The Japan Diaries- Hama Hama Hammamatsu!

Hammamatsu is here!




The other kind of couchsurfing.





Tucked away in the nether regions (by nether, I mean lower) of Japan is the small town of Hammamatsu.

Hamma what?

Hamma-matsu.

Even some Japanese, mainly the Tokyo-ians, Osaka-ians, and Kyoto-ians, have never heard of this place. However, by a stroke of luck, we managed to find this small idyllic seaside town on the vast cyberspace while doing our trip research. Even better, as if it is God's will, well, come to think of it it IS GOD'S WILL, we found a person on couchsurfing.org who is willing to open his house to all 5 of us in that very town.

The small city of Hammamatsu is an industrial hub, where the factory of Yamaha is located. Most of the town's population work there, including the person who hosted us. To showcase their "musical" side, their tallest building, which is 40 stories, is shaped like a harmonica. Well, that's what it says in the wiki travel guide. When we arrived and spotted the tallest building, it looked odd but hardly like a harmonica. Maybe we lack the imagination the Japanese have.

We reached Hammamatsu in the afternoon, after underestimating the time taken to get from Masa's to the train station in Osaka, and so had to wait for another train. (Which caused me to get into a bad mood because I was the transport IC. Sorry girls!) After we managed to squeeze all our huge backpacks into the lockers at the train station, we had a lazy afternoon window shopping and chit chatting at the local Japanese Starbucks outlet. Yuji, the guy who hosted us, only ended work at 6pm, so we could only go to his apartment after he'd returned home. It was the first time we tried couchsurfing, i.e staying at a complete stranger's house for free (but we bought gifts), and were a wee bit scared.

However, our fears were unfounded. Yuji was a very nice guy (with a Singaporean girlfriend too!) and he is a Christian in an international church. He spoke very good English. On the first night, we sang a lot of praise and worship songs in his apartment. His very cool apartment. It was quite obviously a bachalor pad, overlooking a really huge lake, with a bedroom, a kitchen and a small living room, all nicely and tastefully decorated. He even said on good days, you could see Mount Fuji directly from his window.

Most of all, he liked our gifts of Ba Kua and Kaya very much. He loved the Lim Chee Guan ba kua.

He showed us to our room, (not the couch, but a room) and it was a small room with some space in the middle. He gave us 2 thin mattresses, some blankets and pillows, which we laid on the floor and tried various formations to fit all 5 of us. In the end, we were no more than 10cm apart from each other when we went to sleep at night. Felicia, being the lightest sleeper of us all, didn't manage to get any sleep at all.

The next day, we went to explore the more earthy side of Japan. After all the urban skyscrapers and Matsumoto Kiyoshis (Japan's equivalent of Watson's), we finally caught a nice breath of nature. And breathe we did, for we hiked up a hill trying to find the Musical Museum which overlooked another huge lake, all while singing olden pop songs at the top of our voices. In the end, entry to the Museum was not cheap, and so we went back down. It was a nice, slow day and I remembered that we ate our dinner outside- which led to Yuji being a little sad. He was waiting for us to come eat dinner with him.




Yuji and us, on the last day. Felicia's eyebags were getting heavier when we left.


The very next day and the last day in Hammamatsu, we made it a point to eat dinner with him. We talked about the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo, and he suggested we watch one of his favourite Ghibli Studios film- Castle in the Sky at home. For those who don't really know, Ghibli Studios is the biggest movie animation studio in Japan. They produce movies like Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle and most recently, Ponyo By the Cliff By the Sea. So after a day of strawberry picking and limestone cave exploring, we were back at his apartment, helping him out as he cooked up a feast. Then it was time for the movie! At first, we were thinking how he'd play the movie, since there was no TV in the living room. He merely pulled down the white blind that covers the balcony door, then from the kitchen cupboard came a beam of light. He had a gaming console that could play DVDs, and he used a projector. Such space saving brilliance!

Sad to say though, yours truly had a dreadful bout of food coma, and was struggling to stay awake throughout the entire film in oh-so-deadly-comfortable living room.

But, come to think of it, it was a really good couchsurfing experience. It shows that we all can be nice, even to unknown strangers. There is hope in this world yet.



In the Fruit Park after picking strawberries.



Emo shot while waiting for the train as we leave the Fruit Park.



The sunset from Yuji's house. On a clear day, you could see Mount Fuji.