I awoke to an amazing view out the window of our hotel, the rising sun blazing across the waters of the bay, casting sakurajima into dark silhouette. After breakfast at the hotel, we took a ferry across the bay to the volcanic island.
We stayed at the Royal Hotel, center.
I’ve mentioned before that only 7% of Japan is arable land and almost 90% is covered by mountains, so the Japanese have to reclaim as much territory as possible, like those people camped out on the hills.
As we crossed the bay, I tried to think about how it looked to one of my heroes, Ernest Satow, as he sailed the bay in an English man-o’-war in the 1860s. Among the first ryuugakusei, international students, in Japan as an undersecretary at the British Legation, Satow (say-tau in English pronunciation, sah-toh in Japanese) was a contemporary and close friend of Saigo-sama and counted the people of Kyuushu among his greatest companions in Japan.
These two satellite images will give you a clearer picture of sakurajima. The volcano used to be an actual island, but an eruption in the early 20th century formed the land bridge that links it with the rest of Kyuushu. There are several thousand people still living on the island, though it remains active, and there are concrete shelters and deep trenches placed strategically around the island in cases of eruptions and lava flows.
We drove around the southern circumferance of the island, crossed the land bridge, followed the inner coast around the bay, and back to the airport, where we picked up two more Sumiyoshi Rotary members.
Returning from the airport, we stopped at Iso-koen, once the site of the Satsuma cannon foundry and batteries (picked up from Dutch traders at Nagasaki). This was the place that Satow and other members of the British forces shelled in reprisals for attacks by Satsuma against British nationals. Later, as I mentioned, the Satsuma samurai became leaders to modernize during the Meiji era.
The quartered circle is the traditional symbol of the Satsuma fief.
This massive stone lantern is hundreds of years old, topped by a statue of a pouncing lion.
After touring the park, now a memorial to the Shimadzu clan, we met Saigo-san and Shimadzu-san and had a delicious lunch of kuro buta tonkatsu (black pig fried pork chops famous in Kagoshima) and imo shochuu (liquor fermented from sweet potatoes, also special to this area).
We drove from Iso-koen into the mountains again, to Chiran, the former training ground and staging era for the pilots of the “Divine Wind” - kamikaze.
This was a very rough experience — the walls of the memorial museum are covered with hundreds of portraits of the pilots, probably 90 percent of them my age or younger, and there are cases of their letters home and possessions on display, as well as partially reconstructed planes. Outside are row upon row of memorial lanterns for the pilots.
Returning to Kagoshima, we visited Kawashihoko jinja, another shrine associated with the Shimadzu clan, for their annual homecoming festival.
Dozens of paper lanterns, decorated by local schoolchildren, with everything from hand-drawn pictures of samurai and old ships to Pikachu and Ultraman.
This small shrine and the massive tree, ringed with a shimenawa rope marking it as revered, reminded me of Miyazaki Hayao’s famous anime, Tonari no Totoro (”My Neighbor Totoro”), about a massive cat-tree-spirit who befriends two little girls. This isn’t unexpected though — Miyazaki is a Kyuushu native, and you see Totoro murals and scenes from his other movies painted everywhere. If you want to see Kyuushu, just rent a Miyazaki movie (I can recommend many good ones!).
Two little festival-goers — their parents were so pleased that I wanted to get a shot of them in their traditional jinbei and not-so-traditional “Hello Kitty” (kiti-chan) kimono.
Leaving the celebration, we drove deep into the mountains, again, arriving at the Kirishima Sanjo Onsen, a ryokan, traditional hotel, surrounded by natural hot springs. There were more than half a dozen columns of steam rising against the lush scenery, a really beautiful landscape.
The next morning, after a hot bath we had an incredible traditional breakfast — served in small, beautifully-lacquered cabinets as we sat, in light cotton yukata robes, on “king’s chairs” - low-backed seats with a stand-alone armrest on the left-hand side. An elderly oba-san and young helper served us, and a beautiful view out the window completed the scene.
Amazing.
We had one last sightseeing spot, the roaring 20-meter tall Maruo falls, then it was back to Kansai.
It’s hard for me to pick any one trip out the many awesome experiences I’ve had this year, but Kagoshima definitely vies for first place. I am so grateful to Izumi-san and the other members of the Sumiyoshi Club, Okuno-san, and, of course, Saigo-san, for all their generosity and hospitality.
