City of Music

(Sorry, this should have been posted two weeks ago, but stuff happened.)

The city of Hamamatsu is a half-hour train ride from Toyohashi. The musical instrument industry flourishes in Hamamatsu, to the extent that the city has a monopoly on the production of pianos in Japan. In front of the station stands the Act Tower, a 45 storey skyscraper designed to resemble a harmonica.

Possibly the most famous building in Hamamatsu is Hamamatsu Castle, built by Tokugawa Ieyasu during the sixteenth century and it was where Ieyasu lived for seventeen years. One of the most famous shoguns in Japanese history, Ieyasu seized power following the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 and so ushered in more than two and a half centuries of rule by the Tokugawa shogunate (a time also known as the Edo Period). A fictionalised account of Ieyasu's rise to power can be found in James Clavell's novel Shogun.

In addition to castles and music, Hamamatsu is also famous for its eels (unagi), with a history of over one hundred years of eel cultivation, and eel restaurants are everywhere. The recommended omiyage or souvenir from Hamamatsu is unagi pai (eel pie) which is a type of cake or cookie made with eel bones. It is delicious.