Author Archives: Julie

Volcanic activity near Kagoshima, Japan

In Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands, the volcanic activity of the archipelago is obvious and nowhere more so than near Kagoshima towards its southernmost tip. Incidentally the area around Kagoshima is called the Satsuma Peninsula which we found endlessly amusing even before we found out it actually is famous for citrus fruits. The Komikan tangerine is a variety indiginous to the area and tastes a bit like a cross between an orange and a lime – very yummy!

One of the reasons we visited Kagoshima was the fish market tour, but we were also keen to see the volcanic activity and how it affects the day-to-day life of the residents.

Sakurajima

Just 4km across the bay from Kagoshima is the very active Mt Sakurajima (cherry blossom island). It streams smoke almost constantly and erupts more than 1000 times a year although mostly just small quantities of ash. The falling ash is a fact of life for local residents and bags of it are cleaned up from the streets. Seeing the volcano billowing on the day that we visited was pretty awe inspiring and every so often we would turn to each other to say ‘Wow!’

Bags of ash awaiting collection on a street corner in Kagoshima

We took the cruise ferry, which departs once a day from Kagoshima, and takes 50 minutes instead of the 15 minutes of the direct ferry. It skirted the lava fields around the south-west part of the volcano before arriving at the port.

Sakurajima billowing smoke, seen from the cruise ferry

At the port we hopped onto the ‘island view’ bus to head up to the Yunohira Observatory, the closest access point to the crater. At 373m above sea level it’s just over a third of the way up. After we’d taken some photos of the volcano and admired the view of Kagoshima, there didn’t seem to be much more to do there and we still had 45 minutes to wait before the next bus. Then we noticed that the information leaflet said there were seven heart shaped stones hidden around. It seemed like a reasonable way to pass the time but even after a thorough search including the car park we only managed to find four, perhaps the rest were covered in ash!

Us at Yunohira Observatory

Yunohira Observatory (clockwise from top): View across the bay to Kagoshima, aerial view of the three craters in the visitor centre, one of the heart shaped stones once we’d cleared the ash away

Back on the bus, we descended from the observatory to Karasujima Viewpoint where we read that it used to be an island 500m away from the volcano until the 1914 eruption. This is the most recent big eruption of Sakurajima and it not only buried this small islet under 20m of lava but also filled the strait between the volcano and the mainland, and destroyed three villages. Reading this we were shocked that Sakurajima still has a population of 5000 people but I suppose the economic lure of tourism, fertile fields and ash that can be mined is hard to resist. The tourism leaflet says that the population ‘live in harmony with the volcano’ but I’m not convinced that anyone has fully explained that to Sakurajima…

From Karasujima we walked the 3km trail back to the port town to end the day with a soak of our feet in the public foot bath

Ibusuki Sand Baths

An interesting effect of the volcanic activity can be experienced in Ibusuki, an hour south of Kagoshima by train, where steam bubbles up through the sand heating it to spa temperatures. We like a good hot bath and so we were keen to try the hot sand. First we wandered along the deserted seafront and ate our packed lunch sitting on the seawall and gazing out to sea before making our way back to Sunamushi Kaikan Saraku (Natural Sand Bath) and paying the entry fee.

Deserted sea front at Ibusuki

Rows of spa goers buried in sand at Sunamushi Kaikan Saraku

In the changing rooms we put on the provided yukata (imagine a kind of cotton dressing gown) and made our way to the beach where we lay down in a hollow and the staff began to shovel hot sand over us, something like you might have done to your dad on the beach as a kid. It was a relaxing experience and not actually as hot as we’d expected. The recommended time to stay covered for the full blood cleansing benefits is 10 minutes but we both managed at least 15 minutes.

Staff shovelling sand over Julie

Buried up to our necks! You wrap a small towel around your head to protect your head and neck from the heat

Andrew escaping from under the sand

After wriggling our way out we made our way back up to the onsen building to rinse the sand out of all the places it had worked its way into. The sand bath was a fun and unique experience and left our skin feeling thoroughly cleansed.

