“Tea, juice, or soup?” (Kyushu Part 1)

(Day 1, arrive Kagoshima, Kyushu)
“Soup…?” I asked.

“It’s Consommé soup”, the flight attendant replied.

Banana, Reicho and I knew this trip was going to be full of surprises. (We’ve never been served soup on a plane…have you!?) And it was indeed.

As we got off the airport bus at Kagoshima station late Saturday afternoon, we turned around to find smoke fuming out of a mountain in the distance. That was Sakurajima, an active volcano just 20 minutes by ferry away from the coast of Kagoshima city, Kagoshima Prefecture, at the bottom of Kyushu.

The next day, we made our way to visit my first ever active volcano. It was overcast in the morning, so it wasn’t easy to differentiate between cloud and volcanic smoke. We rented a little car from a little mom-&-pops car & bike shop right outside the ferry pier, (their only car), was given a map with a few red circles and had our first road trip in Kyushu. Although our mini journey was not without mini mishaps and inexperienced map-reading, we did a loop around the island and saw most of the Sakurajima must-sees, such as the lava field, the lava-buried torii gate, the specified memorabilia-photo-spots, some guy’s random sculpture…

('Warning: Beware of rocks when the volcano erupts. Please be careful.')

And as the sky cleared up and the sun came out, we realized it was ‘drizzling’ volcanic ash and we were probably breathing in lots of it whenever we got out of the car to take photos of the coast and volcano etc. I can’t imagine it being too pleasant living here, having to clean out the day’s volcanic ash everyday and not being able to open windows, not to mention living in the shadow of an active volcano that can explode and bury your house anytime. Nonetheless, it was a fun visit.










By late afternoon the sky was all clear and blue and we ended our excursion with a nice session of ashiyu, or foot bath, a Japanese favourite, probably heated by the same geothermal energy that’s making the volcano rumble (apparently it has already erupted 429 times this year, with 365 of them being ‘big eruptions’ – i.e. fire-spitting eruptions!)



Collecting our luggage from the station lockers, we made our way up to Kumamoto City on the Shinkansen that evening, tired but ‘wakuwaku’ for the rest of Kyushu.

High

As I write this, I am sitting in a hostel in a town located in the caldera of the largest active volcano, in Japan, one of the largest in the world. This is Mount Aso, Kumamoto Prefecture, Kyushu. We drove up the volcano within the caldera this afternoon and peered into its steaming mouth, one of the most active craters in the world. It was steaming out white and blue gas, from a crater that was filled with jade-green boiling water, and the whole place smelt of sulfur dioxide. It was nothing short of amazing and unimaginable and deserted and colourful and wonderful.

We were pretty lucky since there was no problem going up to the mouth of the crater. Apparently some days the gas emitted from the volcano is so bad that the roads up to the top are blocked off. I guess my 'bad luck' ran out when I dropped my lens cap into the raging rapids of Takachiho Gorge this morning.

That's another story. For another time.

New Page

Still in the making, but at the sidebar, above my profile picture, (below "who moved my tuna sushi") is a link to a page with some of my favourite photos I've taken in Japan so far. You've probably seen most of them on facebook. But no harm seeing them again - 'cause they're THAT good :D

Waribashi

I know I know I know I'm not here in Japan to change their 'culture' or try to stop anyone from eating whale or using disposable chopsticks, but seeing so much unnecessary waste generated from each staffroom lunch time makes me uncomfortable. Especially knowing that each of them have their own chopsticks in their bags or desks but still use disposable chopsticks anyway. I asked one of my JTEs about this and she responded with "hmm yeah I wonder why...I don't know...日本人だから" (cos we're Japanese)

So I decided to take the not-too-offensive approach. I wrote a note saying how the waribashi are made (in China, with ridiculously illegal amounts of chemicals); the harmful effects of these Chinese-made waribashi on health; and the environmental effects - how Japan uses almost 25 billions of pairs of waribashi; and encouraged everyone to bring their own "my-hashi", and I put the note on the lunch table.

I also asked tomorrow's teacher in charge of ordering bento to tell the bento shop not to bring waribashi when she orders them tomorrow. I'll remind her again tomorrow. And perhaps I should hide the enormous stock of existing waribashi somewhere.

I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow.

