Kyushu I : Kagoshima

Well it's been a long time I last posted anything! In the almost five months since I last posted, Ingrid and I have moved to Scotland and have generally been overwhelmed by everything. I never did get around to posting the photos from the final installment of our year in Japan -- our holiday in Kyushu. This omission I shall now correct.

Kyushu is the second of Japan's main islands, and the westermost. We went there for two weeks. After a long shinkansen ride, and then another less fancy train, we finally arrived in Kagoshima, in the far south of Kyushu. A busy port city, in the shadow of one of Japan's most active volcanos.

We took a few interesting trips from here, so this post will just show Kagoshima itself. More posts will follow!

We were staying in a slightly run down corner of the city centre. But if you like concrete and rust there was plenty to see. (There are also some nice older buildings but I didn't get any photos of them.)

Sadly, we never visited the Moomin karaoke.

We spent a surprising amount time hanging out at the port. Spoiler: this was not a nice surprise in every case.

The hotel had a nice terrace on the roof, but the weather was rarely nice enough to really appreciate it. Still, we made the best of it.

Kyushu is famous for its food. The real gastronomes of Japan makde the trip to get stuff that's just a bit better than you get in Tokyo, regional dishes just a bit different, just a bit nicer. This was the first of many excellent meals we had on this holiday, in an oden restaurant called Umeya. The building itself was extremely cool, of wooden construction.

Umeya is in the "old town" of Kagoshima. A super charming area with many little restaurants and bars. Sadly we only spent one night there!

A short trip from the town centre is the Sengan-en, which is the ancestral home of the Shimazu clan, and the site of an old samurai palace with a beautiful garden, including view across the bay to the volanic island of Sakurajima. (NB: no longer an island since its 1914 eruption.)

Also, the samurai lord Shimazu Nariakira set up some steel furnaces here in the 19th century, which are interesting but their ruins are less photogenic.

The old palace is very well preserved. It was still in use by the family until relatively recently.

The house is constructed around a pond with a beautiful maple tree.

The volcano can be seen from almost every point in the city. That's smoke, by the way, not a cloud.

You may not know this, but tonkatsu (pork cutlets) became one of my favourite foods in Japan. Do you where has the best tonkatsu? Kagoshima. Do you know what Ingrid is eating in this picture? The best tonkatsu I have ever had. It was amazing. The thought that there might be a better tonkatsu restaurant somewhere else in town remains a tantalising prospect for a future visit...

Even random bar snacks, like these little bits of herring -- called kibinago -- sashimi, were really good.

But then... disaster.

The weather didn't seem all that bad, but our ferry to Yakushima was cancelled. After milling around in the ferry terminal for a while, trying to find another way, we admitted defeat. We had to spend an extra night in Kagoshima in a cheap hotel, and missed out on a night in fancy hotel we were looking forward to.

We had a sad burger to steady our spirits. We would eventually get to Yakushima, but that is a another post.