Rain at Hyakuna Garan

On days when it rains at Hyakuna Garan, I do nothing at all, and simply spend the day watching the rain fall on the sea.

The sea stretches out before me. Gazing idly at its faintly foaming surface, I listen to the hushed music woven by the waves and the rain.

Now and then a cool breeze, carried in by the rain, brushes my skin. When the rain grows heavier, it slides off the Ryukyu red roof tiles of Hyakuna Garan and pours down all at once from the eaves, which have no gutters, so that it feels like watching the sea blur behind a curtain of rain.

The rain drums on the huge leaves of the giant taro growing in clumps all over the grounds, gathering into fat drops that roll off onto the ground. The plants of the small forest within the hotel come back to life, fragrant once more, and glisten in the wet.

On days when it rains at Hyakuna Garan, before I know it, body and mind come untied, and a deep joy, something like nostalgia, wells up and fills me.