3. DAY TRIP TO KAWAGOE

In case you didn't pick up on a theme in our past blogs, we officially love Old Japan. Last weekend we took a train trip up to Kawagoe, an Edo period heritage town north of Tokyo.

Our guides, Yuki (who worked with us in Australia Bethel some years back) and his wife, Naoko. It's great to be working with Yuki nice again but this time, we are in the Japan branch.

Along the way we met up a faithful couple street witnessing at the station. The guy in the middle doing his best to look as Japanese as a Kiwi can, is our traveling companion, Blair.

And a fellow Bethelite doing some train witnessing enroute to the group.

Thankfully it was not too crowded.

Naoko, Yuki, Blair and me....

Honmaru Goten of Kawagoe Castle. Turns out the castle was lost, probably one of those traditional Japanese fires... But what is a Goten I hear you ask? This beautiful wooden structure with its tatami mats and shoji screens was rebuilt 1848 (fire) as the entrance and the main hall used as waiting rooms for feudal lords who came on missions to the palace.

It's 36 degrees Celsius outside in the sun but there is a cool natural breeze wafting through the halls that tells you that this building not only looks good, it works well.

Tatami mats and shoji screens (sliding paper doors).

The gang

And the photographer

Courtyard

Sun falling on cedar

In the center of town, the old white merchant house storehouse.

And Toki-no-kane (Bell Tower) that rings 4 times a day to tell the time before mr Seiko invented the digital watch. Originally built 1624 and rebuilt in 1894 after a not so "great fire".

A tourist

The locals

Ice creams in the shade.

Blair poses for a photo opportunity.

But he is not the only one posing for a shot.

 

"Obi 2"

The Obi is the sash worn around the kimono.

More merchant houses

Very solid plaster window shutters

Shinjuku train station is the worlds busiest handling 2 million commuters per day.

Shinjuku's "Memory Lane" in Tokyo, a narrow ally crammed with even narrower little Japanese street food restaurants. A relic from post WWII.

Relaxed locals

Ramen noodles and beer, what could be better!

Notice our classy chef on the left.

A great day out. Thank you Yuko and Naoko.

Lloydnalex

 

2. MADE IN JAPAN, THE BINDERY

The MULLER MARTINI BINDERY LINE produces 3,600 Bibles per hour. 400 meters from go to woe. Actually it's only part of the process as there are a bunch of other machines on another floor producing the cover.

"Siamese twin" Bibles ready to be cut into 2

Quality control

Speeding around the line.



Covers made of PU leather. (No cows were harmed in the making of these covers)

Ready made coveres are attached

Cover quality control checkpoint

Almost done

Shrink wrap

Stacked

 

Into the carton

And automatically palletised, ready to be shipped to a branch near you...

But there is more

There are 2 machines applying the silver foil to the edge of the pages

There is a machine that inserts the markers

There are machines to make the covers

 

A machine that heat embossed the title onto the cover

And many many many hands nimbly working away

Hundreds of happy volunteers

Thank you to all of the brothers in Japan who have contributed to producing these wonderful new Bibles and shipped them to us without charge.

Sayonara,

Lloydnalex

 

1. MADE IN JAPAN, THE PRINTERY

THE ANUAL MEETING

On Sunday October 5th we were among the hundreds at the Australia Bethel KH for the Anual Meeting broadcast...

http://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/activities/events/video-annual-meeting-2013/

Just like all JWs in the English speaking world, we were thoroughy excited to receive the revised New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures in 21 century English.

Where do our new improved Bibles come from? Well, on Sunday night we packed our new gray (American spelling makes more sense to me) Bibles into our old luggage in preparation for our next trip.

So on Monday we left our little room, our teapot collection

and our bonsais, and headed back to Japan.

THE JAPAN PRINTERY

There are just 2 printeries specially equipped to produce these the new Bibles, Walkill New York and Ebina Japan. Japan branch has literally been working overtime to produce and ship these new gray Bibles in their millions. Japan even sent Bibles to the West Coast of the USA.

The MAN LITHOMAN III OFFSET PRINTING PRESS

Since we were here in February/March this year the Bethel family has grown from 750 to 820 in order to cope with the heavy workload and major dead line in producing the Bible.

Here are a few of the 400 smiling workers (that's half of the Bethel family). They have just finished their shift and had their morning worship in the middle of the day. The Printery and bindery has been working 2, sometimes 3 shifts per day...

Freshly printed Bible pages ready for the next stop, the bindery line.

To be continued...

Lloydnalex