I had a similar experience when I first worked in a big industrial district. I saw the trucks coming and going, delivering or carting away an enormous variety of raw or partly finished materials and finished or partly finished goods, heard the rattle and clatter and thump and hum of dozens of different kinds of machines, listened to the talk in the crowded, noisy lunch rooms, saw the constant arrival and departure of the suited men who bought or sold materials or services at the various factories and shops and warehouses, watched the be-greased or begrimed or dusty or floury workers cluster at side doors on their coffee breaks, and heard the horns of the ubiquitous snack wagons that patrolled the truck-filled streets. Until then, I'd only ever seen these neighborhoods as big, dull areas stuck around the edges of the real city, and I'd never had any idea how complex and tumultuous the whole operation of an industrial society was.
Just about everyone becomes familiar with offices of one sort or another fairly early in life, as well as the small establishments where cars are repaired, and retail shops and food markets and eating establishments of one sort or another even earlier, but many people never get a close-up view of either agriculture or any sort of heavy industry. It's all stuff they just pass by in their cars. Of course, even I have never gotten to see the inside of a mine, or the engine decks of a ship, or any of countless other sorts of places where the world's work goes on. I've never been inside one of those places where sparks fly and fire is belched, either, though I did used to pass by a foundry of some sort in the area southeast of downtown Los Angeles, and was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of something being poured and emitting both a hellish light and an unearthly roar. It was quite a splendid sight, and quite the opposite of our placid local apple orchard. I wouldn't mind seeing it again someday, but I'm sure I'd prefer the orchard as a neighbor.