Kumamoto, Japan

Kawachi Fuji Garden, Kyushu

Practical guide on how to get to Kawachi Fuji Garden

First get to Yahata station on the JR Kagoshima Line. We stayed at the Comfort Hotel in Kurosaki just one station away and found it to be a very pleasant business hotel, but making a day trip from Kitakyushu or Fukuoka would be very doable as well. At Yahata station you will find a number of bus stops on the left side of the car park as you exit the station building. The final one of these (furthest from the station building) is where the shuttle bus to Ajisai-no-yu onsen leaves from. I advise arriving 20-30 minutes early and queueing as there were more people than the bus could hold for the first bus when we visited and the driver did not allow standing passengers.

The shuttle bus is free and is supposed to be only for customers of the onsen. There was zero checking of this on our trip but I would recommend that you do as we did and make a full day of it with a visit to the onsen after the garden (the onsen is ¥800 for an adult with lots of different pools as well as a sauna and steam room). When you arrive at the onsen walk up the hill for a couple of minutes to find the entrance to the garden which will be on your right. When we visited entrance to the garden was ¥500 although I believe it varies according to how in bloom the flowers are.

It’s lovely to sit under the wisteria canopy and eat a picnic lunch but if you prefer there’s a restaurant in the onsen and snacks and drinks sold in its reception area. There aren’t any other shops or cafes near to the garden.

Shuttle bus timetable – the first bus leaves Yahata station at 10:15 and then 25 past the hour except 14:25. Buses back leave the onsen on the hour except at 14:00. You can check the timetable on the onsen website (Japanese only but here’s an automatic translation).

Japanese markets

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Markets are some of our favourite places to visit. For a start we love food and it’s always interesting to see the exotic (to us) ingredients available to local cooks, and they are usually interesting and colourful places to photograph too. We’ve found Japanese markets to be just as interesting as the ones we visited in Riga, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Bangladesh, and three very different markets from the first half of our stay in Japan really stand out.

Omicho Market, Kanazawa

The Omicho market in Kanazawa really feels like a locals market. It is comprised of stalls mainly offering fresh ingredients and is arranged in a series of covered corridors. There were lots of restaurants around the fringes and on the second floor, we ate at a couple of them during the few days that we stayed in Kanazawa.

A quiet corner of Omicho Market

All kinds of fish feature heavily from live oysters to dried squid, and especially big red crabs, this fine specimen is priced at just under £30!

Japanese vegetables – that’s fresh wasabi in the bottom left, bamboo shoots above it and the white vegetable with green leaves to the right of the lemons is called udo

Non-fish and vegetable stalls include cakes, desserts and flowers

We enjoyed sashimi bought from the fishmonger for lunch one day – eaten standing at the side of his stall

Nishiki Market, Kyoto

This very long covered market stretches for four or five blocks through the centre of Kyoto. It was a great place to spend a rainy afternoon, unfortunately lots of other people had the same thought so we spent much of the time shuffling along in a crush of bodies. There were a lot of weird and wonderful traditional foodstuffs that we attempted to identify, with enough samples to keep things interesting and the occasional souvenir shop as well.

Stained glass skylight over Nishiki market

Vast arrays of pickled vegetables

Miso pickled vegetables (called misozuke) are made using a fermented soy bean paste

We managed to score several samples of sake by looking simultaneously appreciative and indecisive :)

Souvenirs included beautiful ceramics, mobiles and cotton scarves

Food offerings ranged from fresh vegetables and fish to the intriguing sounding ‘Espresso Milk Jam’ (sadly no samples available) and packs of spices

There were lots of snacks available too, these Tako-tamago looked interesting – a baby octopus with a quail’s egg in its head on a stiiiick!

Kagoshima Fish Market Tour

When we read in the Lonely Planet about the weekly early morning tour of the Kagoshima wholesale fish market I got very excited, to the point of planning our trip to make sure that we’d definitely be in town on a Saturday. The tour is run by a group of local hotels and ryokans, but it’s not necessary to be staying with one of them to join in.

