Trip to Kyushu: Kagoshima

Stop number three on our week-long trip was Kagoshima. I served here as a missionary in two stints to start my mission (5 months in the city of Kagoshima) and to end my mission (3 months in the suburb of Taniyama).

For you Japanese history buffs and Tom Cruise fans, Kagoshima is the home to a guy by the name of Saigo Takamori, who is a local hero. Saigo, once a military man closely allied with the imperial government, he resigned his position in a huff because the government didn't go along with his proposal to attack Korea over their failure to recongize the newly formed Japanese government. He returned home to Kagoshima and with 40,000 disaffected samurai, and local soldiers, he led what is known as the Satsuma Rebellion. They got as far as Kumamoto, burning the castle, before being driven back to Kagoshima. The final battle was the basis for Ken Watanabe's character in the Tom Cruise movie The Last Samurai.

Kagoshima is also known for it's gigantic, and quite active, volcano Mt. Sakurajima. It's quite a spectacular sight! It sits 15 minutes by ferry across the bay from from Kagoshima and dominates the view from almost any part of the city. The volcano used to be an island until an eruption in 1914 poured enough lava and rock to bridge the watery gap between the island and the nearby peninsula. Ash is spewn daily from the volcano and on particularly heavy days, if the wind is just right, it can feel as if a light rain is falling on you...but not a refreshing rain. As missionaries who would have to bike in this kind of environment, our shirt pockets would fill with ash and if we had a cold or allergies, the phlegm would be black. And let me tell you, when it actually did rain, the mixture of water and the ultra fine ash made for slippery roads. Good times.

We decided to stay two nights at the Furusato Kanko Hotel, on the volcano itself. The hotel has a famous hot spring that backs up against the bay. We enjoyed the expansive views the sounds of the lapping waves. The hot spring also has a shrine inside it, which meant that so as to not offend the kami (god of the shrine) we had to wear cotton robes to cover our nakedness. The benefit was that it was a mixed gender pool so we could enjoy the hot spring as a family. They even had tiny robes for Anthon and Ella, which was so cute. Spending that time in the hot spring was definitely a top 5 highlight of the entire trip. The hotel can be a bit pricey, but it's worth it. Dinner and breakfast are included and each night you dine in your own private tatami room. The food is quite good and focuses on local cuisines (pork, sashimi, etc.)

Our time in Kagoshima was spent touring the volcano (which has a large park filled with large fiberglass dinosaurs of all random things) and traveling south of Kagoshima to see the massive tea fields outside of Chiran. We also spent time in a museum dedicated to the kamikaze pilots who at the end of World War II were sent to die as a last ditch effort to prevent defeat. More on that later as it deserves its own lengthy post. And above all it was nostalgic for me to be back in Kagoshima.

Click on any of the pictures to be taken to a gallery of photos.