Tuesday, October 7, 2014

2014年8月5日ー7日

August 5th:

August 5th was a day of preparation. I had planned a 6-day trip, along with Emilio, Erika, and Kitty, to visit Kagoshima and Hiroshima. We managed to budget the trip beautifully thanks to Peach Airline's summer deals. Our flight down to Kagoshima only cost about 70 dollars. Hostels and hotels ran about 20 dollars a night as well. Anyhow, in order to catch our early morning flight on the 6th, we had to take the last train down on the 5th and spend the night in the terminal. It was pretty hot inside the terminal, but we managed to find some benches to assemble into a makeshift bed. And after a lovely McDonald's airport dinner of four 1-dollar burgers, we crashed until sunrise.

McDonald's selfie. 
August 6th:

The first day of our adventure and we were all pretty wiped out from poor sleep. We made our way through security and finally boarded the Peach Airline Airbus A-320-200. The inside of the airplane, like for my flight to Taipei, was all pink, with chairs alternating purple and pink leather. The flight attendants also wore fully pink outfits. Everything was just so darn cute..

Tada! Peach Ailines

Takeoff from Kansai International Airport
I managed to sleep in a really strange position in the cramped airplane. I was just so tired. We arrive in Kagoshima around 9:30 and didn't waste time. Erika had planned a pretty precise itinerary for our arrival. We took a bus in the Kirishima area, which can be described as a high-elevation, highly volcanic region in Kagoshima prefecture on Kyushu, the southernmost island of the main 4 Japanese islands. We stopped at a visitors center to drop off our luggage from our flight and plan out a hike for the day. The area around the mountain village reeked of sulfuric gases coming up from the volcanic vents. You could see the hillsides marked by trails of sulfur climbing into the air, and you could trace each trail of sulfuric gas down to a natural hot spring. Despite the awful smell, it was a beautiful sight. Some people even used the heat from the gases to cook food. Here are pictures from the hike we did that day.

Stinky, but looks fresh and tasty.

A mountain stream.

The first of 3 caldera lakes we hit. The pH in this water was somewhere around 5 I think, so it was pretty acidic.

The trail through some high elevation forests.

The second and much larger of three caldera lakes we hit.

A mountain shrine.

The third. For this caldera lake, we stood with our waists at water level from behind a small natural damn. 

Tons of water bugs on the surface.

A hillside where lava used to flow.

They were troopers for hiking the whole day with Emilio and I. I told them "pretend you are having fun" for this shot.

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Emilio with the another peak behind him. At this point we were shooting for the highest peak. 

You know me and my animal fascination by now. 

The peak Emilio was pictured in before.

Another nearby peak. At this point, some bad weather was starting to roll in, and Emilio and I still wanted to see the massive crater at the top, we starting running.





This was the crater at the top. EPIC!!

Had to get a shot at the top. Look at the houses in the valley in the backdrop. EPIC!!!

How many trails of gasses can you find?


After the hike, we found a place to take a foot bath. Basically, it was just another naturally heated pool to stick your legs in after the hike. And it felt incredible, considering we had run a good little chunk to the top of 韓国岳 Mount Karakuni. Oh, as a funny back story, the mountain is called Mount Korea in Japanese because in ancient times, it was said that the mountain is so high, you can see Korea from it. Anyhow, beautiful place, but we needed to head to Kagoshima city to find out hotel. So we stopped by this tiny village. The people living there rarely saw foreigners, so they were extremely friendly and helpful in guiding us to the local train station. The train was this tiny 2-cart local train that took us through some beautiful places. And after some rounds of card games and some sleep, we arrived in Kagoshima city and walked to our hotel. The hotel had lovely complimentary robes, which we had some fun with before going to sleep.

Looking seductive with my "Coolish" vanilla ice cream. 

Emilio turned up the swag and popped his collar.
August 7th:

The second day of the trip. We slept relatively early because we were dead tired. In the morning, we planned to go to a beach in Kagoshima. Before that, we got a hearty ミスタードーナッツ Mister Donuts breakfast.  Here are pictures from the day:

Across the street from the Mister Donuts was a huge Pikachu moon bounce. Could it get more classic Japan? 

The landscape around the buildings consisted of steep tree-covered hills. 

And of course, the view on 桜島 Sakurajima, a lonely, but triumphant active volcano island in the middle of the sheltered bay. This was the view from the beach we were at. Absolutely gorgeous.
The beach itself was really nice (duh!). The waves were nonexistent, but the life guards insisted on keeping us from swimming out too far. I realized that the average Japanese seems to have a pretty deep fear of waves. Understandably so, considering the history of devastating tsunamis. Anyhow, it was interesting weather, sunny at first, but as noon crept in, we could see a massive wall of rain heading out way -- quickly! Instead of finding shelter, we walked out and embraced the cool, heavy drops pelting our bare bodies, something that is rare in southern California. After a nice lunch, we started heading back towards the city center, where we had a delicious dinner. Kagoshima is very famous for its 黒豚 Kurobuta (Black hair swine pork). Luckily for us, there best 25 restaurants in Kagoshima were placed right near the station in a charming, traditional style mini-village. I mean there were a bunch of tiny restaurants with outdoor eating areas, as well as some bars and entertainment in the decorated outdoor area. Here are pictures of what I mean:

All the employees and chefs even dressed in traditional style. 

And it was pretty empty when we got there. Look at the contrast of the building in the background to the village's style. 

Check out those beautiful lanterns.

And of course the beautiful people. 
Dinner was delicious. I had a delicious bowl of 黒豚ラーメン Kurobuta Ramen and the girls had 黒豚しゃぶしゃぶ Kurobuta Shabushabu. We fell in love with the place. After the dinner, we made way for a nice view point in the city. Atop 白山 Shiroyama, there was a big hotel with a nice 温泉 Onsen bath house and view of the Kagoshima city area. It was a bit of a hike up the steep hillside, but we managed with some 7-11 ice creams to energize us. Here are pictures from the spot:

Hiking along the river to get to the hill. 
 Kagoshima: drink it up, always go down easy.
This was the entrance to the hotel at the top. If I imagine the entrance to heaven, I'd imagine something like this with a dirt path. 
What a great of day of sightseeing. And there was still so much to see. We had walked more or less everywhere we went, another perk to Kagoshima. It's a pretty small city, so within the main city area, you won't have to walk more than 40 minutes to get around. This fact also left us exhausted at the end of a day. 

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