A trip to Iso Gardens

Mmmm tastes like pancakes. Well, sort of.

Met a guy over family style dinner at the guesthouse named Yoshihisa, who wanted to take the German and I to the Iso Gardens. I wasn't too sure what that was about but sure why not... The German declined, it was too early for him... Well, yes if you sleep till 2 pm every day, then leaving at 11 am is early I suppose.

The Iso Gardens were more of a complex really. There are huge, stone lion lanterns, bamboo groves and meandering streams with koi. All with a view of Sakurajima in the background. The area was important back in the day for the import of technology from Britain. A couple of museums house local art and historical artifacts from the previous lords of the residence. Lots of old machinery that enginerds like to try and understand.

The gardens were beautiful but the highlight of the afternoon was eating Janbo Mochi at a local place down the road. If you have ever eating mochi, you know the gooey consistency I'm talking about. If you take a pancake and make it more "gooey", stick a couple of hashi in, and grill it until you get that browned and slightly burnt grill flavor, you've got Janbo Mochi! The sauce was a subtle blend of soy sauce, sugar, and flour that, oddly enough, reminded me of maple syrup.

Leaving on a jetfoil to Yakushima

These suckers fly!

Hopped on a jetfoil named Toppy to get from Kagoshima to Yakushima Island, which is supposed to be a somewhat of an undiscovered tropical adventure island. I am planning on spending a couple days in a hostel and getting the lay of the land before taking an overnight trek to a mountain hut on the top of the volcano. The island is registered as a UNESCO World Heritage site to protect its unique flora and ancient Japanese cedars.

Kagoshima Festivals

So my friends are famous... I just thought they like to play the guitar and drink beer on the patio. They took me to a summer festival at the meat packers plant where they were the headlining band! We met up with one of their friends, Una, a local Okinawan guitar celebrity.

I knew I was in for good treatment when we arrived and the president of the plant immediately gave us as much shochu and beer as we could drink.

While my friends got ready to play, I looked for a good place to take pictures and videos. Lots of yatai stands selling beer and shochu and all kinds of pork products. They had roped off an area for the VIPs in the middle near the sound guy that would be perfect... So I decided to sneak in (if a 6 foot tall white guy can sneak anywhere) to the VIP area and take an unoccupied table near the front. One guy took a liking to my ability to speak Japanglish and said I had to meet someone, the "top guy" in Kagoshima. I wasn't sure what to make of it all, but OK... The man I was introduced to really is the "top guy" in the Kagoshima perfecture, the representative to the Japanese government for the whole perfecture. The equivalent of a congressman back home... A few shochu and kamupai later we were good buddies watching the show. This Japan place is crazy.



After the show we adjourned to the meat packers bar with the president for more drinks. And karaoke! The whole bar was singing and dancing. Our friend Hiromi arrived late to the festival and wasn't able to sing Nada So So; I was glad she got a chance to sing it at the bar.

Kagoshima

I arrived in Kagoshima late and I was worried that the ferry to take me to Sakurajima would be closed for the night. To my surprise there was a fireworks festival that night at the port! Instead of being closed the port was covered with thousands of people. The ferry was running all night, so I sat down to enjoy the show. The fireworks shattered my eardrums again. Big fireworks. And close. These people know how to put on a show.

The Sakurajima YH turned out to be a little boring and the hot spring onsen was under repair so I switched to the Cafe and Guest House Garammasala. Not boring, this place... The couple that own the place are delightful. We sit on the patio in the evenings and watch the fireworks shows (there is a small show on Sakurajima every night this month) and drink some beer and listen to some Okinawan guitar.

Sakurajima used to be an island but they had a huge eruption here, (biggest in the world in the 20th century they tell me) that connected the island with the mainland. They had another big eruption in the `40s and nothing major since then. I thought it was funny that they built the youth hostel above the Kyoto University Observation Station. Nothing like sleeping on an active volcano...


Random collection of photos I took here... I really like how the photo of Sakurajima turned out. Monks in the Tenmonkan area asking for money by not moving for an hour at a time and ringing a little bell once every couple seconds. Experimenting with some long exposure night photos. Kids playing with these gigantic beetles the size of mice. Apparently they keep them as pets here... New friends at an artist collective.

B-day dinner at a Satsuma restaurant

I ate at a really neat local restaurant last night, a traditional Kagoshima restaurant, that they call satsuma. It was delicious. Little raw silver fish called kibinago that you dip in vinegar miso sauce. Bonito sashimi that is eaten will a self-prepared garlic, onion and roe sauce. Fried fish paste called satsuma age. Tsukemono. Raw peanuts soaked in water; they tasted like they were just starting to sprout. A purple and white jelly made from sweet potatoes for dessert. The highlight was kurobuta tonkatsu (pork ribs) from local black pigs that was so tender it would fall into the bowl from the slightest nudge of a chopstick. Amazing!

I had so much fun with them they gave me a hand towel with the resto name on it as a present. The owner told me, in her best English, to think of them every time I washed myself - I don't think it translated quite right...