Yesterday afternoon during my last class of the day my student took me out into the factory to give me a guided tour in English. The tour was not for my benefit, but as a practice for another tour he’ll have to give in English tomorrow. It was a good opportunity to practice important stuff like “watch your head” and “please stay on the safety path”, but also to make sure that I could understand what he was saying in the noise of the factory floor.
It was only my second time into the factory, and it was pretty interesting. This is the biggest train making factory in Japan, and we saw them building not only the regular commuter trains for customers inside and outside Japan, but also my student showed the building of the bullet trains and explained that process as well.
We spent a little more than an hour on the tour, and I think the actual tour will take longer, as the guests are sure to ask many questions as they go. It should be an interesting time for my student today – I’m looking forward to hearing his recap on Friday.
