Although I have been really busy, basically every day, I'm also really happy!!
Partly because of that, I've been playing a song about being happy for my kids, and it gets stuck in my head a lot. ♪♪ "Na, na, na, I'm so happy, oh so happy, sing with me!!" ♪♪ Over and over and over. Should I put it in your heads too?
In normal every day kind of life at work, my kids are mostly really cute, kids from my class (and the other same aged class) talk to me/hug me every day. There's one little boy from my class last year, who literally comes running into my room every morning to give me a big hug. And another one of my girls from last year always has to come find me in the morning and before she goes home, either to talk, give me a hug, or show me her newest things that she brought to school or is wearing. It's awesome! Plus, my teaching partner this year is always trying to compete with me to see who can get things done first, and we're laughing a lot, which is also wonderful, and I think it's good for the kids too.
Speaking of my kids...recently, this year's class has gotten so much better! And I was really happy with them, and proud of them as well this week. There were various reasons for that, but the one I want to talk to about is this: This week we started to practice our dance for the school festival at the end of the month. And can I just mention this...I'm the one who was choreographing the moves. I did it last year as well for our winter performance...but I have to say, it is not easy. There are some parts that are really easy to figure out, but other parts can be really difficult. Especially when you're trying to think about things that 3 year olds can do. Anyway, the first time we tried, they really tried hard to copy what we (their teachers) were doing. By the third time (3 days later), they were already remembering the moves, helped me to decide on some moves for a section I was having difficulty with, and did an overall awesome job!! So happy. So so happy with them. Usually it takes a lot longer, and we were worried it would be to difficult for them. But they can do it!! The song choice was a joint decision between me and my partner, so we're dancing to "Can't stop the feeling" and I heard that our class is going to be the first dance after the opening. No pressure there.
Outside of work, last weekend I got to go see Yoshida Hiroki's lives (it'd been about a month since the last time). The first time was in a live house, and he played some new songs in a style that was kind of different for him, but were really great anyway! The second time was a street live at GrandFront, I always like going there to hear him sing. Something about the atmosphere I think. That day, there was also a really interesting old grandmother who stopped to listen to him. She really seemed to get into listening and was clapping away (although her rhythm didn't match the song at all...) At one point she came and sat beside me, and was muttering to herself as she read his flyer, mostly good things, although she did hit his face on it at one point when complaining about how his hairstyle in the picture made it really hard to see his face. It was so hard not to laugh! Then she turned to me and said something about how his voice was really good, and then proceeded to be shocked when I actually answered her in Japanese. She was really funny. And she offered me snacks after I talked with her for a little bit.
ヨシダヒロキstreet live
Also, interestingly, earlier this week Yoshida san was doing a TwitCast live, and in the middle of it he started talking about how he wants to go to Australia, then suddenly started talking in English. But more surprising were the responses he got. Comments started coming in wondering if I was watching the cast! So he mentioned my name, so of course I had to comment, but he seemed really surprised I was there...the more surprised person was me though! Then his other fans started saying hello to me, and kind of teased him about his English, 'even though Amanda helps you....'
This weekend there was a music festival in Kobe that went through both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, I went there because FASE was performing, and he was on the main stage this time, and had a band to support as well. It was fun! And I also saw a couple of other women who often go to listen to his music, and spent some time talking with them as well (one in particular). I found a video of one of the songs he performed on this day HERE.
FASE @ Shinkaichi Music Festival
Sunday, my teaching partner from last year, also performed at that same music festival, so I went to see her, and was also able to meet up with another one of the teachers that we worked together with last year (who was transferred to a different campus this year). It was really nice to see them, and we went and wandered around the festival for a while together afterwards, got some food and drinks and then went to watch a group that my partner really liked!
Her group, New Funktion
Waiting for them to start!
She looks so happy! ^_^
We met another staff member and her daughter!!
It was a good reunion!!
In this group that she liked, one of their members is returning to America soon, so she and the other teacher kept telling me that I should join the group because my partner has a thing for my voice and wants to hear me sing more. Pressure, pressure. Especially after the group mentioned that they would prefer the new member to not be Japanese. Ahhh!!! Since when do I sing outside of my classroom????
The group they figured I should join: うたうらら6
Recently, I've also had the chance to talk with some people that I haven't talked to or seen in quite some time, so that was another good thing that has happened!
Also, later this week, we're going to take our kids on their first field trip of the year, which will be fun, I'm sure. And more music to look forward to as well! Some street lives coming up, and next weekend Yoshida Hiroki is doing a cinema live for the third time, which is always an exciting and interesting event, and I can't wait! Recently he posted a video of one of his songs from the rehearsal! You can take a look by clicking HERE!
