Kumamoto to Kagoshima

Sunday morning was beautiful.  Here was the view of the castle from our hotel window.

We were up sort of early and went out to find a Western breakfast, which we found in one of the nearby shopping arcades.  We had basically a ham and egg (which was really more like egg salad) on white toast with lettuce and tomato and a cup of coffee.  The cost was about $5.  Then we went off to see the Kumamoto Prefectural Crafts museum before heading out of town.  It was a gorgeous day.  Not a cloud in the sky and cool temperatures.  We really have lucked out on the weather.  OK, two more pictures of the cherry trees and the castle.

It was off to Kagoshima.  Rather than springing the 1,000 yen or so ($12) for a cab ride from the hotel to the train station, Andrea wanted to take the Loop Bus, which does a circle around the tourist sites and stops at the train station and only costs 130 yen a piece.  That all sounds great, except for the 35 minutes it took to go 3 km!  The benefit, though, is that we got to go through the heavily populated cherry tree areas around Kumamoto Castle and they are in full bloom.  Absolutely gorgeous and the spectacular weather was even better.

Finally we got to travel on a Shinkansen.  We have been in the country for about a week and we've been on local trains, buses and ferries, but no Shinkansen yet.  The trip from Kumamoto to Kagoshima was fast and smooth.  What a way to travel.  Another aside here is that it is fantastic traveling with the little wireless access device that Andrea has rented for the month to give us access to the Internet.  It has worked remarkably well everywhere we have been.  On the train, we were able to sit and look things up about our destination as we rapidly sped to it.

The Kagoshima main train station was very modern and bustling.  Since we had another train to take and wanted to do a little sightseeing in Kagoshima, we looked for lockers to store our suitcases.  Rows and rows of lockers and, somewhat amazingly, all of them were in use.  We got some bum directions on where to find some additional ones but, after a bit of a wild goose chase, we found a couple and were able to stow our bags.

Kagoshima is almost at the southern tip of the shorter of the two most southern peninsulas on Kyushu.  We learned that it was the first place that Christianity came to Japan (which is not surprising as it is one of the port closest to where someone would have sailed.  What dominates the landscape in Kagoshima is Mt. Sakurajima, an active volcano that is just across the harbor.  It can't be that active, though, as there are many homes and other buildings that ring the base.  Here's what it  looks like.

Pretty impressive, huh?  Well we were off to Senganen Garden.  It was a pleasant way to spend an hour, but there wasn't anything particularly captivating about this garden.  I couldn't convince Andrea to go up to the waterfall viewing site, as it was a 300m walk uphill.  So I scooted up and she wandered around down in the main part of the garden.  Here is evidence that I made it:

We then took a visit to the Kagoshima Aquarium, which on a Sunday afternoon was chock full of kids.  A lot of good tanks, with many interesting fish and other sea life.  Then back to the station and on to a local train down to our next stop - Ibusuki (pronounced "ee-boo-ski).  More on that in the next post.