rain - faqjapan.com

My hotel breakfast is of the classic help-yourself-to-as-much-food-as-you-like style. Not wanting to look greedy, I grab a bowl of rice,some pickled cucumber, a pot of Natt, a salad, and a couple ofcroissants. Natt for breakfast, that will wake anybody up, even the dead. I add mustard to abolish the abhorrent taste.nThe day is overcast and threatening rain, but oddly I cant find my umbrella. This happens a lot actually. The rain stops, I leave my umbrella outside a shop, and when I leave the shop I have completely forgotten about it.Without anumbrella, I desperately hope the rain holds off. Quite predictably, the momentI leave the hotel, it starts to rain.nToday Ihavejust two things on my list of things to see. Two things, both very far apart; and this is Japan, so I am bound to see something else interesting along the way. Like a shop in the shape of a boat, for instance.nnnnnI head into Arc City, and to the Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments. This is the largest municipal museum of musical instruments in Asia and was the very first of its kind toopen up in Japan. The museum has an incredible 1,200musical instruments on display. It costs just 400 to enter.nFor most of the instruments, there are twosets of headphones. I take great pleasure in looking at each instrument, studying its shape, and guessing how I think it would have sounded, before selecting a pair of headphones and listening to how it sounds. A great way to kill a morning.nnThe museum has instruments from all over the world; huge sections divided by continent. I learn all kinds of facts about music here. I am particularity interested in transverse flutes, shakuhachi flutes, and Japanese taikoand tsuzumidrums. I also discover that the very firstJapanese-made piano was made right here in Hamamatsu. That might explain all of the music shops, Romantic era traffic lights,museums, and two concert halls.nThere is a hands-on room where I get to enjoy playing various instruments. Thespinet pianois probably my favourite to play. I end up losing track of time in the museum and leave after two or three hours.nOutside, the Cicadas continue to make music of their own, despite the extremely heavy rain. At least one guy seems to be enjoying the downpour.nnI take shelter from the weather inside HamamatsuStation. After taking seven escalators to the 8th floor of the shopping complex, I arrive ata bookshop. In Japan, it is perfectly fine to stand around or sit around reading books in a bookshop. It is also fine to stand in a convenience store for hours, reading magazines; completely normal in Japan. I kill fifteen minutes here, before heading back down, to find that the storm has intensified.nEveryone at the station seems just about as prepared as me. They huddle around without umbrellas, waiting for the rain to stop. I dash to Seven Eleven and pay 540 for perhaps my sixth umbrella of this journey. The buildingsaround meenveloped in a white mist of falling water, and I wasplanning on going to the beach today too.nnA time passes andI find myself sittingon the only bench in that lonely shopping arcade.I cant go back tomy hotel for a few more hours thanks tocleaning. The safest place to be in a storm like this is probably a shop shaped like a boat, I imagine.nAfter a while, the rain calms itself down, so I walk to the beach. It takes me one hour. The beach is special because it contains the Nakatajima Sand Dunes. It is also a conservation area for the Nesting Loggerhead Sea Turtle. They land onthisbeach during the summer to lay their eggs.nPrazeremreceb-los! says adrawing of a Loggerhead Sea Turtle, in fluent Portuguese.n Nice to meet you, too! I reply, in fluent English.nnThe area of sand dunes here are amongst the three largest in Japan, and the wooden fences are here to help conserve them. Do not damage the fences! a sign warns. The wind is a lot stronger here, and my umbrella is no good; unless I want umbrella numbersix turned inside-out by the wind.nBy the time I reach the sea, I am completely soaked. I was really hoping to see a turtle, but I sadly cant find any; not too surprising really, they are a rare and endangered species. After the beach, I head to a nearby park. There is a big man-made hill in the park built specifically as a tsunami evacuation point. There is also a windmill and a set of swings. I rest my legs for a while.nnOn my walk back to the hotel, I pass a Pachinkoparlour called, God. I also passdozens of construction sites promising modern skyscrapers;office blocks and apartments.It seems that the southern part of Hamamatsu is the last and latestto bedeveloped, perhaps in four or five years,this place wontseem so desolate.nThe rain stops just before I cross the river.nnAfter walking for an hour, alone, my thoughts begin to wander and I drift off into a daydream.nBack at the hotel, I cant recall walking here, but I am here all the same. I dry off, then spend some time researching mytrains for tomorrow. It turns out I have another four and a half hour local train marathon to endure. I dont really mind though; I amfinally heading back home, back toTokyo after forty-eight days of being away.nRead the next part of my Journey in Japan, where I return to Tokyo in time for two massive festivals, and meet a dog in a bar by clicking here.

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