Volcano in Sight

While planning for this trip, Steve could not miss the chance to make an elaborate budget spreadsheet to get a rough idea of what the whole trip would cost. One of the line items to budget for, of course, was activities. Although, we noticed that we had overestimated this budget by quite a margin, since most of the activities we have been doing were relatively cheap or even free.

During our check-in in Kagoshima, when asked if we would like to upgrade our room, we decided this was a perfect opportunity to dip into our activities budget! Why does that not go into the accommodation budget, you ask? Because the upgrade got us a great corner room with a view of Kagoshima’s most famous landmark, Sakurajima. Simply chilling in our room and observing the volcano and its eruptions from a safe distance became one of our main activities during our stay here. Activity budget well spent!

A bit more about the volcano, as we find it extremely fascinating. It sits in the middle of Kagoshima Bay, and the last big eruption in 1914 turned it from an island into a peninsula. It is very prominent, as you can see it from almost anywhere, always enticing a glance to see its current state. It is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, with frequent, mostly small eruptions. Living with the volcano belongs to people’s daily life here, and people actually live directly at the foot of the volcano. The locals even have to collect the frequent ashfall (which looks like dark sand) in order to avoid clogging the sewers. The kids are also given helmets instead of sun hats for their way to school in case of bigger debris falling.

As we loved the view from our hotel room so much, we actually used this stay to shift down a gear and spent a decent amount of our time here relaxing, including some puzzling and a night in with delivery pizza.

One short excursion we did do, however, was to visit the Kagoshima Cultural Heritage and Experience complex: a beautiful, park-like open-air museum with a few old houses of local lords and, most importantly, some culturally accurate archery! We had a blast trying this style of kneeling bow shooting, although the size of the target is a little less forgiving than what we are used to! One of us clearly would have made a better Japanese archer… Finally, Jess was able to win at something after her many losses in the arcades.

On a somewhat unrelated topic: we have been indulging in the Japanese bakery culture to start off our days, which is a real thing of its own. The Japanese really love their baked goods, a lot of them very rich with cheese, eggs, sausages, or even fish baked into the goods (translator apps come in handy to avoid any unwanted surprises). We thought we’d share two of our running favourites. First, there is the カレーパン (Karepan, or curry bread). It’s a breaded, fried, doughy croquette filled with Japanese curry inside, best enjoyed warm! The second one is メロンパン (melonpan, or melon bread). It doesn’t have a melon inside or melon flavour in it, as the name suggests, but instead gets its name from the crisscross pattern on its surface, resembling the look of a melon. Taste-wise, it’s a sweet, fluffy pastry, very similar to a Luxembourgish “Streisel”.

Country

Japan

Region

Kagoshima

Date

24 September 2026

Camera

Sony a6700

GPS

31.579172,130.553598