Japan Part II

The JR line is one among scores of different lines, but it seems to be the most prominent. (click on the photo for a larger view)


As I mentioned in my last post, the way to get around Japan is by train. And their are lots of choices. Unless your travels take you far outside one of the larger cities, there is very little reason to ever step into a car. It's one thing to appreciate the trains. It's another thing altogether to figure out where they go.



Oh. Now it's clear!



Standing room only.


No one who travels to Japan should miss the Shinkonsen - Japan's bullet train. Besides being a beautiful sight to behold and an engineering marvel, it is sqeaky clean, always on time, and will whisk you the length of Japan at well over 100 miles an hour. We took the Shinkonsen from Tokyo north about an hour to visit with Honda Motor Corp., and then down to Nagoya to visit Toyota and Denso before heading back to Tokyo.



The Shinkonsen at Tokyo Station.



A cold tea anyone?



Or how abou a snack?



Mount Fuji as seen from the Shinkonsen on the way to Nagoya.



Mobile Professionals.


When people ask me, "what's Tokyo like?", I ask them if they remember the planet Corosant from the movie "Star Wars". The whole planet is one big city, and endless horizon of skyscrapers, gleaming metal, and lights. That's Tokyo. And Nagoya, shown below, is not much different.



A view of Nagoya from the Marriot Hotel elevator.


Another great thing about Japan is the food. What strikes you first is the variety. Japanese meals, espescially if you're on a business dinner, tend to be elaborate affairs, and it really helps if you're open to a little experimentation. For unless you speak the language sometimes it's difficult to avoid eating foods you cannot identify. A stable of the Japanese diet, however, comes out of the ocean, and not nessarily fish. Eel, squid, and octopus are common fare on Japanese dinner plates, or lunch plates, or breakfast plates.



"Help Mr. Bill!".



Sashemi anyone? If you visit Japan often you really do develop a taste for it. Squid, however, presents more of a challenge. I eat it politely, but that's about all.


By Thursday the gang from the States was pretty worn out. Here we are with Koseki-san, a senoir Director for HP in Japan and our host during our visit there.



From the left, Tetsuya Koseki, Dr. Dustin Blair, Me, Mitch Abrams.