Beautiful Music, Dildo Caverns and Disgusting Dog Park

Whew! What a day. I had another tough night, as my throat kept me awake much of the night. I felt much better when I sat up, but lying down kept making me cough and gag. So I decided I might as well go on the day trip that the Suzukis had planned for me. Better than sitting around moaning, and would make me so tired I would fall asleep regardless of the scratchy throat. But of course they worried over me the entire day. Our first stop was the Musical Instrument Museum here in Hamamatsu. Hamamatsu is famous for musical instruments as Yamaha started here. Yes the Yamaha of pianos and motercycles. (Actually the Hamamatsu area was a breeding ground for many renowned businessmen and there beginings including Suzuki, Honda and Toyota). The museum is located adjacent to Act Tower, and yesterday as Mikio and I were passing it I said we need to go there someday. Well someday came really quickly. They had never been before and got excited about it. It was really wonderful. I spent most of my time in the European Musical instrument section learning the differences between them. I now understand how a harpsicord is different from a piano from a spinnet. Plus the crafstmanship was amazing. These aren't just instruments, they are works of art. And they had a fun section where you get to bang around on various non-museum pieces. As the only song I know is Mary Had a Little Lamb I tried it on everything from bongos to the xylophone, with a little freestyling too.

Then off to lunch and then the neighboring metropolis of Inasa. So we went to visit the cave that had the stalactites that I got so confused about in a previous post. And Ryugashi-Do was wonderful. Wonderful stalactites and stalagtites and interesting cave formations. The fact that none of them were over 2 feet in length was quite the suprise. I spent the whole hour trying not to burst out laughing. Although I wasn't expecting Carlsbad Caverns, I found this quite....pitiful. And the fact that most of the stalagmites were about 6 inches tall and looked like dildos and boobs only made that much harder not to asphyxiate. I have tears in my eyes as I type this entry from laughing finally. There were tour buses bringing people out to see this cavern!
Then we made a side trip over to the Dog Park. The Suzuki's didn't know what it was but decided it sounded fun. It was a disaster. Quite expensive. The dogs were in a small petting zoo like set up and it was not good. I won't even go into specifics except to say that there was alot of abnormal behavior going on. We left within 15 minutes and went shopping to try and get it out of our minds. They took me to a drug store to help me find a cough suppressant and then to another store to help me look for a plug to my kotatsu. A kotatsu is a low table with a heater attached to the underside, which you then cover the entire thing with a big futon type blanket and weather the winter. I've got mine working now, but I'm not sure I can use it to replace the regular room heater. Well, my plan worked and I am so tired I am sure I can fall asleep in minutes, no matter the throat situation.