Like I said in the beginning: ♪♪ "Na, na, na, I'm so happy, oh so happy..." ♪♪
Continuing on with my adventures in Golden Week. The majority of the rest of my time was spent in Kagoshima. Rather than Kumamoto, this is the place that I really wanted to go. Why? Because I wanted to see Sakurajima (a volcano), and of course go there as well.
----THE FIRST DAY----
Sunday, since I had a few days ahead of me, I decided to catch up on a bit of sleep before I left Kumamoto for Kagoshima, and so I didn't leave until around 9:30, which put me in Kagoshima around 10:30ish. Not that that was so late, mind you. When I got there, it was absolutely beautiful weather, so after dropping my stuff off, I picked up some brochueres, and sat in a park to look at them. After that, I decided on my "itinerary" for the day. I decided that Sakurajima would need at least a full day, so instead of going there right away, I started off by making my way to Shiroyama, which was supposed to have a nice view of the city and Sakurajima as well. It was a rather easy walk as the observation point was only at 107m. There were also some other hiking trails up there as well, but that wasn't what I really wanted to do that day, so although I took a little walk down one of them, I ultimately left to go explore some other things instead. Since it was quite warm that day, I also got some ice-cream for the walk back down. Sakura-mochi flavor. It was SOOOO good!
View of Sakurajima from Shiroyama
Along the road to Shiroyama. So green!
After that, I went back down and headed in the opposite direction towards the waterfront area for a closer look at Sakurajima, and to check out that area as well. As I started getting closer, I could hear all sorts of loud music and there were tons of people around. It turned out that there was some kind of dancing festival going on. So I wandered through that for a little bit, before wandering around the waterfront area a little bit more.
A couple videos of that dancing I was just talking about.
The ferry that goes to Sakurajima
Sakurajima from the water front (unfortunately it was a bit hazy)
According to my maps, not so far away, there was a beach, and beyond that a big garden park, so I decided to go check those out and see what was what.
Views along the road
Along the way, I saw a sign that pointed to a park that was supposed to have a monument of one of the first European explorers to stop in Kagoshima, so I went to check that out. The monument itself wasn't so interesting to me...just a statue of a person, but the pathway near that area, had some really nice views...
At the beach area there was a person out on the water with a boat doing some tricks in a combination of what appeared to be water skiing and jet packs. Kind of interesting to see. (I'm sorry, I didn't take any pictures or videos of that though...there were to many cars in the way.)
Just before getting to the gardens, I passed by this old European residence...there were a few of them in the area.
The gardens that I went to were called Sengan-en, and it was kind of expensive to get into (1000 yen), but the reason for that was because the ticket also gave entrance to the museum next door. I really want to know why it wasn't possible to just get entry to the gardens though.
In the gardens, of course there were typical garden things, but they also had some historical kind of things as well. I'll start with the historical type things, and then show you the garden stuff...
This was apparently part of a wall of a power generating station at a gold mine that was used in the early 1900s
These are the ruins of a hydoelectric dam that was built in 1892
The residence of the lord who had the garden built and controlled the area
Was once a reverberatory furnace that was used to melt iron that was cast into cannons
One of the cannons that was made with above furnace (it was supposed to be 150 pounds and the most powerful cannon at the end of the Edo period...according to signs and things)
The original gate to the gardens (not the one that's being used now though....)
Right, so that was more or less the historical stuff...now for the pretty things...
Giant tree
So bright!
Sakurajima from the gardens
The butterflies were fiesty! They fought with each other if they got too close to each other's flowers...
So much green!!
Apparently they buried writing brushes here....not quite sure why, need to ask a Japanese person about that...
Kind of interesting...
There was also an area that you could walk up to maybe 500m or so to go check out a nice view. So of course, I did...
This was half-way up
Ferries!!
Look! Look! It's Sakurajima!!
Going back down to the main garden area....
Back down in the garden area: a shrine for cats!
This little guy was hiding behind a post next to a store...
After finishing in the garden, I went to that museum that I was talking about earlier. It was kind of small, and some of the things in there were interesting. They had some steam engines that people had built, that I know someone would be interested in, but unfortunately, no photos were allowed inside the building.
The museum was inside this old machinery factory...
When that was done, I went back to the main area of the city to get some dinner, and I found a place where I could get a set dinner with Kagoshima's famous dessert, shirokuma! Shirokuma is a shaved ice dessert that's mixed with sweetened condensed milk and topped with fruit and things to try to make a polar bear kind of image. (There were other flavors as well like strawberry, coffee, green tea, chocolate, etc, but that wouldn't make it white like a polar bear, right?). I got the original style.
Oh, by the way, I had some nice views from my hotel this time! At night I could see the city and this color changing ferris wheel, and in the morning I could see the sunrising next to Sakurajima! Lucky!
This was my first morning in Kagoshima
These two were on the day that I actually went to Sakurajima...It had been putting out some ash that day....