We were collected from our hotel just after 7am and whisked off to the Wholesale Fish Market on the seafront where we were issued with wellies and met our guides and the rest of the group – two locals and a group from a Hong Kong TV company (without their video cameras). A market representative guided the group in Japanese, but fortunately for us Yukiko, one of the hotel managers, spoke good English and gave us a really good overview of what we were seeing.

Bustling commercial fish market in Kagoshima

When we arrived fish was being auctioned. The smallish group of wholesalers moved around to each of the crates with the auctioneers amidst a cacophony of bells and whistles. Everything happened very fast, there was a lot of cryptic jargon (even to Japanese ears not in the know) and the bidding was done by the wholesalers quickly scribbling their price on a clapper-like pocket chalkboard which was then flipped open at the auctioneer so that only he could see it. To us, it seemed like the wholesalers got one shot at naming their price for each crate before the auctioneer moved on to the next.

Auction in progress, the guys with the red caps are the auctioneers

Wellington boots are pretty much required footwear around the wet floor of the fish market

We were able to wander fairly freely, trying not to get in the way and marvelling at the huge diversity and amazing freshness of the fish. I’ve never seen eyes so bright or scales so shiny. Obviously the quantity and variety of fish each day varies. Yukiko told us that this morning’s catch was a particularly good one.

Flying fish are a specialty of the Kagoshima area. Their pectoral (side) fins are very long to allow them to glide over the water’s surface.

Fish of all different shapes, sizes and colours

Next we moved into the section of the market where the wholesalers sell to trade, i.e. restaurants and fishmongers selling to the public. Here we were given a demonstration of a 40kg tuna being carved and even got to try some as sashimi – short of cutting it up on the boat, I don’t think we could get it any fresher than that!

Tuna preparation: from whole fish to delicious sashimi in less than 10 minutes!

Some fish varieties aren’t available locally and these are imported from as far afield as Scotland, Argentina, and Chile, and kept in huge walk-in freezers at -20^oC. As you might imagine, keeping so much fish fresh in Kagoshima’s warm climate takes a lot of ice. Market employees send a piece of paper up a dangling line to order whatever quantity they need and then collect it from a nearby huge chute.

Clockwise from top left: refrigerated trucks lined up outside the fish market, collecting ice from the dispenser, the market’s shrine to the god of the sea where thanks are given for its generosity, Andrew and our guide inside the walk-in freezer

There are a couple of restaurants on site that serve meals to the employees and workers at the market, but they’re also open to the public whether you’ve been on the market tour or not. The whole group went to one of them after the tour. Andrew and I ordered the huge sashimi set which contained some slightly exotic items (a large sea snail, and sea urchin) as well as more familiar fish.

A sashimi feast! The snail is at the top left of the picture, the sea urchin is the orange coloured meat in the middle right. As well as this mountain of raw fish, the set meal also included rice, miso soup and pickled vegetables.

After seeing the workings of the market it was great to sample some of its delicious wares, and to talk with the hotel managers who created the fish market tour, and who continue to run it every week with the support of the Kagoshima Fish Market.

Buddhist pilgrimage in Koyasan, Japan

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Buddhism and Shintoism

First, a quick primer about religion in Japan. Most Japanese practice both Shintoism and Buddhism. Shintoism is the native religion and celebrates life, the many shrines are dedicated to various gods of the natural world, for example, the god of rain, or the god of the mountain. When babies are born they are celebrated at the Shinto shrine, and its also where farmers make offerings and prayers for a good crop or favourable growing weather. Buddhism, which arrived via China and Korea, is practiced alongside, and has many rituals relating to death so funerals are conducted at the Buddhist temple. Therefore it is said that Japanese are born under Shintoism and die under Buddhism. However, the two religions are so entwined that it’s sometimes difficult to know where one ends and the other begins, Shinto symbols such as torii gates or shrines are often found at Buddhist temples and vice versa.

