City of Toyota Part 2/2

Grande finale of this day-trip was Café De Chef. A cafe with great atmosphere and mood and most of all fantastic coffee.

Solid experience. After training in various countries the Japanese barrister and owner, Kazuo Nonoyama, opened this lovely place. He has run the place now for 18 years with his wive.

Smalltalk. Their smalltalk and friendly chatter turns the place cozy and warm to visit.

Art. His and her wife's attention to detail and style is marvelous!

If ever in Toyota city, this place is one to put on the list!!

The city of Toyota Part 1/2

Long day behind. Early in the morning we left to Toyota city by subway & train. Did you know, the city is named by the company, Toyota Motors Inc. Roughly every 12th citizen is directly working for Toyota. Much of the people in there are indirectly employed in car industry.

Clean, quiet, modern - those three words are my description of Toyota city.

The main entrance. We had English speaking guide for two hours free of charge. They presented quite a lot from assembly lines to press and welding processes and new concept cars. No pictures were allowed during the factory walks though.

Amazing assembly of parts. The most expensive Lexus at the show room. It had a TV but it wasn't configured yet.

This is the i-unit.It's a kind of Robot, transforms to different two vehicles and takes you from a to b.

The world headquarters of Toyota Motors Inc. From here we headed back to the Tyota city by metro.

One great side about Japan is you always find something new to eat. This set is from a place called Mamehana, a chain that makes huge range of foods only from soybeans.

It's tricky really, because sometimes you could be sure it's something else, yet it isn't. Well, salad is salad and rice is rice. That's no trick.


Cheerful service! Mr. Murayama was our kind waiter. Meals came in a minute. Japanese chefs are so very fast.

Curvy design bridge, which crossed the Yahagi-river.This place wasn't far from the center so we took a walk there.

Fishing seemed popular in Yahagi river. Probably they're lucky, because we saw many fishes jumping in the crystal clear river water.

A school after bridge. Apparently every school in Japan look as exiting and colorful as this. So I heard.

Flying to Japan...

Finally in Japan!! Though, can't really comprehend it yet. So today we arrived to Nagoya. The nine hour Finnair flight was all the way so smooth. Not a single air bump or odd noise. Just Lift and land - perfect. Apparently Finnair has renewed their Asian fleet or at least this flying metal can was very new. It had media center and with everything you could imagine.

Plane was full of Japanese tourists. Great side about Japanese flyers is that, unlike many westerns, including Finns, Japanese don't really make a single noise when they fly, nor do they make frequent toilet visits or bounce to their cabin luggage when the belt light turns off. It should be rather easy to sleep during flight. Well, us it seems impossible no matter how quiet.

Our plan was to catch up the time difference by waking up early in Finland. Bad idea. We woke up at five in the morning. Idea was that in the plane we'll sleep, and at the time we arrive in Japan it's morning. Sleeping didn't work out. Were more or less awake for over 24 hours. Better would have been to sleep as long as possible before boarding. Next time we know better.

From Nagoya Central Air Kintetsu shuttle train bounded us to heart of Nagoya, from which we continued by taxi to ムーミンママ's parents place. It's hot here, they say it's getting cold, but the thermometer still at nine in the evening was +28 degrees. Short cycling trip to Tokyo Hands departments store soaked shirt with sweat.

Tomorrow, we'll head to Toyota car factory for a tour!