----BEACH TIME----
My first full day in Kagoshima, I did not go to Sakurajima. That had originally been my plan, but it was beautiful sunny weather, and the forecast for the next day was partly cloudy and a little cooler. In my mind that's probably better for wandering around on a volcano. So, I found a beach (Shigeomi beach) which was in a neighbouring town and was supposed to have a nice view of Sakurajima, and I went there instead! There weren't many people, but it was perfect weather for a beach day!!
Cute turtle melon bread for a snack!
Welcome to the beach!!
There's actually a dragonfly in this picture! Can you find it? (There were lots of them around this day...)
At the time I though it was interesting where the cloud was, and was too bad I didn't see the volcano putting out anything real...little did I know...
View from the beach
The water went out SO far!!
When the water started to go out, it was kind of strange, because it was doing all kind of weird things, like flowing in unusual directions and making sounds that were a little bit strange as well. And of course, because it started receding really quickly, I was a little bit worried, because going back to that geo-geekness, I know that a rapidly recessing watershoreline can be a really good indicator of a tsunami, and given all the tectonic activity in the area, that wouldn't be totally unexpected. But nothing happened. Although it also did lead to some more interesting reading for me. Apparently there are submarines that regularly patrol the bay area around Sakurajima, taking readings of the tectonic activity and such things. Interesting!!
Also, I don't know if you can really tell from the pictures that I'm posting, but there was kind of a ring of mountains going around the entire area, so my geo-geek self was thinking, "Hmm....I wonder if this area was actually once part of a volcano itself, it seems like it could be a caldera or crater lake kind of feature. After doing some more reading, I found out that it was in fact a caldera at one point! Yay! Score one for nerdiness!
Anyway, that evening, I took a bit of a walk. There are all kinds of statues everywhere in Kagoshima. There were in Kumamoto too, and in Kobe now that I think of it....hmm...random rambling...
----SAKURAJIMA----
The next day, Tuesday, I finally went to Sakurajima!!! But before that, I'm getting ahead of myself....that morning, I felt really disappointed because as I was eating my breakfast, I saw some people dusting ash off of their cars. I was so sad, that I missed the ash fall while I was sleeping. And when I went outside there was ash all over the road, and people were busy cleaning it off, and of course as vehicles went by, they blew it all over the place. So I felt a little better.
You can *kind of* see it in this video...
But, when I actually got on the ferry, I realized that maybe an ashfall day wasn't going to be quite the best kind of day to visit Sakurajima, but not much I could do about it now. The reason behind that was because from the ferry, you couldn't really even see the volcano, so I was really wondering what it would be like once we got there.
On arriving, I made my way to the visitors center and really started to understand that there was no way I wanted to walk on a road near cars at all, because they weren't really slowing down and were blowing ash everywhere. Even the street sweeper. Actually I was really worried about that one for a bit and started walking backwards because it didn't seem like he was going to stop and I would be enveloped in a cloud of ash before I even got started. But eventually he realized I was there and stopped but, BUT!! He started up again before I even got past. Not cool. So not cool. Anyway, once I got to the visitor center, I found out about a path that went along the edge of the island, along the water. It was much better. I didn't really have to worry about cars or anything for awhile. And so pretty!! But there was NO ONE!!! Only me!
Welcome to the park and the path!
Pretty!
There was also this section with foot baths, but I thought that would be better at the end than the beginning (but I forgot until after I left...)
Sakurajima and the foot baths
So much ash all over the paths (there was actually concrete underneath!)
No one had been down this path yet, so....
Of course I had to do something! I considered ash angels but that would've been a little to messy I think....
A little difficult to read the signs
Did I mention it was raining ash while I was walking...so this was on me too!
I know, I know....pictures of me are requested...already starting to get dirty....
Gotta love it!
Did I mention the ash?
There were a lot of rocks around like this. Apparently they're inscribed with some poems/haiku?
There's a story that goes with this...
Right, so the cat. Basically when I was walking, I heard a loud rustling in the grass, and I was really curious about what it was, and it turned out to be this cat playing....and I saw it again later on the road above...it kind of glared at me...
This video shows a little bit of how nice it was along the path next to the water...
As I kept walking, eventually I got to an observation point, which, luckily for me, had a covered area. I say luckily because of this:
Another expulsion of ash!
As it started moving down and out
Yep, I definitely waited this out under the roof
Just kidding! I was being silly!
Well, once that improptu ash storm was over, I continued on my way...
So, there used to be rivers here, but they're all dried up....
This one too...
Interesting monument....was called the "All night concert", and in terms of scale, the base was almost taller than me...
In the area with the above monument, there was also a really big green space...
Looking more normal....
Or not...(5 minutes later)
So pretty!!
It's always interesting to see the different types of vegetation in volcanic landscapes...
Just a shrine along the way...
I just wanted to point this out: unique point of Sakurajima -- everything that would normally be out in open space, is covered by a roof on Sakurajima!
It's raining ash again~~ 🎶🎶
Also, since I think I haven't mentioned this yet, now is as good a time as any: Originally my plan had been to walk around the entire perimeter of Sakurajima's island, but because the conditions weren't so great for walking, I modified those plans a little bit, and instead took another path more along the interior that went up to the Yunohira Observatory. It was a good walk, and I don't think I really missed out on too much. The only thing that I didn't get to see that I would have liked to was a torii gate that got almost completely buried by the big eruption that occured on Sakurajima in 1914 (and also created a link to the main land at the same time)
Views from the Yunohira observatory
According to the internet...this is what that buried torii gate was supposed to look like...
After going to the observatory, I consulted with a gentleman who was doing some construction type work about which road would be the best way to get back down to the port area (because there were a few different options and they weren't really lablelled and didn't have signage). He pointed me in the right direction, but also offered to take me that way, because apparently he was heading back soon, but I explained that I actually wanted to walk. Why does that always surprise Japanese people? Anyway, I found the road, and later on, that person drove by and waved, well twice actually -- the second time it looked like he had picked up a load of materials and was headed back up the way he had come from.
Nice view on the way down...
There was a mikan (orange) farm...apparently Sakurajima is famous for its mini-mikan and giant daikon (radish), but I didn't get to see them because they harvest in December/January...
Back down and heading for the ferry
Can I just mention, that after this day, I had a really good sleep? Thank you volcano!
----RAINY DAY----
The next day, I had planned to go out to a flower park that was close to one of the southern-most points of Kagoshima, and there was also supposed to be a nice viewpoint and things as well. But both of those things were outside. And it was raining. A lot. So, I made the executive decision that since I would probably be miserable and probably wouldn't be able to see anything anyway, I would find something else to do. So, in the morning, I went to a movie --- it's been a long time! But it seemed like everyone else in Kagoshima had a similar idea, because I had to wait in line for 40 minutes!! But, luckily for me, it turned out to be ladies day, so I got a discounted price! After that I did some shopping for the required souvenirs for work. By that point it was already late afternoon, and the rain was just going on and off, so I ventured out for a bit of a walk. Along the way, I found a festival that was going on --- the Napoli festival. There was things like pizza, pasta, wine, opera music and music that seemed much more Celtic than Italian. By the way, did I mention that Kagoshima and Naples are kind of compared a little bit....based on their proximity to volcanoes, I presume. Well, as long as a Pompeii style situation doesn't happen....
The Napoli festival, from across the river....
----LAST DAY IN KYUSHUU----
Originally, my plan for the last day in Kagoshima was to go to the beach or park or Sakurajima for a little bit to enjoy the sunshine, and the forecast was calling for partly cloudy weather! But. It rained. So, I decided to head over to Kumamoto (where I would be catching the bus later in the evening) a bit earlier than I had planned (because the weather there was looking nicer). When I got there, it wasn't exactly sunny, but it wasn't raining either, so that was good. After finding a locker to put my stuff in, and checking with multiple people about the location to catch the bus, I went out for a bit of a walk. I ended up in a big park area next to the castle grounds where lots of people were enjoying the warm weather. So I pulled out my book and did the same. During that time there was a bit of a tremor that had everyone looking around to see if other people felt it too. So many interesting geo things on this trip!!! After a while, I headed into the downtown area to find some dinner before I had to leave. During that time, an older gentleman came up to me and said (in Japanese) that he wanted to drink. (there was a beer festival going on near the shopping area). So I pretended to completely misunderstand what he was trying to say, and just told him to go enjoy it. By himself. Anyway, after that, I found somewhere to eat and proceeded to probably eat way too much and had to take another walk before getting on the bus to go back home.
Cute puppies in Kumamoto Station
----BACK HOME----
I got back into Kobe just before 6am, and of course went home to drop off my bags and eat some breakfast. But after 9 hours on the bus, I wanted to go for a walk. So after a quick little rest, I headed out for a rather long walk. In fact I beat my previous record by 1km. So, 46.1km! Yay! Although by the end, the bottoms of my feet hurt a little bit. (Was fine a couple hours later though...)
It also happened to be Children's Day on that day, so as I walked I saw all kinds of interesting things. In some places there was some kind of demon? (not really sure what it was), doing something in front of businesses, shaking a stick and shouting, after which the owner came out, said thank you, and handed the people an envelope (with money inside I think....)
I also saw this:
Definitely no idea about this one though...I need to ask....
And, of course it wouldn't be Children's Day without:
And that, is going to be the main explanation of my travels this past week. Pretty nice!! I'm happy with it! And I got to go to a live on the weekend as well, so that made it pretty much a perfect vacation (minus the rain) for me!
