Toyohashi Festival..

ええじゃないか！！！

Means "Whatever goes!!".

While most festival all around have themes that hints at Global warming, world peace, perseverance, humanity....all kinds of make-you-feel-good bullshit imaginable...finally, a theme that makes sense, "Whatever"

Haha...whatever dude! I'm having fun!!



So many people lined up along the street....does this represents how popular this festival is??
Well, no it doesn't. This picture only shows how late I was to the festival. Spent the night before at Jeremy's place playing some cartoon-ish online game...
Woke up late the next day....nuts....

Even though I only managed to attend this festival for 2 hours, I had tremendous fun.



Even though I arrived late, I was instantly absorbed into the festival mood. Everyone jumping up and about, dancing crazily in pink.

Such energy!!



And they somehow managed to get a black midget to join them!
That little dude is not a kid, this group represents a local bar, and we all know that bars don't allow kids so....that must be a midget.
Woo Hoo!! Just saw the first midget in my life!!



And further up ahead is a bevy of beauties in red. Dancing to some barbie song or something like that..

Ay ee ay ee ay
I'm your little butterfly
Green, black, and blue
Make the colors in the sky

Yeah...that song. That annoying song from the 90s...but they had ladies in red dancing to that tune, in a cute way if I might add. Suddenly I was able to tolerate that song.


These guys seem to enjoy the song though.
See that some of them are just letting their cameras hang from the neck and not taking any photos?
Well, their memory card ran out.

And, as if to emphasize the generation gap, a bunch of old farts parading at the back..



This group of old farts was promoting road safety. Seeing how the group is consists of old people only, they are trying to tell us young people "Wanna live til' old age like me? Drive safe".

Oh my gawd...what a boring bunch!! Can't they do this some other time? or can't they pick another spot other than behind the ladies in red? Who's gonna drive safe when there's beautiful women right in front?!!

Moving on....

The next group I came upon was some dancing school group.


The kids were....I suspect they suffer Attention Deficit Disorder.


"I said...DANCE LIKE ME!!!"


Come on now, do the OOMPHAH!!!

Following behind was a brightly colored group of...oh, I don't know. Lost interest in knowing which group is which.




After this group, there was some kind of big gap before being followed by the next group...



See how organized Japanese are during festivals??
Love it when I see how people respect each other and try not to break the rules...
Not even to take a picture such as this.
Ehem...I broke the rule just so that I could show you how diligent every Japanese are at not breaking rules. Just wished I also had the chance to show you a picture of a group security personnel swarming in on me.



Next was a group dedicated to their local treat "おでん". It's umm...a Japanese version of Yong Tau Fu.


Oi!!..Do your dance properly, don't need to feel so happy of me taking your picture...


Ever wondered what Japanese worship in Japan? There you go...
A fish stick. Never has any deity or holy figures of great religions being heralded like this. God and friends up in heaven must be so jealous of this fish stick.


Two girls leading a team on...


This dude is just angry it's not raining on the day he remembered to bring an umbrella..


A member from KISS ??


They will grow up to fill in the red dresses some day.


The saddest looking piece of konyaku ever...


I saw him reach for that Pikachu mask!!!
Nah, just kidding, he took the green ranger mask..
It's a wonder that this kind of masks hasn't gone outdated...


A classic Japanese must haves at any festival...rescue the goldfish game.
You are provided a scoop which is made of paper...it tears if you try to scoop too fast, but if you don't, you'll never get to rescue any of them ugly, big eyed monsters...
And kids LOVE them...
But I wonder why they call it "rescue the goldfish"....
Ever seen goldfishes in the hands of a 3 year old? They live a better life in that tank, dying of old age instead of in the hands of a curious 3 year old. Nothing in this world...not even the devil can be as evil minded as a 3 year old kid with a goldfish when there's no cartoon on TV.


This stall allows you one cup of fries...
Haha, reminds me of my adolescents days...used to do this all the time.
Good job fat boy....


