kagoshima II

sittin' at the table in mitsumi's and kijima's house again. i already packed most of my stuff, even though i am leaving only tonight, by night bus to oita (six hours, so i'll be awfully tired when i arrive there, and i have no idea what will happen and if i will be able to find some sleep during that day...), but as some of you know, i am always getting kind of nervous when traveling.
well, anyway, finally i have some time to update you again. it's been a while, ne?
so, basically all went the way i described in my last post: it really is not easy to get around here by car, but one day i walked to the train station (40 minutes) and took a really nice-looking old-style train to kagoshima, the next big city, where i spent one day looking around, thoug there isn't much to see. one garden with a nice view of sakurajima, the volcanoe really close to the city, just at the other side of kagoshima bay. other than that, kagoshima is really an amazingly nondescript city. however, it is historically quite intersting, some of the first contact with foreigners was made here, the first jesuit missionary set foot on japanese ground here, some important people from the meiji restoration time were born here, and a kind of education style was started here, which one information board in the city proudly described as the 'don't ask questions, be obedient' method (or something like that). the board also said that this method had great influence in all japan. awesome. how can one be proud of that?
well, anyway.

the train was kind of a special train, all wooden inside!

do you understand now what i mean with 'fake nature'?

poetry party: you have to compose a poem before the next cup of sake flowed down the stream to you. i am tempted to say 'those crazy japanese' - except the whole idea came from china...

garden, railway and road, kagoshima bay, sakurajima

kagoshima, oh du graue stadt am meer! grey city on the ocean!

luckily, mitsumi could take two days off, and she used them to take me around, which was great. so one day we took the ferry over to sakurajima, the volcanoe next to kagoshima, and went around the island. i've never seen a grayer place. part of it was the weather, sure, but a lot came from sakurajima's ashes. indeed, that volcanoe is really active. until 60 years ago it used to be an island, but then it exploded and so much lava came out that it got connected to the main land, burying three villages on the way.
nevertheless, there are still villages and people around the volcanoe. the soil seems to be very fertile due to the volcanic ash, so the biggest raddish in the world is growing here, whatever good that does. plus, which was more interesting to me, they have some really nice onsen (hotsprings)! we went to one that was located right at the coast, between the rocks. next to it and partlyover the water grew a huuuuuge trea, with a small shrine next to it where a kannon buddha statue was ensrhined. which shows once again how much shinto and buddhism are intertwined here, the more local you get the worse.
anyway, since the place was holy, there was a torii (shinto gate which indicates the place you are entering is holy) you had to go through before entering the water, and you had to were a yukata, something like a bathrobe (nur aus einfacher baumwolle, nicht aus frottee). since the outside bath was mixed, i was kind of glad for the yukata, but since it was white it didn't make too much sense, and you always had to fuzz about keeping it closed. nervig.

sakurajima, as seen from the pier of kagoshima

strange landscape - sharp black rocks, yellowish grass and greenish pine trees

you can't go any closer to the mountain, because it's too dangerous - it could throw stones and worse any moment

ash, ash, stone

that's as close as i dared to get to photograph the onsen

at the same onsen-place, inside: another mixture. the mirror is usually a symbol of the kami (gottheit) here, but behind it is a buddha. whatever. actually, these things don't surprise me at all anymore, i just find them funny. but i remember how absulotely unbelieveable they seemed to me at first...

of course, i also tried sashimi in japan. left, the silverish fish, is kagoshima's speciality

even the graves are covered against the ash

that torii was 3 meters high...

 the next day, mitsumi's mother arrived. quite a personality! very lively, very direct, a little bit noisy, but nice. the three of us spent on day on the peninsuly south of kagoshima, looking at some samurai gardens and a museum for the kamikaze pilots who started from here. the gardens were nice. the museum - well, i don't know. it wasn't as bad as yasukuni, and since i couldn't read the texts, i can't really judge. still, tit felt too much like praising them for their heroic deeds, not so much mourning them for having thrown away their lives so young. one of them was seventeen! and most were just around twenty... seeing their pictures made me very sad, for them and all the people who had to suffer in this war. and it made me mad - how can any government abuse its people like that? (i know, germany wasn't any better.) it is awful to think that with the 'right' kind of education you bring people to think it is good if they throw their lives away. shows how important education is! and it reminded me of the great manga (comic) 'Barefoot Gen' (which tells the story of a boy who survives the atomic bomb in hiroshima), where Gen's oldest brother joins the kamikaze pilots, though his father is strongly opposed to the war, because he thinks it is his duty - and because everyone is looking down at his family because the father is so 'unpatriotic', and he hopes to regain their honour. so sad, how people can be influenced!

really, japanese seem to use cartoon pictures anywhere! it never stops to amaze me

that night we spent in a really elegant huge hotel in kagoshima, and had a nice dinner with typical food (japaner sind manchmal schon ein bisschen essens-fixiert, eine der ersten wichtigen themen bei einer reise ist immer, welches essen für die region typisch ist)

ein klassisches japanisches mahl: anders als in europa hat nicht jeder seinen teller unddas gericht, was er bestellt hat. stattdessen bestellt man diverse verschiedene sachen, von denen alle essen. jeder hat einen eigenen kleinen teller und schälchen mit sojasauce etc. zum dippen, später auch eine eigene reisschale. alles andere steht in schönen unterschiedlichen schalen auf dem tisch, natürlich immer aufs allerschönste angerichtet.

völlerei, völlerei!

still hungry? well, no, that was for my breakfast.

because - next day i left terribly early for yakushima. but that's another story.
so, after yakushima, i came back here. that was the day before yesterday. yesterday then mitsumi took another day off, and we went to ebino, where i had been wanting to go all the time. it's some kind of volcanid highland, several peaks, lakes, and it's part of a national park. we took a nice walk there. one of the peaks was closed to hikers, because it was too active at the moment. later we saw some smoke and, in a playful way, wondered what we would do if it erupted now. when we came home that day we heard it was indeed erupting. but so far it's not dangerous. but still... kinda freaky, kinda scary. also, we went to another onsen (of course!), verybeautifully situated in the mountains, and they had mud which you could put on your skin. so i was completely covered in mud, standing there waiting in the cold air until i could finally go into the hot water. still today, i smell like onsen mud...

wanna take a break?

this is a lake.

hi no de mieru pyon! feuer-ausgang/rausgehen sehen pyon!

talking about the good old ARI days, we remembred bluegon, who had been so good at posing for fotos...

that night, we ate out, all three, because it was kijima's birthday and my last night. upon entering the restaurant i had some kind of culture shock - it was so pretending-to-be-european that i was really confused about which set of behaviour applied here. anyway, the food was great, though the way they served it was somewhere in the middle of european and japanese, so that it ended up a mite inconvenient. (if you are supposed to cut the food on your plate with fork and knife, it's impractical to serve it in something like a soup plate.)
and now? well, i've already packed. and, as you could already read, i got post from back home! so i had another carton which i used to send another parcel back. and when walking to the post office two hours ago, i at some point by accident turned my head and this is what i saw:

yes, it is breaking out. wow. hope nothing more happens today.