A bright red Shinto torii gate with guardian dogs in the middle of the Buddhist Danjo Garan Temple Complex

Koyasan is a sacred place for Buddhism in Japan and the home of the Shingon school of Esoteric Buddhism. Its founder, Kobo Daishi, established a religious community here in 816 AD and is buried here, or rather his followers believe that he has entered a state of meditation in his tomb to await the arrival of the future Buddha.

The last stage of the journey to Koyasan is in a cable car

Staying in a temple, or not, in Koyasan

Many visitors stay in one of the 50-60 temples around the town and we considered doing that, but it’s fairly expensive (prices start at £60 per person per night half board) and so we chose the budget alternative – a capsule guesthouse! Koyasan Guesthouse Kokuu is small and perfectly formed, it’s run by husband and wife team Ryochi and Yuri, and when we arrived Ryochi sat down with us and a map for about 10 minutes managing to answer all of our many questions without us having to actually ask them! Our capsule bedrooms were surprisingly spacious and very comfortable, and Yuri cooks up a mean curry which we enjoyed for our dinner with a flask of hot sake.

Koyasan Guesthouse Kokuu: Inside a capsule, guesthouse corridor, chicken curry and hot sake for dinner

Some of the things we wanted to experience which are typically included as part of the temple-stay experience were the opportunity to witness the monks’ chanting in the morning ceremony, the chance to learn more about the religion and monks’ lives, and trying the Buddhist vegetarian cuisine called Shojin Ryori. Ryochi managed to construct an itinerary for us that covered all of those bases as well as seeing the main sights. First up was lunch at Sanbo where we tried a couple of the Shojin Ryori set menus. It was a diverse and interesting feast with lots of different kinds of tofu, delicious mountain vegetables, and lots of sesame seeds. Yum.

Shojin Ryori meal, before and after!

Kongobu-ji Temple

Next we set off to visit Kongobu-ji Temple, the administrative headquarters of Koyasan Shingon Buddhism. Set around the entrance courtyard are the beautiful main hall with its thatched roof (complete with fire buckets on top), a smaller thatched building previously used to store documents and a belfry with an unusual outward curving wall described on the information board as a ‘skirt’.

Kongobu-ji Temple (clockwise from top): Main temple building (note the large wooden buckets on the roof ridge), a cup of green tea and a rice cracker are included in the admission fee, you need to change from your outdoor shoes into slippers to enter the temple, beautiful carvings on the gable

One reason that we visited was that this temple has the largest Zen rock garden in Japan. We found the rock garden a little disappointing as it wasn’t possible to see all of it and there wasn’t room to sit and contemplate around its edge. The leaflet explained that it represented two dragons flying through the clouds, but some idea of the meaning behind the forms would have been good too.

Banryutei rock garden

However, the stunning painted screen doors dating from the 16th century which are in the rest of the temple more than made up for the slight disappointment of the rock garden. Amongst other things, they show scenes from Kobo Daishi’s life as well as flowers and birds of the four seasons.

Screen doors painted with cranes

Okunoin Cemetery

I didn’t quite know what to expect when we read all the superlatives applied to Okunoin Cemetery, but it really is as atmospheric as all the reviews suggest. I think I would even say that it’s one of my favourite places of the trip so far, certainly from a photography point of view.

Sunbeam shining through the cedar trees onto Okunoin cemetery

The cemetery itself is vast with over 200,000 graves. Our introduction to it was on a night tour guided by a Buddhist monk from Ekoin temple called Nobu (organised through Ryochi at the guesthouse) and it was a little strange to be seeing it for the first time in the dark. Nobu was an excellent guide, he gave us a lot of background information about the cemetery and about Buddhism in Japan, interspersed with scary legends and cries of ‘careful, steps!’

