4 9 KAGOSHIMA, JAPAN

Today started out early.  Arleen got up at 5:30 to check the weather and look for Sakurajima.  Sakurajima is one of the world’s most active seismic sites.  It erupted last in 1960, but has been smoldering every since.  They call it smoldering.  What we saw this morning was eruptions.  OK, they were not a mile in the air like the big ones, but ash and clouds were blown up higher than the rain clouds.

No, these are not the same eruptions.  The locals are very glad when the volcano erupts, since as long as it is letting off steam, so to speak, a large explosion is less likely.  The volcano used to be a separate island, but about 100 years ago, enough lava flowed to connect it to the rest of Kagoshima.

Yes, here we are, looking at the volcano and it is raining.  It has rained on and off all day.  Due to the rain, we came back to the ship after taking the shuttle bus into the center of town.  We were going to ride a local tourist bus, but due to the rain we returned to the ship.

This is what we saw when we arrived.  A welcome sign and the tents.

What I found interesting about the ladies working on the flowers, even though it is raining, they are wearing sun hats.  And, the sun hats are covered with hard hats.  Safety first, I guess.

Lots of flowers, including cherry blossoms.

It turned out to be a great choice.  When we arrived, the tourist bureau had set up some tents with local Kogoshima items for us to see.  The tents included teriyaki chicken, cooked right there, rice cakes in soya sauce, also cooked right there.  In addition we had 4 kinds of local sweet potato alcohol.  It is served with hot water.  All four kinds were very good.  They also served green tea.

Another tent had Arleen learning to make origami animals, a penguin and a jumping frog.  She kept trying to speak Japanese back to the lady showing her how to make the animals.  The people around were very entertained.  She also made paper from pulp.  Never done that before.

 

OK, so I didn’t make all of these things.  They gave us, as a gift, the little hadbag and shoes, and the cat and the box that twists open and a kimono.

When we first got off the ship, to investigate what was available at the dock, we met 2 ladies from Kagoshima.  One of them spoke English perfectly.  She asked if she could take pictures of us for her blog.  We didn’t care, so we said OK.  We met them again on board ship, when we went to lunch.  It turns out they are journalists for a magazine and local internet blog site.  They had been invited on board by the captain.  He had shown them and some other journalists around the bridge.  We offered to show them more of the ship. 

Well, after showing them our cabin and some other places, we ran across the captain.  He was blatantly flirting with the English speaking lady.  He even offered her a cabin for a night.  He then continued their tour.  I had serious thoughts of following along, just to see……

Anyway, it was a lot of fun.  They even interviewed us.  Not sure for what, but maybe we will find out.  If you are interested, their blog site is

www.potika.net

It will be interesting to see how we are presented.