Travel Journal 2018

We’ve arrived at the furthest point of our journey, in Kagoshima, the “Naples of Japan”.

Right next door is Sakurajima, an active volcano. It constantly gives off smoke and ash, which luckily mostly drifts over the sea and not over the city. Very rarely, it even spits out stones.

We took the ferry over to Sakurajima and visited a viewing point where you can watch the volcano from a safe distance. An impressive natural spectacle!

Kagoshima is famous for its sweet potatoes, which grow really well in the nutrient-rich soil and are used, for example, to distil shochu or make crisps.

Tomorrow we’re moving on. Tomorrow we’re going to hell… 😆

Another Kagoshima speciality alongside sweet potatoes is Kurobuta, black pigs. You can try them as tender and juicy schnitzels, for instance, with salad, rice, miso soup and a savoury tonkatsu sauce for dipping. 😋

In Beppu, it’s bubbling, hissing, and steaming. The city uses its hot volcanic mineral springs for all sorts of things: for thermal baths, for steaming food, or as a tourist attraction. Steam comes out of every crack, and a smell of sulphur hangs in the air here and there.

We visited the Beppu Jigoku, the seven hells of Beppu. Here you can admire different forms of mineral waters. Sometimes as turquoise, steaming water. Sometimes as a blood-red pond. Sometimes as bubbling grey mud. The hot water is even suitable for breeding crocodiles.

Near the city of Fukuyama is the old, little fishing village of Tomonoura. The bus took us there. Not much is going on tourist-wise, but we found lots of old houses, temples, and shrines that made for great photo ops. And we met a student who was doing a survey and was happy to see visitors from Germany, because she’d spent some time in Munich herself.

Tomorrow we’ll leave our route back to Tōkyo once again and head over to Matsuyama on the island of Shikoku.

Isn’t that Cologne Cathedral? 🤣