got a mini-private tour where staff kicked over the old looms and explained how the processing worked. The noise made by the old looms was deafening and there was only six going, we can’t image what working in a shed of 100 looms would do for your hearing.

Type G Automatic Loom - steam powered back in the day.

The best bit was that unlike an equivalent in Australia nothing was behind a big glass wall and there may have been a few safety moments recorded which made it way more interesting. The museum then moved into the Toyota automotive pavilion which was again, massive, and showed a history of the steel development and then into the production. AND then... there was a robot playing the trumpet, what more could you want??




Robot playing trumpet...



The next day, after we recovered from the awesome-ness of the Toyota museum, we jumped on the Subway to go and see the Nagoya Castle.  The main castle building was destroyed by bombing in WWII, which is an absolute shame.  As it was of such high cultural significance it was pretty quickly reconstructed in the 1950’s, but unfortunately not to its former glory.  The exterior was beautiful but the interior was made into a museum, which whilst interesting, wasn’t nearly as nice as the photos of the old interior.  There are only two watch towers remaining of the original 1600’s construction.

Nagoya Castle.

They are currently in the middle of reconstructing one of the other castle buildings next door in a giant shed, with the amount of timber going into it, and the size of the shed, it will be pretty impressive when it’s done.