Day 4 into the great Kyushu adventure and we were packing again. Mt. Kaimon was not what Asen envisioned it to be. Before deciding on the Kaimon Sanroku Fureai Kouen, Asen had the brilliant idea of checking it out on a map of Kyushu. What he saw, he liked immensely. The mountain was nestled right next to the coastline and the camping ground was a dot surreptitiously close to the sea, giving the impression that the park was all but kissing distance from the beach. But of course, what we found was a different story.
Asen did not appreciate the complete lack of a beach in the area and even before we got back from climbing Mt. Kaimon the afternoon before, he was ready to yell bolt!
So we packed our bags yet again and headed out to our next destination: Sakurajima (Sakura Island).
Sakurajima was one of my firm demands. It was written in the guidebook as one of Japan’s (and the world’s) most active volcanoes. It boasts of a massive eruption in 1914, from which a peninsula was formed (thus Sakurajima is technically not an island anymore) and a field of lava rocks spread out from the foot of the volcano. I don’t know why I was so fixated with volcanoes, but I was. Asen agreed to go to Sakurajima, because, once again, after checking his trusty map, he found a lake close to the volcano and figured that was as good a place as any to go swimming.
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| From The Silken Backpack |
We took a train again to get to Kagoshima and from there we went to the ferry terminal to board our boat which took us to Sakurajima island in less than 20 minutes. It was a fairly uneventful trip, but we found that the Lava Beach Esplanade (Taisho Lava Field) was very close to the station.
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| From The Silken Backpack |
This beach has one of the largest fields of lava rocks from the 1914 eruption of Mt. Sakurajima. We walked all over the brick road and I marveled at the lava rocks.
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| From The Silken Backpack |
The rocks themselves didn’t look all that strange. It had the color and texture of dark gray cement slathered on random places and spiked with a fork , creating an uneven surface and sharp edges. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed in it as I fully expected to see specimens that reminds of moon rocks. I was prepared to steal a lump, bring it home, and have a good time fooling everyone into believing that they were “alien” rocks.
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| From The Silken Backpack |
The Lava Beach Esplanade was interesting but it didn’t keep us enamoured for long. Asen’s desire for a swim overpowered his interest in rocks, so we took a bus to get to the “beach” along Sakurajima lake. The beach was once again, a disappointment. It was a moderate stretch of small river stones fronting a strange, milky lake. I was very suspicious of the water and refused to even so much as dip a toe in it’s murky depths. To make matters worse, it started to drizzle and it didn’t really look like the best time to go for a dip. But Asen’s mind was made up, he was going to get his swim! I watched from the shore as Asen and Ninon stripped to their underwear and went off running into the water.
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| From The Silken Backpack |
I stared at the Sakurajima volcano looming at a distance from the “beach”. I could smell something acrid in the air, and I started to imagine that the volcano was going to choose that moment to make an appearance again. I fancied that the rumbling magma underneath the earth was just waiting for our arrival to spout forth in a cataclysmic display of flame and spit. I decided the best way to find out if we were in mortal danger or not is to check the temperature of the water.
Gingerly, I walked to the edge of the water and put in my toe. It felt cool, just normal for a gloomy summer day. Mentally, I scrapped the possibility of an eruption. I was just about to return to the safety of 20 yards from the yellowish water when I saw something clear and gelatinous floating not far from me. I walked over and found a huge jellyfish floating… DEAD!
I couldn’t believe my eyes, it was my first time to see a real jelly fish in my life! And one that big! I ran off to grab a long twig from the beach, came back and started picking at the thing until I was able to puncture it with the twig and pulled it out of the water. The thing was hard but jiggly, and it was huge, like a double-D silicone breast implant! It was definitely bigger than the palm of my hand stretched out. I dropped the thing on the beach and continued prodding at it with the twig. I figured there must be more from where that came from, so I went back to the water in search for more dead jellyfish! And boy! I found about 10 of them! I grabbed each one and placed them on the pile of dead jellyfish that I made on the beach. I was starting to get alarmed. What the hell was in that water that killed off all these jellyfishes? Suddenly, I remembered that my friends were there, swimming in that Jellyfish-killing fluid!
I ran to the edge of the water and started screaming at Asen and Ninon to get the hell out of the water. They didn’t know what the hell I was yelling about but I just kept on shouting “Get your asses out of there!”
Ninon was looking at me, waving back and forth to let me know that they were doing fine, but I was having none of it. No amount of swimming was going to be worth something dreadful that was just waiting to happen in those waters. I could feel my face growing warm in irritation and I yelled at them once again to get out of the water. Finally they could see that I was seriously getting agitated. They reluctantly got out of the lake and I pulled them over to the pile of dead jellyfish that I had on the beach.
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| From The Silken Backpack |
I'm sure I acted like a kid unveiling a science project as I made them look at the pile on the stones and all but said "Voila!" in my eagerness to show them the reason behind my panic. They stared back at me and said "Well, Di, jellyfish die too."
I stared back at them, unsure of what I just heard, I said, "yuh! but not in hordes they don't!" in any case, I reckon they just humoured me by drying themselves up and preparing to leave.
We took a bus to go back to civilization and found an onsen/restaurant called Sakurajima Magma Hot Springs in one of the travel brochures of Sakurajima we got from the ferry station. We made a bee-line for that onsen and paid for our bath and settled into the restaurant for a quick meal. I went to the tables to study the brochures and maps for our next pit stop as Asen and Ninon gave our orders to the lady at the counter. When they came back they were laughing so hard, I didn't know what was going on.
As it turned out, the Japanese lady at the counter who was taking our order looked at Ninon and Asen then turned to look over at me and asked "O-kodomo sama deshou ka?" roughly translated to "Is that your child?"
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| From The Silken Backpack |
So! There I was, a grown 22-year old woman, just breaking through the barriers of my tween years and this old Japanese lady looks at me and sums me up as an unfortunate Asian child adopted by a Caucasian couple! I couldn't believe it! I seriously didn't know whether to be flattered or offended, but it sure cracked me up.
After our dinner of Nantanmen (ramen) Ninon and I entered the ladies' bath and we saw an onsen of yellow water (we were told it contains volcanic minerals which were good for the body) I was told off at this point because apparently, the lake water wasn't dangerous, it was just full of volcanic material. I just shrugged, rolled my eyes and said it was better to be safe than sorry.
After our bath, we started thinking about where to go to set up our tent. We realized we had to take the first ferry out of Sakurajima so we could maximize our time in our next destination: Aso san in Kumamoto. And what better place is at a close proximity to the ferry station than the ferry station itself?!
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| From The Silken Backpack |
So, we hiked back to the Ferry station and built our tent underneath an electric light right in front of the entrance. We set our alarm clock really early to ensure that we got up before the police does. We ended the day with a couple of good laughs and another night sleeping in the most random of places.
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