Kagoshima - 4th visit

1st : Exam with Keat
2nd : Visa matters with mom
3rd : Simple tour with siblings and Cal. (i'll blog about it after i've received the photos)
4th : Fizah's friend, Sayaka's grandma's sponsored us... she's too kind...
5th : Canoe club's year-end-party (same time i'll be having christmas party at Takaoka ,which means no 5th time)

Warm-up with a simple introduction.

Kagoshima is a prefecture (state) next to Miyazaki. A bus ride to Kagoshima city ... 2.5 hrs.
I love that place. It has a tram system, shinkansen, very nice train station, and even Keat agrees that the girls there are pretty. Well, it feels like it is more polluted than miyazaki though. And Miyazaki's train station is not bad too ya know...

Anyway, Kagoshima is known as Naples of Japan because...

   Mount Vesuvius and Naples from Monte Faito. (flickr)

   Mount Sakurajima (active) and Kagoshima from 'Bukit' Shiroyama.

I love it here

So we started off as early as 8am when Ikeda-san (Miya city council employee who knows about Malaysia) picked us up. Went to some neighbourhood nearby and met up with Sayaka's family and another family from Singapore.

Boarded a mirobus and off we go !!

First stop - Vinegar manufacturing place thingy...

Vinegar is famous here... Even TVBHK's tv program about dining in Kyushu featured it. But it isnt easily accessible. Free vinegar testing too.

                            Pots of fermenting vinegar. Like a graveyard.                       Only here, I get to see clouds

Second stop - lunch break at Tarumizu, and free foot spa.

 
The white patch is smoke, according to what i see after 15x digital zoom

Spot the foreigners!!

Third Stop : Sakurajima.

Drove into the volcanic peninsula (the whole peninsula is a volcano). As we enter, the physical appearance of the place changes dramatically.

Sakurajima town is a town where there's a supermarket, hospital, school, everything a town needs.
Every household has a mini concrete tunnel. The soil here is so fertile, radishes grown here are bigger than a baby

Fourth stop : Ferry to Kagoshima.

Its just a boat... I don't have to describe it in detail

                                               Kagoshima city

Last stop : Kagoshima city.

Climbed Mount Shiroyama. (well, the bus did 3quarter of climbing for us actually)

History lesson : Saigo is an iconic fella in Kagoshima who had dreams to change and revolutionizing Japan. He lost in some war and he killed himself the samurai way; stab his stomach with a sword, drag it left (or right) then die. The place where he did it was inside a tunnel at the base of this mountain.

Took the ferris wheel and viewed the city before sunset. The view wasnt spectacular. Sun sets in the west and the volcano is on the east...
We had dinner at Kajiki. The end.

Autumn in Southern Kyushu; a windbreaker comes in handier than a jacket.

Peace...