DAY 10 (HAMAMATSU) August 12, 2024 (repost from KCR/ER1 Japan Tour 2024)

For the first day of non-touring in Japan, we were able to sleep in! It was very nice since it was the first and the last time we will be able to sleep in during this trip. Some people in our group woke up earlier and decided to get up for breakfast in the hotel. However some people, like myself, slept in as much as possible and didn’t make it to have breakfast at the hotel before they stopped serving people. I woke up and started getting ready and then a bunch of us met in the lobby to go out and go shopping and explore Hamamatsu for the first time. Conveniently, there is a large “mall” across the street from our hotel with many stores, places to eat and just a nice area to walk around in.

For the first day of non-touring in Japan, we were able to sleep in! It was very nice since it was the first and the last time we will be able to sleep in during this trip. Some people in our group woke up earlier and decided to get up for breakfast in the hotel. However some people, like myself, slept in as much as possible and didn’t make it to have breakfast at the hotel before they stopped serving people. I woke up and started getting ready and then a bunch of us met in the lobby to go out and go shopping and explore Hamamatsu for the first time. Conveniently, there is a large “mall” across the street from our hotel with many stores, places to eat and just a nice area to walk around in.

For the first day of non-touring in Japan, we were able to sleep in! It was very nice since it was the first and the last time we will be able to sleep in during this trip. Some people in our group woke up earlier and decided to get up for breakfast in the hotel. However some people, like myself, slept in as much as possible and didn’t make it to have breakfast at the hotel before they stopped serving people. I woke up and started getting ready and then a bunch of us met in the lobby to go out and go shopping and explore Hamamatsu for the first time. Conveniently, there is a large “mall” across the street from our hotel with many stores, places to eat and just a nice area to walk around in.

This was an opportunity for the ringers to go around to other choirs and individuals from different countries, or even the same country as themselves, and trade pins and other goodies as well as get to know each other. One of the main reasons for having these symposiums is the connection everyone experiences, and this was just one way for us to do that. The IHC also provided food trucks from local vendors so there was plenty of food and drinks to go around. While we were eating, Sasha, Sam and I (Julia) met two ringers from Tokyo named Yuki and Sae. We all chatted about KCR/ER1’s tour of Japan and talked about some differences between Japan and New York, one of which was the lack of jaywalking in Japan. After we finished eating, Sasha and I moved on and met Hailee and Judy from Hong Kong. We learned that it was their first time at a symposium as we exchanged goodies. They actually found us later in the night to exchange social media handles. Both of us met many more people and exchanged many more pins and by the end of the night, everyone had a nice haul.

This is my name tag with the pins I got today plus some extra things, but some people had even more stuff. The night ended with a mini concert by a Traditional Japanese Drumming choir. They were amazing and it was very cool to see, as most of us haven’t seen anything like that before. I was told that the last time the International Handbell Symposium was held in Japan in 1998, there was a drumming concert similar to what we experienced tonight, but not many people from our choir were there for that, so it was a good experience for the rest of us.

Eventually everyone started trickling back to the hotel for some much needed rest in anticipation for our first massed ringing rehearsal tomorrow morning.

Brie & Julia