May 13

Today we started off with yet another great breakfast! The bar for breakfast alone keeps getting higher every day. Our first stop of the day was Toyota Techno Museum and Mr. Yoshino joined us. It was super interesting seeing the history of one of the biggest companies in the world. I never knew it used to be a loom manufacturing company, so it's safe to say Kiichiro Toyoda made the right decision regarding the future of his company. I didn’t take too many pictures here, as I was really into the story of the company. I’m glad we went to this museum because I learned more than I thought I would from this place alone. Although Toyota is a company that is constantly changing, it’s still cool to see that Japan takes great pride in it as a company. After learning about Toyota’s history, we took a bus to Nagoya Castle. Unfortunately, the weather was against us and it rained again, but we didn’t let that interfere too much with our visit to the castle. Although we were unable to go into the main castle due to safety reasons, we were able to tour the rest of the grounds. We were able to tour one of the temples on the grounds and it was so cool to walk through what used to be royal grounds. Matsubara Sensei mentioned the Chinese art style that was on the walls of the temple. This was also the first time I had to take my shoes off to go into a building, which I realized may be the first of many times I would have to do this. Going through this temple, I appreciate that old architecture is preserved. I’ve seen this architecture through media, and I have to say that it represented pretty well (something about Asian culture that isn’t misrepresented.)


Something funny I have to mention is that one of my classmates was saying that Japanese people always joke how there’s nothing much to see in Nagoya, but I’m happy we got to go to a place that ha
s a cultural significance for the city and Japan. Being from the United States, there isn’t any royal history—just the stories of our founding fathers. But even then, not to say that we don’t respect the people that helped found our country, but it’s definitely something that’s taken much more lightly. Another thing to note as well—United States history is bashed on the daily and many Americans aren’t happy with the way it was built up. In Japan, that is something that would be heavily frowned upon. Japan has stayed pretty conservative within its culture throughout all these years. Of course everyone is allowed to have their own opinions, in Japan its more something you keep to yourself. And I think that’s why Japanese people tend to be more polite. In America, because people are much more outspoken about their opinions—especially if it differs from the norm—that’s what makes Americans so different from Japanese people. 


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