Kagoshima – The city shadowed by one of Japan’s most active volcanoes

I’d been wanting to visit Kagoshima for some time, and after being told day in and day out by my parents to watch Joanna Lumley’s Japan documentary, which I did, I was even more sold. This weekend worked out perfectly for that, as not only did I have yet another wonderful Japanese public holiday on Monday, my junior high school gave me daikyu (time off in lieu) on Tuesday in order for me to go to their culture festival this weekend.

Ironically, the day I went on a trip to see one volcano, the one in my prefecture erupted; cue lots of worried messages from people. Fear not everyone, Mt. Aso is a still a fair few miles away (28.6 to be exact). I can only see it smoking in the distance from one of my schools on a GOOD day…

Mt. Sakurajima was by far the highlight of my trip. I was pretty annoyed that the first two days I was in Kagoshima the weather was awful, as most of my plans revolved around taking pictures of said volcano, which under cloud cover looked like a rather unimpressive hill. However, I still kept my plans and had faith.  I went to Sakurajima Island and honestly felt like I’d been transported to Jurassic Park. The hikes I did were beautiful, and despite the torrential rain and not being able to go to the observatories, I had a lot of fun exploring. The next day, my persistence paid off, and after a leisurely stroll through the city, along the pier and to both Ishibashi and Gionnosu Park, I was rewarded with some stunning views of the volcano just 4km away.

 It was a very curry-themed trip, as my first day I stumbled across the first ever Kagoshima curry festival with vendors from all over Japan. It kind of reminded me of the food festival we have at home, and it smelt wonderful. I met up with an old friend Taka, who I met at Keele, for the first time in almost 3 years. He’s a Japanese teacher of English and has his own ALT, and the fact I got placed just one prefecture away is a stroke of luck. Who knows, if he didn’t work at an all-boys school I could have been working with him daily. He took me to eat soup curry, a weird hybrid I’d thoroughly recommend anyone to try too!

After taking me to the most amazing izakaya with alcoves, multiple levels, lanterns and disco balls, he suggested for us to eat raw chicken. Apparently it’s very popular in Kagoshima as it pairs well with the shochu (rice liquor) famously produced there. However my internal screams of *salmonella, salmonella* quickly shut him down. I didn’t know that was a thing, nor should it be. Even worse when I Googled it and found it’s not even thinly sliced, just cobs of the stuff.

   

The thing I love about travelling alone, especially in Japan, is that the most random people strike up conversations with me. At the curry festival, two high school girls came up to me to practice their English and wanted a selfie. That’s probably on their Instagram now with my face embezzled with kawaii stickers for all I know. The old people are super adorable too, but my god, I understand the difference of Kagoshima-ben now… they’re definitely the Scousers of Japan! I can now empathise with everyone having to deal with my accent not sounding like Queen’s English, because I didn’t have a bloody clue.

As I’m writing this, one of my teachers is shouting 'kawaii' at me whilst opening the polar bear cookies I brought back as omiyage. I think that alone makes up for the fact I’m sat looking and feeling like death, stereotypical Asian face mask on (which traps my breath, making me sweat even more than the cold sweats I already have), with no voice to speak of two days before a city-wide English speaking competition.
Sorry children, you’re on your own now, I’m going to spike my lemon & honey with some whiskey to make it through the week.