We had our last tour breakfast this morning and we’re off to drop our bags at our new hotel (Hyatt). Then to the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kagoshima for the day. 174 miles in just a little over 2 hours.
Tickets for the Shinkansen are not as straightforward as you’d think. We realized we needed to get in line to get our tickets, like will call. uh oh!. Long line! (FYI the Shinkansen is always on time.) Luckily the line moved and the ticketing agent knew what she was doing. We received 9 ticket-like pieces of paper for a round trip, one was a receipt and 2 tickets per person per trip. Two tickets go into the gate at time, this is important to know. I put one in and the gates shut and the red lights flashed and siren sounded - no wonder Tom always sends me first.
We arrived in Kagoshima 4 minutes late - wha!?! Trains are not late in Japan. We decided on a taxi to the ferry (10 mins vs 30 mins on the streetcar), we didn't have much time here.
There are things to see in Kagoshima but our desire was...the volcano (surprised?) The volcano is Mt Sakurajima, formerly on an island but it made more land and is now on a peninsula. It is the most active volcano in Japan. I think I should have done more reading on that before I decided to go...
It was overcast as we took the ferry over to is, so we couldn't see the volcano yet. There is a Hop on/Hop off kind of bus around the volcano, so we got tickets for that. The bus makes a loop that take about an hour and there are 12 spots were you can get off and another bus come 30 mins later. We decide to visit the Volcanic Sabo Center. We are on the bus and I see people on the other side of the bus getting excited. I look out the window and there's a huge plume of smoke, I'm assuming it's coming out of the volcano. I start looking around to see if people are evacuating... is the bus gonna take us to safety? are people leaving...? Nope. The bus keeps driving. All the car are just in traffic as normal... Meanwhile this enormous gray cloud continues to morph and billow out of the volcano.
We get off at the volcanic center and we're the only ones. The bus driver didn't say "it's not safe" or look scared or anything. So we hesitantly got off the bus. (I'm still waiting to be evacuated.) We go into the volcanic center, no one's there either. Remember paragraph 4, the most active volcano in Japan.
One of the exhibits in this center was the early warning system they have in place to alert to an eruption. If you live here you live with a live volcano! One of the bus stops is a hike to a former elementary school that was too close.
Next to the center is a "river" only it's not a river it's an outlet for a lahar, so it's empty right now. It was a really interesting place. I got to bring some ash home with me, I'll add it to my collection with Mt. St. Helen's ash.
https://www.flickr.com/gp/8663407@N07/N8s42y2x6g
We had Shinkansen tickets so we had to get back to the train station. We left the volcano in plenty of time... or did we. It would have been okay had we not gotten on the wrong street car. A fast walk/run to the train station got us there in time.
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