the tall blond guy goes to japan

Clouds of noxious fumes, or of water

Kagoshima

The one thing I noticed upon entering Kagoshima was the volcano. It's actually quite hard to miss, as it takes up the entire field of vision when looking in a certain direction. It's an active volcano, and is in fact erupting right now. It haver stops erupting, actually. It continually belches ash and smoke all all kinds of lovely stuff into the air of Kagoshima. This is okay. The air here is a million times more clean than the air in Tokyo. I've taken huge gulping breaths of air, drinking it in. The air here is yummy.

The friendly local volcano erupts

People with contact lenses say that it's really nasty on their eyes.

Speaking of clouds and ash and stuff, there's a really faboo park here. It's up by the "cutlural area", near the statue of Saigo Takamori (mori on him later). It's a relatively new water park- the map I have still has it as being "under construction". There is a stream coming out of a black stone, running through the park, and ending under a plaza.

Instant cloud!

Every few minutes, the plaza starts making a cloud. Very clever! I walked through it, and it feels just like fog. It wafts up from the ground and sticks together for a while, as if it were a naturally occuring cloud. Very cool!

Kagoshima from above.

I know, the picture is a nighttime one, but it fits better here than anywhere else. There's an amazing hilltop park in the middle of Kagoshima- well worth the walk to the top for the amazing view of Kagoshima and the big honkin' volcano. Apparently, this baby's been continuously erupting since 1955. No wonder it's so dull to the residents. "Oh, yeah, the volcano's active, but it's been that way for a while, so it's okay."

Read on and find out what I did the rest of the day in Kagoshima.