The Volcanic City of Kagoshima

Hotel Rembrant, Kagoshima Thursday 7th Jan 2016.

Time taken on Bullet Train from Hiroshima to Kagoshima this morning- 549km in 2 hours 12 mins!

I found a transcript from the 50’s of Tokyo and Melbourne’s submission to the IOC to host the Olympics. The one question President Juan Antonio Samaranch asked was this. “What will you provide for the athletes and your children’s future post the Olympics?”

Firstly Tokyo – “We will build the fastest train ever that will link an entire country and enable every citizen to support their athletes against the best in the world. The project, known as the Shinkansen, will deliver our people at speeds in excess of 300km an hour and will provide millions of jobs as we cut holes in mountains and build bridges as well as continuing to develop this technology and show our children what a clean, efficient transport system looks like.”

Next, Melbourne – “We’ve built some flats in West Heidelberg. Going forward we will build a state of the art shopping centre that will be called Northland. Also we’ve got plans for an amazing baseball stadium in Altona…the trains will go past that!”

We had a very early start this morning and got on the Shinkansen at 7.30am. Can’t believe the size of the so-called satellite cities that we went through on the way. These aren’t Geelong or Albury’s, they are huge and there was noticeably a lot more big industry happening all the way down interspersed with beautiful countryside not dissimilar to New Zealand’s North Island.

Arrived in Kagoshima, dropped our bags at the hotel and you could see straight away the number 1 attraction, Sakurajima Island, one of the world’s biggest active volcanoes. It’s spectacular but unfortunately, it was quite overcast today. This is what it looks like on a clear day and the hotel room is facing right at it!

The ferry closest to the hotel was a 5 min walk so we took off. The ferry ride was great and took about 30 mins. There is a thriving community over there and it would get extremely busy in summer based on how many car ferries it services. We got on a little bus tour and went to as high as you’re allowed at an observatory and it reminded me of the one at Mt Wellington where you feel like you’re floating over Hobart.

This part of the island was the sight of a rock concert in 2006 that attracted 75,000 people and below is a statue made of lava that an artist did to commemorate it.

You could see the volcanic ash everywhere and extremely fertile looking soil (what’s happening to me?!). There are solid concrete shelters strategically placed in case the volcano goes off big time. The last time it did was nearly a hundred years ago and it deposited lava over 8kms as well as built a natural bridge between it and the mainland! The school children wear hard hats to school just in case!

Great day sightseeing, then got back to the hotel about 5pm. Got to the room and to our utter delight we are looking at the volcano! We also asked about an onsen (hot spring) which are everywhere in these parts given the natural furnace over the road and it turns out the hotel had 2! I asked whether I was ok to use it because I have tattoos and it’s forbidden in most places in Japan. Fortunately, they were fine so we got changed asap and got in to sooth these weary travellers muscles! The 2 pools were magnificent and they even had a foot pool where you stand on hot volcanic rocks and running spring water flows also. Sooo good! To cap it all off I think the volcano farted half an hour in because the pools went from hot spring to hot bubbling spring!