Nima Sand Museum  Japan

A famous singing beach, "Kotoga Beach" is in a town of the same name (Koto means Japanese harp).  Legend has it that this beach was named in honor of its beautiful musical sands.  Because of this quality, they decided to build a museum there.

The Nima Sand Museum opened to the public on March 3, 1991 and was built as a symbol of singing sand in the world.   The building consists of a cluster of six glass pyramids.  The largest of these is twenty-one meters high and rests on a base whose four sides are each 17 meters long.

Inside the main pyramid stands the world's largest hourglass, five meters high and 1 meter in diameter.  One ton of sand (whose millions of grains have been sorted to make sure each one is about 0.13 millimeters), flows from the upper bulb to the lower bulb.  The so-called "sand calendar" is carefully turned over by a group of townspeople at twelve midnight on the last day of every year.   It takes exactly one year for all the sand to flow through, which is why this hourglass is called the "one year sand clock".   The sand has continuously flowed through the nozzle (0.85mm diameter) ever since the museum opened.   Under the hourglass, there is a large hall, which houses an interesting center for learning and study.
 

"Hour Glass"  (One Year) "Sand Calendar"

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