Stone lanterns light the path through Okunoin cemetery at nighttime

Two of the most obvious and useful things that he explained were the gorinto shape of most of the gravestones and the significance of the jizo statues. The gorinto is a column of five shapes representing (from bottom to top) earth, water, fire, wind, and space or void. Together with consciousness these elements form the whole universe.

Gravestones – mostly gorintos but we saw many different ones including a space rocket and a Möbius strip!

The small statues with bibs are jizo, they sit between the living and dead worlds, and their purpose is to guide spirits from life to death. They are often found at the site of deaths (e.g. by a roadside or forest trail). The bib should be red, it signifies the fire required to purify the spirit before crossing to death.

Jizo statues

The mausoleum of Kobo Daishi is the most sacred place in the cemetery. Nobu took us behind the lantern hall to stand in front of the mausoleum. Here he told us the story of Kobo Daishi’s eternal meditation and chanted the Heart Sutra which was a beautiful end to the tour.

The lantern hall was also where we were able to see the morning chanting. Ryochi had told us that it was OK to leave quietly part way through but we ended up sitting and listening to the whole of the one hour ceremony with four monks chanting and a head monk making ritualistic sounds with a drum and gong, it was a mesmerising and otherworldly experience. After the ceremony finished at 7am we wandered the almost empty cemetery.

The path through the cemetery is lined with huge Japanese cedar trees. Their average age is 200-600 years, but some are as old as 1000 years.

As you might expect with a cemetery, there are a few superstitious stories connected with Okunoin. There is a well in the centre where it’s said if you can’t see your reflection in the water you’ll die within three years (I’m pleased to report that we were both able to see our reflections), a gravestone which if you put your ear against it you can hear the cries in hell (fortunately that one didn’t work…) and a stone which pilgrims try to lift onto a shelf – the heavier the stone the more sins you have (we couldn’t try it as the building containing it was boarded up).

Andrew looking for his reflection and checking if he could hear the cries in hell

Many companies also have plots, we spotted a familiar logo amongst them

Danjo Garan Complex

The Danjo Garan complex is the site of the first monastic constructions here in the early 9th century although no original buildings remain (building your temples from wood and thatch leads to a high probability of destruction by fire). Along with Okunoin it is one of the most important places in Koyasan. There’s no entry fee to just wander around (you only need to pay to enter the buildings which are open to the public) and it was a good place to see the traditional wooden architecture and thatched roofs up close.

Kobo Daishi planned for the Konpon Daito (Great Pagoda) to be the centre of his monastic complex

Nyoninmichi

Until the late 19th century women were not allowed to enter the town area of Koyasan and so female pilgrims followed a trail circumnavigating the town with dedicated women’s temples on each of the access roads. Nowadays the trail is set up for hikers and it’s a nice way to get a different perspective on the town as well as some spectacular views if you’re lucky enough to get clear weather as we were. The total length of the path is 15.5km but it’s possible to break it down into smaller sections.

Julie in front of the 25m high Daimon (Great Gate) at the western edge of the town

On our first afternoon we climbed from the Daimon (Great Gate) up between torii gates to the summit of Mt Betendake. It was quite steep and in places the steps were very uneven but we got spectacular views across to the Inland Sea (about 20km away we think) and it was nice to be up above and out of the bustle of the town for a while.

The view to the coast – you can see the sea glistening on the right of the picture behind the trees

The following day we decided to tackle the southern portion of the women’s pilgrimage route about 5km, or just over 3 miles, from the guesthouse to the opposite end of town, ending by the Daimon. Again, we met very few other walkers so most of the time it was just us and the rustling of skinks (small lizards) in the dry leaves with occasional glimpses across the valleys and mountains.

Steps up through the trees, toriis line the path up to Mt Betendake, a small skink with a very bright tail

Us on the trail

Koyasan was an excellent stop on our itinerary. I’m sure that a stay in one of the temples would be very rewarding but we didn’t feel that we’d missed out on anything by staying in cheaper accommodation, we just wish that we’d booked two nights instead of one!

two year trip

Andrew and Julie's Travelling Adventures