Today we had a very special honor - we got to tour the Sharp Electronics plant in Yaita. Apparently some local residents have asked for a tour before and were told it was impossible. We met the president of the company - who talked about how Sharp began. I had no idea it was originally a pencil company - the founder invented the mechanical pencil!!
The highlight was a visit through the plant - watching them create a TV set from scratch. It was interesting how the women wore different colored clothes from the men and up until we got to the end of the factory line on the second floor - it seemed as if the men and women were separated from each other too.
Geraldine's favorite part of the plant was the automatic shoe washed - she finally cleaned up!
The Rotary member who picked me up in the morning brought his son - a cute and funny guy named Koshi. Koshi was a hit with the GSE team - his English was great and he also speaks Portuguese fluently. He was so funny - said he loved foreign women. We thought for a minute he was going to hit on Geraldine - but nope he had eyes for everyone :-) Koshi invited me to come hang out with him at his house after the tour, but I was tired and still didn't feel good. Plus - I wasn't sure what I would do hanging out all afternoon with a teenager - I'm sure he would get bored with me in about an hour!!! He gave me a big hug when he dropped me off at my host family's house - and told me he would come visit me in San Francisco.
The rest of the day was spent blogging and sleeping! For dinner we had curry and I got a chance to chat more with my host family - we blundered through the language difficulties and had a great conversation about politics and japanese/american relations!
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