Yet another common sight to see at any festival...
While we fry our bananas, Japanese decorate them in sweets...covered in colourful rice chocolates. Japanese somehow claimed this to their own food culture. Well, yeah...who else in the world would decorate bananas like this?!! Even the hungriest monkey would stay away.


I think westerners with long black hair is hot....


But Asians with blond hair is not...

Anyway, look at them 2 punks....at any other times, all they do is loiter around with cigarette in hand, making noise and are of nuisance to everyone else. And yet, it is these good for nothing punks who manage most of the festival!! They set up the stalls, sells food, AND they tidy up after...

Amazing...completely different from punks in Malaysia who just loiter and spit on the ground, who vandalize things, who robs...
Here, punks like these two are just for the looks, minus the attitude.

Anyway, although the festival was a "Whatever" festival, they still stayed on plan and ended accordingly. The last group to parade was...


A bunch of party killers here to clear the streets...

Yet another Japanese quality, streets was reopened to traffic in exactly 30 minutes!!

Been here for 5 years, but this sense of punctuality and effectiveness always manage to impress me.

An intern's life so far...

I'm entering the 3rd week since I started my internship here in TOPY Toyohashi.

I am allocated into the R&D department, placed under a guy named Kakami, whom I will describe as a 18 year old looking, 29 year old man. But let's talk more about him later. Also in the team is a Chinese Chinese called "Cho" and a fellow Malaysian Chinese named "Tan".

Now that I'm into R&D, you must be thinking I'm designing or developing something right?

Well, not exactly...

During my 3 weeks here, I've learned that what matters most to a manufacturing company is cost of material. It doesn't matter whether other materials are superior in terms of hardness or yield strength, being superior doesn’t always means it’s good(In my case, superior means hard but low yield point). Instead, inferior, cheaper things bring good news. In a society full of stingy bastards where people are always going for cheaper things, it makes sense not to sell them your best item, just your cheaper ones(Ask Microsoft, they know best about not selling you good, reliable software).

And this is where I fit in.

In my 5 months internship here, I will have to perform various observations, and fatigue tests on different types of steel, and make comparison of them so that I can recommend the best one for mass production.
In these 3 weeks, I have identified which among them are best for use, but I was bluntly told, "Really? Wow, good work. Nicely done. But we are thinking of using this instead. We know it sucks, but it's cheap. Now, try to think of a way to make it better."

So, I've come to understand that when it comes to steel manufacturing, R&D here means Research cheaper material and Develop a way to make them better. And amazingly, there are many cheap, simple tricks in order to get them to perform better. Well, at least we are making effort in making it better...
I know, it sounds a lot like a big middle finger to people who discovers new, superior materials. This time, it will be MY middle finger...haha, take that you arrogant inventors!!

Ok, I've jumped ahead too much in my story telling...

What I really do here is, I've studied a lot on the various works involved, like punch process, and types of test I will need to perform on them. Also on my schedule was learning to use all kinds of machines; band saw machine, refine cutter, polishing machine, that damn microscope...etc.

And the one tutoring me is Kakami.

And, in all my lessons, we've managed to cause problems to all of them, except the microscope...he hadn’t manage to misguide me into breaking the lenses yet. I can go on and on describing the various "misguidance" but let's just settle for the fact that he tends to forget "certain step". The worst resulted in a machine being sent for overhaul just because he forgotten a "certain step" of checking the filter...

This dude...Kakami tends to speak with that teenager attitude, with no command in his voice when speaking to me.

Ehem, here's a fact you never knew about Randy...

I'm constantly looking for people to look up to...someone I can respect. But if I meet anyone who fails to establish control over me, no matter how old they are, I tend to "take charge". It's a bad habit of mine...but I can't help it, certain events in my life have sculpted me this way. Before you judge me further, I do try to make an effort of suppressing my dark side...

So, this Kakami fellow... you very well know which category he falls in.

Anyway, I'm busy most of the time, always having something to do...be it studies or preparation of test materials. But there are times when I'm suddenly free...like when the machines are hogged up. Times like that…well, guess when I wrote this post?

