Issue 16 - vulcanology
A possibly weekly email about what's been going on in my brain
5 - 11 March 2023
Just wrapping up week five and thus far on this trip the only place I've been to before has been Sapporo though I remember very little of my last visit, possibly because there was significantly less snow and a whole lot more sweltering heat. Now though with Kagoshima, Yakushima and upcoming Nagasaki I'm visiting places I last came to in 2018 and can sort of remember. Not enough to be useful but enough to give me vague deja vu as I wander around the sights and streets.
Kagoshima
There's nothing particularly special about Kagoshima as a city, but I do find myself liking it: pleasantly laid out with key sights on a relatively tight circuit, lovely trams with grass-lined tracks, an active volcano. Oh right I guess that stands out a bit. Nearby Sakurajima is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and the most active in Japan with regular eruptions and the local weather forecast including ash-fall likelihood. There's been an exclusion zone around it since July 2022 so no popping my head into the crater, but I did get to tootle around it on a sightseeing bus.
Kagoshima first though. Google Maps took me to Shiroyama observatory the hard way, namely up several flights of precipitously steep steps that all but required me to have an ice cream at the top; I would find out later that there is a pleasant tree-lined walk that is the correct way to get up to this overlook. The observatory does command arresting views of Sakurajima though when the weather is good and it's not thronged with people as I've seen in some videos. Elsewhere is "History Road" with a statue of Saigo Takamori, figurehead of the Satsuma Rebellion if you know your Japanese history (I sort of do); as well as Senganen Gardens established by the Shimazu clan (again, history) and though it demands a hefty entrance fee its layout is superb and supremely well maintained, as well as giving you a different view of Sakurajima, specifically across some train tracks and between overhead electrical wires.
That volcano though dominates Kagoshima's skyline, and it's only a short hop on a ferry to get to the island where despite its activity, is the permanent residence of about five thousand people. The sightseeing bus takes you around a lot of different sights on the island, but with the exclusion zone in place, the only views available were hazy from near the base.
I ate at an excellent conveyor-belt sushi restaurant visit and almost got blocked from the port by the marathon on Sunday, so all-in-all my brief (return) visit to Kagoshima was hugely enjoyable.
Yakushima
"Dramatic but gorgeous" is how I summarised Yakushima in my tweet. As soon as you get to the island it's hard not to be struck by the severe geography of the place: surrounded by ocean with narrow, scrubby beaches; a verdant, mountainous interior; and a single main road encircling the whole thing. It's most commonly known for being the inspiration for the Princess Mononoke anime film, and when you do any kind of forest walk here it's easy to see why. Everything is covered in moss or ferns and even when it's brilliant sunshine everything seems lush and sodden. Then there's the yakusugi dotted around the island, trees that are at least a thousand years old and grow to dizzying heights. Variants include the younger kosugi - a mere few hundred years old, and the nidaisugi - trees that have been felled and then had another tree (naturally or otherwise) grow from the stump that's left.
After getting the jet foil ferry and picking up my hire car (a Honda Fit) I first stopped off at a shrine in the north of the island built into a cliff-side. It was an impressive and secluded place, though I made the mistake of heading into the cave to see the inner-shrine, only for my exit to be cut off by the local monkeys. One barked at me as I gave it a wide berth and quickly scooted off, hopefully not (further) angering the natives.
The next day I headed to Shiratani Unsui Gorge which involved a drive up some uncomfortably narrow mountain roads that made my ears pop part way up. The area is well developed and offers routes based upon the time it takes to do them. I wasn't about to do the twelve hour round-trip to the famous Jomon-sugi in the centre of the island, but a three hour route was just perfect. Going from paved paths, to wooden steps, to roots and vines and rocks and following the pink trail markers, it offered the perfect balance of difficulty for me, the amateur-walker-avid-pedestrian. Unlike Senpiro falls which I visited afterwards. It, apparently, offered a closer observation deck than the one attached to the car park, but after ten minutes of climbing gnarled thigh-high steps and barely passable cliff-paths, I turned back knowing my limits. I've seen waterfalls before.
The next day I tried Yakusugi Land which is up a longer and more serpentine car journey, this time with the added thrill of roadworks and convex mirrors for seeing around blind, one-lane corners! The area offers similarly timed routes but with more suspension bridges which I think automatically makes it better. Afterwards I tried visiting the Yakusugi Museum however I managed to pick the one day of the month it was closed. I then tried two cafes, both listed as "irregular opening days", both of which were similarly shut, before deciding to call it and end my final day slightly early. Island life.
