#Kagoshima

During the dark season in Japan, you’ll find not just Christmas decorations, but also winter lights, known as Illuminations (イルミ). Every major city decorates its streets and squares with lavish lighting and light shows.

Here’s a collection of our best illumination photos that we took back in 2018.

Some of the illuminations start as early as November, and some go on until February. If you’re visiting Japan during autumn and winter, it’s definitely worth checking out these light spectacles. Most of them are in public areas and can be seen for free, but landscape gardens and temples do charge an entrance fee.

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. 😋

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… 😆