Day 2 – We headed off to explore Nara!

Brett played a little socker along the way while impersonating the Penguin!

At the train station, Bryan and Jason were able to arrange a tour with a local college student named Mai. Mai led us on a tour of Nara and its many sites for 7 hours!

We first stopped for pictures in front of many temples, shrines, and the cherry blossoms! Unfortunately, we are a little early for the full cherry blossom season, but as you can see, our cameras captured the ones that were there!

The deer in this small town were very tame and would eat out of your hands if you bought food to feed them, but take caution as the sign below indicates:

Evidently, Brett didn’t read the signs and was caught stashing some biscuits in his camera case!

As we wondered along, we came across some octopus biscuits. Jason was the first to determine that they were HOT!(Luckily, no one got a picture of Jon’s face as he confirmed that they were indeed hot).

Next we made our way toward the world’s largest wooden building that houses the world’s largest Buddha bronze scultpure.

This Buddha is 16m high and weighs in at 437 tons!

When you look at this Buddha, I bet you say to yourself, “Gee, I wonder if I could fit inside his nostil?”

Well, maybe most people wouldn’t ask that, but Brett did and he had a chance to try!

It turns out that one of the pillars in the large wooden building has an opening that is the same size as the nostrils in the giant bronze Buddha. It was a tight fit, but Brett squeezed out to the delightment and applause of the crowd!

We continued our adventures and learned that we should not give water to Pacman?

We saw more elaborate shrines each with a different purpose.

There were hundreds of ancient lanterns along the paths.

And Jason tried on some antlers!

Mai took us to a delicious lunch served in our own individual pots!

Next Mai guided us to a beautiful Japanese garden. Bryan is going to model his backyard after this garden!

Mai helped us find some tea for Chip!

Then we toured a house that is a bit too small for Jason!

We watched how they beat Japanase bread to mix it.

And then at dinner Jason Kay decided to throw his chopsticks at the dish washer. Awe what a day!

Thanks Mai for a great tour!

Japan 2005 Day 3

Day 3 – Himeji Castle and Travel To Tokoshima

Today we spent a little time just hanging out as the following 2 pictures show:

Brett caputered a few more good cherry blossoms:

Jason had to duck a few times during the tour of the castle!

Ever wonder how fast a “slow” bullet train travels? – Jason’s GPS knows…

We all enjoyed some pastries on the train ride to Tokashima. Tonight, 2 Nichia representatives took us out to dinner at a very high quality tempura place. It was delicious!

Japan 2005 – Business Trip to Nichia

Our trip started with a dinner Monday night at the best Tempura place in Takoshima. We sat behind a counter and the chef battered each piece of food(fish, veges, bean paste, etc) as we ate it. It was delicious! The dessert was fresh stawberries that were incredible!

Tuesday morning we started out with a 2 hour intro and business meeting. Nichia and AED do have some similarities in work ethic and company organization. For lunch we dined at a French restaurant. The bread melted in your mouth and we experienced our first taste of spinach pudding. Also at lunch we taught the Nichia salesman the “cork trick”. He was a very good sport about it as the picture shows below:

After lunch, Nichia provided a tour of their LED manufacturing facilities. We had to dress up in “bunny suits” to enter the clean room where the manufacturing takes places.

The tour was absolutely fascinating. Basically, we were introduced to an engineer’s “playground” where their were hundreds of machines assembling microscopic components to create LEDs. The rooms were filled with clicks, clacks, and the hum of hundreds of servos that were cutting, glueing, welding, testing, and packaging millions of LEDs – blue ones, green ones, and surface mount ones. We were drooling with the thought of the designs behind these complex mechanical systems. Tim Allen would have been proud of our looks of glee!

After the tour, Nichia was kind enough to take us to one of the famous local siteseeing areas. It was a whirlpool observation deck underneath the bridge shown in the background of the following picture.

The glass bottom floors provided great views of the pools below.

For dinner, Nichia treated us to the “best Japanese restaurant in all of Japan”. The food kept coming and coming involving a number of different types of Japanese food. We were happy to eat it all up! The Nichia businessmen were fun to visit with and we had several animated conversations.

Wednesday morning, we explored the city park in Takoshima before heading to Nagoya where we said goodbye to Brett. Bye Brett, it’s been fun!

Random Pictures…

Japan 2005 – Tokyo

Today we headed to Tokyo at a mere 165mph!

While in Tokyo, we saw…

… more cherry blossoms

… a gate tall enough for Jason

… an emperor’s garden

… koi close up

… a Japanese Wedding

… our Japanese Italian Lunch

… a lady with tall shoes

… a Swatch store

… the emperor’s castle

… the city at night

… Fuzzy’s sign

… Dinner at a Thai restaurant

… and Jason sleeping!