Sigh...the worst thing in life is having nothing to do.

A new intern arrives at TOPY...

My first day of internship...I have to confess here that I didn't start off good.

On my bus ride there, I fell asleep and missed 2 stops. Had to pay extra fare and I had to walk around trying to look for the right place...and did I mention it was also raining? Let me tell you, getting lost in industrial area was no fun...factories are far apart from each other and I had no way of telling which way to turn at any junction. Thank god I went early....and thank the pretty lady at the station who gave me a map.

After reaching the company, despite missing the stop and getting lost, I realized I still was half an hour early. In Japan, where punctuality is religion, arriving too early is a no no...it means you don't respect their timetable.

AND I forgot to bring along my pen and my stamp...do you know how awkward it is when they push a piece of paper to you, expecting you to start writing when all you have is a pencil? Damn...that was more uncomfortable than the time I forgot my wallet at the supermarket.

But that guy who greeted me was a nice guy so, no trouble there. I was then introduced to the boss, my section leader, and head of safety. Then, I was fit into a yellow hard hat and a black hard boots, and things kicked off with a tour of the facility and a spectrum of rules to follow.

Remember the phrase "Rules are meant to be broken" ??

Well, no they are not.They are meant to keep you from harm's way...keep you safe.

So do your best to obey them like pathetic slaves.

It used to be "Quality First" but now it's "Safety First". Apparently, they realized that an injured fellow worker and an interrupted machine costs a lot of money, and also that lawyers these days are more cunning, so your safety(their money) concerns them.

Having said that, you would have guessed it, most of it involves rules when walking around or handling machine. They have a manual on every piece of machine in that factory. Yeah, that means they also have a guidebook hanging from a vacuum cleaner, so in case you hurt yourself while sucking dust, it's your fault for not reading that damn guidebook first.



Like most factories in Japan, they adopt a system called "指差し呼称", which means point and speak. For example, when you step into a factory, you have to point while saying;

Point to the right "右よし" - migi yoshi(right ok)-

Point to the left "左よし" - hidari yoshi(left ok) -

Point above "頭上よし" - zujou yoshi(above head ok) -

Point to the ground "足元よし" - ashimoto yoshi(ground ok) -

FYI, Japan Railways adopts the same system. You'll always see a station master gesture along the train before blowing the whistle. Amazingly, no mistakes by station masters was ever recorded, proving that this troublesome gestures actually works to reduce accidents.

When switching on a machine,
"スイッチオンよし" - suichi on yoshi(ok to push START button) -

When switching off a machine,
"スイッチオフよし" - suichi off yoshi (ok to push STOP button)-

And, the interesting thing, my manager's name is Yoshii.

Yoshi to everything!!

But seriously, safety is the highest of importance in my workplace. We haven't had ANY serious accidents since 1980. The last accident recorded was some dude who caught a splinter in his thumb from a wooden chopstick...apparently, he was an operator for a production line and he couldn't push the buttons.

The company lost 2 days of productivity.

A City called Toyohashi…

And so I arrived at the city of Toyohashi one day before I had to report in.

This is the first time I set foot in Toyohashi... And oh boy...so many Brazilians around!!

Brown skin amongst small eyes…

But of course, it’s not just their brown skin that sets them apart. It’s the way they dress, the way the walk…the way the look around. Like, I saw this one family walking by…father was dressed like punks do, mother was dressed in a bright pink tube top and denim short pants, and along was a little girl. Mother was enjoying her stroll and father was eyeballing everyone who looks at them. If that lady dressed like that, of course everyone will look!! Why the eyeball?? Why not put a coat around her or something!! Please don’t mistake me for a conservative, I’m all for bright pink tube top but…there are better places for her to dress like that, not at the train station!!

Anyway, the reason why there are so many Brazilians here is because, about a century ago, Japanese saw a very intriguing posters posted all over...


Says "Come on! Let's go to South America!!"