The ryokan that I stayed at was basic, but the landlady who ran it was always very kind to me, though she did insist on speaking to me through her phone's translation app despite, for the most part, me understanding what she was saying. She regularly gifted me mikan oranges grown locally on the island and, as a parting present, gave me a small fragrant keychain of yakisugi wood that now adorns my camera bag.
Kurokawa Onsen / Mount Aso
After a very brief stop overnight at Kumamoto where I got through a frankly embarrassing amount of laundry, I drove two hours over to Kurokawa Onsen. A hot spring town that has rejected the towering concrete blocks of other such places (looking at you Noboribetsu) for quaint little wooden framed buildings and tight, winding streets.
The ryokan I was staying at - Oku no Yu - was up a narrow road with worryingly dented crash barriers. The chap who greeted me was, I think, the owner of the place (at least he was there all hours of the day) and ran me through the particulars of the baths, when I wanted food, what I was doing the next day (my dude, I barely had this day planned, I have no idea) only to finally tell me my room wouldn't be ready for several hours. A quick explore of the town and a brief trip up to a neighbouring onsen and I was fairly sure I had the measure of the place.
It has the same rustic kind of charm as somewhere like Nikko but feels a lot more manicured; manufactured rather than natural. Still pleasant in its own way, and the light show at night is delightful, but again outside of the hot springs there's little else to do. Except this time I had a car, and while the notion of me getting into a vehicle and driving to a place is still utterly surreal to me, it does mean I get to visit places like Mount Aso.
Another active volcano (huh, this has been a weirdly volcanic week) this time surrounded by a big ol' caldera (crater) which houses Aso town. Near the peak there's a museum with a live camera view of the crater and various exhibits which are annotated, I found out, wholly in Japanese making the already steep entrance fee feel a little wasted. Outside though is Kusasenri - a huge plain of grass that encompasses a lot of the cones that make up the local volcano group. The crater has an exclusion zone around it, so like Sakurajima, no going for a quick dip but the walk around was pleasant even if they'd recently performed a controlled burn of a lot of the grass.
Kurokawa Onsen was a pleasant, relaxing place to visit, but I think the copious number of day trippers, or at least single-nighters, had the right idea.
Side note: language (redux) and travelling
A couple of people have asked me how speaking Japanese is going now that I've been here a little while. Honestly it feels a little like I've regressed. I'm certainly better at extracting info when people are telling me or asking me things, but again, interacting primarily with hospitality staff means there's usually always contextual clues beyond the language.
Whenever someone asks me if Japanese is okay or if I know any Japanese, I always say "a little" (chotto). This usually results in one of three outcomes: they speak Japanese but slowly and with few words and I love them dearly for it, these are usually people who have tried to learn another language and understand the difficulties; they go full bore, see I don't fully comprehend, then switch to slow Japanese along with some English, this I also heartily appreciate; or finally, go full bore and never relent, never slow down, never simplify. I'm not sure if in the last category they think I'm kidding when I say I only know a little, maybe my accent mimicry isn't doing me any favours, but it can often feel infuriating. All this can be compounded by the clear plastic Covid sheeting that is up everywhere, making it hard to hear as much as it can understand.
And finally a bit on the travelling itself: I said a couple of weeks back that my travel legs were coming back, it's been hugely strange going from someone who was effectively sedentary, to someone who Does Things tm. Activities that would have derailed me for an entire day at home get sandwiched together with so many other things. Just being in an airport would have sent me clamouring for calm afterwards, now though I'm back into sightseeing shortly after landing. I do miss the quiet though, just like I miss cups of tea and video games and various other things. Weirdly there's never been a "wow, I'm travelling" moment, or a "glad I'm not a work!" feeling, getting out and seeing and doing things is just what I do now. Not sure if that makes sense, it's a curious, ephemeral feeling.
10-day itinerary
- 12th Mar - Nagasaki
- 13th Mar - Nagasaki
- 14th Mar - transfer to Fukuoka
- 15th Mar - day trip out from Fukuoka
- 16th Mar - transfer to Hiroshima
- 17th Mar - day trip to Miyajima
- 18th Mar - transfer to Onomichi
- 19th Mar - Shimanami Kaido cycle day 1, to Omishima Island
- 20th Mar - Shimanami Kaido cycle day 2, to Imabari, then transfer to Matsuyama
- 21st Mar - Matsuyama
This was hand-crafted by John.