Finally, after several months of hot, hot, humid weather, I could feel a collective sigh for the weather we encountered in Kagoshima Japan on June 15 (Day 153) of our trip. It was a cloudy day, and our tour guide apologized for the heat of the day. It was warm, but one of the passengers said to me: “You should have been where we have been if you think this is hot.”
Kagoshima is a delightful place. There are many islands that make up Japan. Kagoshima is the southernmost part of the main Japanese islands. The tour guide kept referring to Kagoshima as the southern point of the Japanese Mainland. That was confusing because it is also one of four large islands. On returning to the ship, Wikipedia helped to clarify:
“Mainland Japan” (内地, naichi, lit. “inner lands”) is a term used to distinguish Japan‘s core land area from its outlying territories. It is most commonly used to distinguish the country’s four largest islands (Hokkaidō, Honshū, Kyūshū and Shikoku) from smaller islands such as the Ryukyu Islands and Ogasawara Islands, although depending on the context the term “Mainland Japan” might refer only to Honshū, the largest island.:”
Mainland Japan is a very long set of four islands.. Our guide used a helpful analogy. Kagoshima in the south is about the same latitude as the border of the United States with Mexico. The most northern part of Mainland Japan is about where the United States borders Canada. That helped me locate our journey northward through many upcoming Japanese ports onto the globe. It also gave me comfort that we have left the subtropical climate.
Japan has many mountains, earthquakes, and volcanos. We took a Ferry from Kagoshima to visit the peninsula of the Sakurajima volcano.
Sakurajima is the most active volcano in Japan, and a very young volcano. We could see it spilling ash from its right side from the ferry.
So far, my experience of Japan has been one of efficiency. Our bus drove into the ferry port. We were directed into efficient lines, drove onto the ferry, had a 15 minute ride over to the volcano site, drove right off. Everything was on time and very well organized.
Once on the peninsula, we could learned the ways that the people who still live in the volcano’s shadow have tried to protect themselves. They have constructed dry concrete rivers to contain ash and landslide material that can come down from the volcano.
They have built many of this type of shelter to provide some hope if a person couldn’t get away in time from a lava flow.
When a warning signal and announcer’s voice in Japanese was broadcast from this place near the volcano, we were all very glad to have our guide nearby. She assured us that this was just a test.
This visit provided a beautiful reminder of the power of nature.
After our bus returned to Kagoshima on the ferry, we visited Senganen garden. This garden contained a house built in 1658 by Shimadzu Mitsuhisa of the Shimadzu clan. Some of the house was closed and I did not visit it, but we learned that it had been visited by Edward VIII of the UK and Nicholas II of Russia.
I did I enjoyed the walk through the planned asymmetrical gardens.
The garden designers used the nearby mountains as a backdrop to many of the views.
They incorporated natural features.
And the volcano was visible from most places in the garden.
The day ended with one of those beautiful cruise evenings, watching the sunset as we sailed by islands.
This is one of my favorites among the places you’ve told us about: the beauty, the efficiency, and the ingenuity of the ash rivers. And thank you for sharing the analogy of the Mexican and Canadian borders–I feel smarter already.
I can feel the breath of cool air as you sail north