Kyushu 2015 Autumn Self Drive Trip - Day 8

Day 8 : Kagoshima to Nichinan, Miyazaki

Due to time constraint/weather , we decided to skip the Senganen Garden as today is a very long drive from Kagoshima to Miyazaki. We went to Shiroyama Observatory (城山展望台) first before heading to the ferry terminal. It was very cold in the morning , as we reach there most of the shops is just opening and the friendly shop owners was commenting in japanese that how cold the weather is (and maybe why am i still wearing a short sleeve T-shirt). Anyway this is a observation deck where by you can get a full view of Sakurajima   (櫻島）and if you are lucky , you can actually get to see the smoke coming out of the volcano. Supposedly the volcano can erupt smoke up to 4-6 times a day but we did not get to see it. 2 months before we reach there, there was a level 3 warning and about 2 months later it erupted again. ( this is also a good place for night view of Kagoshima city at night )

After enjoying the nice view , we make our way to the ferry terminal as we will be taking the ferry to Sakurajima itself , entering from the east side then drive out from the west towards Miyazaki. Sakurajima is actually a volcano island but due to a major past eruption , it's lavas actually joined the volcano to Tarumizu.

The ferry we taking

View on the ferry of the harbour

Halfway through the ferry

Another ferry in the opposite direction

*Note : there are a few ferry leaving the port at Kagoshima ,  if you wanna bypass Sakurajima , there is actually a longer ferry about 40 mins to Tarumizu. For ferry timing and prices can click here. The ferry takes about 15 min and payment is done when you reach the island itself ( this is to speed up the process ) ** Also , remember where you park your car , we went down the wrong staircase and was panic cos it was reaching and we scare if we don't get to the car in time , might delay the traffic moving off.

Selfie with the volcano

Free foot bath

there is a trail with cooling lavas

Biggest radish

Once you reach the island , you can actually go for the free foot bath, its a very long stretch , with one side facing the sea and the other with the volcano view. Best to bring a towel with you (we brought with us one time use towels). Also Sakurajima is famous also for the biggest Radish and smallest mandarin orange. Image

There are a few observation deck to give you a different view of the volcano and it's crater. These few above is taken at 湯之平展望所 , this is where you can see the crater view.

The "ashy" off road  path

Shelter just in case there is an eruption

Lava formations

These are taken at 有村溶岩展望所 , another stop that can let you view the whole volcano , not only that , it is like a part here , full of ashes from the volcano eruption and also a lot of cooled lava formations.
The last picture is the smallest orange , which is the world smallest. After this spot , we drove through the connecting road and moved on to Tarumizu. There isn't any visible restaurants on these road so we had a quick lunch at 7-11. The convenience stores in Japan is really good to shop and a great place for quick nice food. ( actually after we had our lunch , about less then 5 min drive after the 7-11 is the main town area where you will start to see restaurants.

Another view from 垂水千本イチョウ園

The place we visited is千本イチョウ園 , the name actually means "Thousand Gingko Garden" , it's actually a private plantation and it's only opened to public during the Koyo Season from November till December.  It's actually planted by a couple about 30 years ago and it's free entrance Also as mentioned before , the trees were not in their prime condition this year so you can see from the pictures aboved that some trees are completely bare and some still greenish/yellowish and not the usually golden yellow gingko tree leaves. Link for some better pictures online.

Some of the slightly yellow tree

Some trees further down with tons of dropped leaves

Trees are a bit bare cos all the leaves dropped

along the highway 71 , we detour a bit to check out Osumi Lake , this is a supposed to be a koyo spot as well but the lake is very big and we do not have much time to explore but we were greeted with some very yellow gingko trees.

After taking come quick pictures , we drove on to the next location , Obi. There is a Obi castle here but our main reasons for checking this out is that they have a "coupon system", which is you can purchase a map + coupon @ 600 yen, then out of the 40 shops ? that participated in the program , you can choose 5 to exchange items/food/drink to redeem. Some of the shops had very nice item which we think is very worth it , but some ….  anyway the coupons will state what items can be redeem from which shops so you can actually decide. I won't recommend to come here just for it but if you like old building and also history then you can drop by here. Also this place is famous for a type of tree called "杉" , there is a area where they called the "power" spot ( to relax/find inner peace ? ) link. As this is really a day with a lot of place to visit and also due to the short daylight , we just visited some of the shops we interested in and quickly drives off ( when we reach here is ard 4.30p m and most shops here closed ar 5.30 pm (or eariler).
Dinner at the Ryokan : えぷろん亭, one of our best stay for the this trip , not only the view is great , stay is good and the host are very nice and helpful. While we were having dinner, the moon is out so the host actually came to inform us to take a look , even off the lights to show us the clear view ( cos scare windows reflection ). The lady ( maybe the host's mother ? ) was super nice, her english is not good but tried her best to communicate with us also to show how fresh the lobster sashimi is , she purposely use a chopstick to touch the lobster (Isa shrimp they called it here cos this sea area is know as Isa (i think) , the season is from October to March), the video of the "moving" lobster is here. Also she saw that we dunno how to eat the head and legs , so she showed us and wanted to do all for me but i refused (cos paiseh)  so we just follow they way she showed us (First time in my whole life i eat lobster so clean also eat the head part , one think about being in Japan , I tend to eat things I don't dare at home cos feel bad if I don't eat what they offered , like I do not eat eel but when at Sushi Dai in Tokyo , cos the chef served it in front of you , just feel oblige to eat it) *Note : if you dunno japanese and have some food that you really don't eat or with allergy , best to take down the translation in japanese so you know what to not ordered.