Dislikes

One thing that really bugs me about public transport in Japan (which leaves very little room for complaint!) is how the highway buses keep their fluorescent lights inside the bus on full blast on even at night. After an intense long weekend in Tokyo I was hoping to catch some snooze on the 3 hour bus ride back to the countryside. At 6:30pm it was already quite dark outside, but you couldn't see anything from inside the bus because the lights are SO bright. And of course you can't sleep well.

Another thing that annoys me is how overly-enthusiastic - or actually how overly NOISY the shop assistants are in shops, particularly clothing shops, in Japan. I walked into Uniqlo today and was greeted first by one guy yelling "IRASSHAIMASE~" (lit. means welcome to the shop) and then all the other assistants follow suit and all yell "IRASSHAIMASE~~~". They then continued to do that for (almost) every single person that walked into the shop. And then whenever someone paid for something the same guy would yell "Arigato gozaimashita!" and then the rest of the assistants yell in unison "ARIGATO GOZAIMASHITA!"

I hope this isn't the beginning of a string of Japan-bashing. Because I'm not bashing anything. It's just that I happen to be in Japan and find things that annoy me and thought I'd share. There will probably be more to come.

Shakey Shakey

"Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, with a tremor occurring at least every five minutes." ABC news.

I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like earthquakes here in Japan are getting slightly more frequent recently. On Saturday night, we were driving to the St. Patrick's Day party in Hitomi's car and we had just stopped outside the gate of the carpark to get a ticket to get in, when the car started wobbling side to side. I somehow thought it was the wind, since we were just talking about how cold and windy it was outside. I was enlightened afterwards by friends in the bar that there was actually an earthquake earlier that night. (It even put Fukushima in the NYtimes!)

I also heard that it was a bit of a worrying one for those in the bar since it was possibly the smallest and narrowest and crampiest bar I've ever been to and had the most dangerous set of stairs and it was packed full of people even in the upstairs area and lights and drinks and turn-tables were swirling around and did I mention it was probably one of the most fire-hazardous places I ever been in my life?

Then on Sunday, while sitting at home sipping some good ol' earl grey with Hezza and Shirlz, talking about the earthquake the night before, the apartment started to wobble and we clutched onto our cuppas a bit tighter, looking at each other as if to say "this is a strange surprise". It went on for quite a bit as well (probably around 15 seconds). I looked out and saw the cables swaying from side to side. The earthquake wasn't getting any stronger so we weren't too concerned or ready to leap off of our bums and under a table or anything.

...What was that rumour about some massive earthquake in Japan predicted to be long overdue and is said to come after more frequent tremours..?


Also, I was just thinking about which is the worst situation you could be in when an earthquake happens:
- on the toilet?
- in the shower?
- shampooing your hair?
- cooking?
- changing the lightbulb whilst standing on a chair?
- half way through an episode of 24?

Lucky Crab

Standing on the platform with my friend V, clutching my heavy weekend bag, handbag and a riceball, I was looking for the right direction for the right exit I needed. But it wasn't there. I thought I knew Tokyo station pretty well. And then it dawned on me, just as the train disappeared off into the city, that I had got off the wrong stataion - one station too early. This wasn't Tokyo station. And it was 1:50pm - 10 minutes until the highway bus departed from Tokyo station. The next bus after that wasn't for another 4 and a half hours.

It felt as though a huge brick wall fell on me.

And one of those bricks that struck me reminded me of what I saw on TV this morning: that today's unluckiest horoscope is Cancer, which is me. I never believed in horoscopes and all that superstition - but I was starting to doubt those doubts.

V and I got back on the next train whilst cursing my idiocy and cursing the potential accuracy of silly breakfast show horoscope predictions. "Can you make it in 5 minutes?" V asked as the train pulled into Tokyo station. It was 1:55pm. I knew Tokyo station was big. But I wasn't content with submitting to 'luck' and my own stupidity. I dashed out of the train as I said "wish me luck!" to V and squeezed through communters and travelers and possibly knocking down small children as I ran through the station, wearing boots and a skirt and still carrying that massive bag and handbag and rice ball.

I got to the bus stop just as the bus station-master was telling the bus driver to get going. I was so out of breath that I panted "sumi..masen....nimotsu....onegai....shimasu" ('excuse me......would you please........stow this.......bag) and jumped on the bus and panted some more "yoyaku..shimashita...samansa...desu..." ('I made a..... reservation. Name's.........Samantha.)

So eat that, horoscope!