Since my dad wasn't interested in going to the Tokyo Skytree, and we were done with most other things on our list for Tokyo, and it was raining anyway, we took a morning Shinkansen to Nagoya, put our luggage in a locker, and took a cab to the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology, a short cab ride from the train station.

someone was fixing the model trains in our hotel

boarding our shinkansen

Nagoya

I had been there with Jennifer two years ago, but the visit was too short (3 museums in one day through Nagoya was a bit busy), so it was nice to be able to do a longer visit with my dad (about 5H).

A 3D loom Toyoda invented, kind of cool

Original brick walls from the factory that used to be there:

The main room is full of textile equipment that was used in the Toyoda plants, some invented by Toyoda himself. From taking compressed cotton to cotton you can turn into strings, and then all the machines that turn it into textile. Quite impressive:

turning compressed cotton as shipped into loose cotton that can be processed

it's a big machine that does the transformation

massaging cotton before it can be turned into strings

turning cotton into strings

doing the same, but most expediently

bad ass!

They had a steam machine they used for demos:

Then, was time to move to the automotive side:

how engine bits are forged.

before making cars, toyoda made a bike helping motor

nice demos of transmissions

everyone needs a fax machine in their car :)

assembling car panels

On the way out, we saw a new robot that can play violin. Seeing trumpet playing was cool, but violin (even if played badly) is even more impressive:

And around 16:30 the museum closed, and we went back to the Nagoya train station to catch another train to Kyoto. This time we actually took a slow Hikari, but because it had no intermediate stops, it was just as fast as a Nozomi:

And we got to Kyoto in time to spend an early evening, some views, and dinner in the great train station:

We had great shabu-shabu for dinner: