Japan Trip 2004 (Part4)

Dates

Day 7 (3/26, Toyota City, Sunny, Warm, Windy)

The City of Toyota is the birthplace of the Toyota Motors Co., actually, the name of the city was changed from different name to honor the success of the company and the founder Toyota. Just like renaming Seattle, WA with "Boeing City" or something. There is Toyota Automobile Museum, or TAM for the short word. There are more than 80 automobiles form all around the world. I went there when I was very small as a part of school trip.

By taking a Meitetsu bus for 20 minutes from the bus stop nearby my house, I get to Nagakute Shako bus stop. The museum is located just right next to it. The road in front of the museum is building a path for our first commercial MAGLEV transportation system in our country to get to the Expo scheduled in 2005.

MAGLEV track.

After walking up a hill, I get to the entrance. The cost of admission is 1,000Yen.

Toyota Automobile Museum (Originally Built in Apr 1989)

In the museum, I get to see numerous automobiles in all time period, form a car having very simple structure back in 1800 something to the high performance sports car.

The museum is consisted of two buildings. The main building holds classic cars form all over the world at second floor, and some Japanese cars on the third floor. They now have an annex which has different kinds of cars.

On the way to the second floor, they have this Toyoda (not Toyota) Model AA. (If I recall right, then engine was based on Chrysler's but other parts are Japanese build)

Toyota AA a very first automobile they made.

Second Floor, Main Building

The second floor shows many foreign classic cars from all over the world

  Ford Model T

Duesenburg Model J, Jay Reno's favorite

Third Floor, Main Building

The third floor shows many Japanese cars, from the day which we finally managed to build our own, to today.

Toyota AC Sedan

Did you watch "Austin Powers - Gold Member"?

Toyota Century, a limousine build back in ?

Mazda Cosmo Sport, predecessor of Mazda RX-7(8)

Toyota 2000GT. This car evolved to Toyota Supra.

Annex

Annex shows cars resembling the history of automobiles from Japanese perspective of view.

Toyota Celica GT

Toyota Prius, the world's first production hybrid vehicle(?)

Honda Civic

They had a couple of Toyota AA, the first automobile they made.

Also Toyota Corolla, Crown (N/A in the U.S.)

In addition to all of those Toyota cars, there are many older foreign cars and other Japanese made cars.

For more pictures, click here

After spending time in the museum, I left the place to go back. I realized that there is just one or two buses per hour. So I left the place around 1:30pm but I waited until 2:20pm. If I knew about it, I would have eaten something.

After getting off from the bus, I went to a grocery store named "Seiyu." They had choice of three breads for only 178Yen, so I bought them. I also did most of my grocery shopping. I got some curry seasonings, riceball seasonings, spaghetti mixes, and so on... I spent about 5000Yen on it (and was very heavy carrying back home!). The one thing I had to do after I got home was to find a suitable box to ship to my address in the U.S. I also was not sure if I can ship it out from the postal service in my town. I did not want to use FedEx since it is awfully expensive  I found out that the post office nearest to my home but the central station will take it even on the weekend. Due to bio-terrorism threat, all food items goes to the U.S. must be inspected. I may have to wait to receive my food...

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Last Updated on 2004/04/16

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Introduction / Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5