I’m confusing myself by not writing down the events of the day in the evenings. The trouble is, with jet lag and some small contribution from a rather generous utilisation of the drinks package, I generally crash into bed straight after dinner, often drifting into the land of nod well before 9 pm.
So, yesterday we did a morning tour of Kagoshima. It was the only tour available with an English language option. We visited an historical home and garden and then went to a lookout spot where we could see out over the city and across to the active volcano on the other side of the bay.
The city wasn’t particularly inspiring, having had the shit blown out of it in the Second World War and was mostly grim grey concrete, although it might have looked cheerier if the sun was out. The city is twinned with Perth, Miami, Naples, and some city in China. What is it with sister cities? It always seems a pretty desperate bid for popularity to me. Naples is a shithole and also has an active volcano so I can see the similarity there. The volcano erupts on average twice a day so it really is active. It actually put out a couple of puffs as we sailed off into the sunset so that was nice.
In fact the locals did a tremendous job of making us feel welcome, with plenty of volunteers on shore waving flags as we disembarked. Our farewell was even more spectacular, with what looked like a very accomplished school band and many supporters there to wave us off. Delightful.