For every participant, they will be given a hoe and two tiny dolls along with a miniature flag. Now, we all know how much Japanese like small dolls...so, hundreds of thousands of people signed up and emigrated to Brazil. And they liked it there!! While Japanese women are all covered up in kimono....well, we can all assume emigrants there visited a popular beach.
Japanese Brazilians started to spring up everywhere...so, Brazilian government and Japanese government drew up some kind of deal that provided them with Japanese citizenship. After some time, these JB decided they wanted to "make use of" their citizenship. Thus the number of Brazilians here...but only god knows why they chose Toyohashi and not any other city.

And the high school girls here are…very different compared to where I came from. Let’s put it this way, I have never seen so many upskirts in a single day before. I mean, they don’t even make any effort to conceal their undies!!! They wear this ridiculously short skirts, then sit on the ground with their knees raised….sort of reminds you of the “Welcome” sign hung outside shops isn’t it? Call me a pervert all you want, but, if I didn’t look at them legs and nylon (some are silk), all my guy friends and my girlfriend will have something to worry about...my gal pals would probably start asking me for chocolate muffins recipe.

At least I was decent enough not to take pictures of them just so I can upload them here…

Okay, enough of me being a salivating wolf...


They have trams here!! A cute one too...
I thought trams only exist in Hiroshima and Hokkaido.


They had a band going on right in front of the train station.

And I started thinking that Nagaoka is way more “kampung” than Toyohashi.

Anyway, I met Jeremy, Kelly, Chin Wooi and Siew Ling later that evening. My god it’s good to see Siew Ling again!! It’s been like…5 years since I last saw her. Haven’t seen her for so long that I almost instinctively offer a handshake and say “hello, nice to meet you”. She still looks pretty much the same though…prettier than I remembered, but still the same I knew her to be. Good to see you, girl..

Well, had a wonderful dinner…had to bore myself listening to them talk the “Toyohashi Talk”…but a nice evening nonetheless…

Jeremy was kind enough to offer me his room floor for the night. The next day, I get ready to start my first day in TOPY!!!

TOPY : A new beginning

As part of my Uni's unique program, current undergrads who plans to pursue masters in engineering in the same institution can undergo a 5 month long industrial training. Somewhat like a long-term internship. And, as far as I know, no other institution in Japan offers the same thing to undergrads. Yes, they also have internship programs but they last only about 2 months at most.

As for me, 5 months internship sounds swell...I mean, I'm bound to learn something useful right? And that’s why I chose to enroll into Nagaoka University of Technology. 80+ students joined this program and were sent to various places in Japan and also overseas, including Malaysia, Thailand, German, Spain, Mexico and many others.

And I chose TOPY Industries...


what? Never heard of it?

Don't worry, neither have I!!

Why I chose this? Well, part of the reason is that it is situated in Aichi Prefecture, the farthest one away from my Uni.

But that's not the factor which made me choose it. You see...in Japanese, it is written as 「トピー工業」, pronounced as "toh-pee-kou-gyou". When I first saw this I mistakenly read it as "toh-pee-ei-gyou". In Japanese katakana, "ei" is written as 「エ」, similar to Japanese kanji, "kou" written as 「工」.

So, during background check (Yes, as reckless as I am in making decision, I still always do a background check!!), try as I might, I couldn’t find out anything regarding 「トピーエ　業」. After many minutes of futile effort by me and my Japanese friend, it finally dawned upon us that it is ｢トピー　工業｣.

One click and tada...there you go, full corporate details. Some 2000 employees working for this misunderstood company.

Those who know me well, will know that this is reason enough to make me want to do my internship here. I go with the flow of events, never any planned ones. Any other companies are boring anyway. Yes, there are other big fishes like Toyota, Honda, Hitachi, Mitsubishi...but that doesn't mean you can get good experience, but only a name to show off to your friends to.

And besides, I spoke to a senior who went there last year, said he learned a lot. So, yeah...good choice for my part (no matter how ridiculous the reason was: reading the name wrongly).

So, yeah...here I am in Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture...here to do my internship for the next 5 months...

here to corrupt them if they don't corrupt me first!!