This morning, we took the Shinkansen to Kagoshima. It’s only a 50 min ride, no stops. We bought a 2 day CUTE pass for 1900 yen per person at the tourist information booth at the Kagoshima JR station, and then dropped our luggage off at JR Kyushu Kagoshima Hotel (entrance is right at the same floor, 2nd floor, as the JR info booth). Kagoshima JR station is huge and busy compared to Kumamoto and Nagasaki’s JR stations. It’s not as crazy as the Hakata JR station in Fukuoka, but it’s pretty darn crowded and big. They were also setting up tents for the Octoberfest during the weekend.
Kagoshima sights to see: Sakurajima “Island” (active volcano), Sengan-en Garden, Satsuma Kiriko Glass workshop, Meji Restoration museum, shiroyama observatory
Kagoshima foods to try: Satsumaage (fish cake), kibinago (herring), raw chicken…no thanks!, sochu, kurabota black pork
Day 1
We took the city bus (it’s a hop on hop off type bus covered by the CUTE PASS) and rode it all the way to Sengan-en garden (open 9-5, 1600 yen per person, buy ticket at kiosk and enter through gates). Inside the garden is the restaurant Ohkatei, where you can enjoy a nice meal with views of Sakurajima. David ordered a chirashi bowl with sea bream fish soup (3300 yen).
I ordered a set that had sashimi, satsumaage (Kagoshima fish cake) and a shredded chicken and veggies plate that you put on top of the rice and pour chicken soup over the whole bowl (chazuke).
The windows at the restaurant are huge and so everyone can enjoy the views of Sakurajima while eating inside Sengan-en garden. Plus it’s nicely air conditioned. Kagoshima is hot even in mid October!
Sengan-en garden Gate
Sengan-en garden Shimazu house. Sengan-en is a traditional Japanese garden built by the powerful feudal lord Shimazu in 1658. The Shimazu ruled Satsuma, present day Kagoshima, for 700 years until the end of the feudal period. After that, they were still influential in the modernization of Japan as the country adopted western technology. You can walk through the house (shoes off) and read about the history. This pictured above is the study room.
Sengan-en garden Shimadzu house back garden pond
Sengan-en Garden: views of Sakurajima
Just a 5 min walk from Sengan-en is a glass factory where they make the famous Satsuma Kiriko Glass and is definitely worth a visit. It’s free. You can see all the steps (explained in English) that goes into making the glass and there’s actual workers at each station working their craft. I can see why this glass is so expensive!
Satsuma Kiriko Glass : They layer the glass with colored vs clear glass
Satsuma Kiriko Glass: Then the design gets drawn on with a white pen
Satsuma Kiriko Glass: The designs get cut in deep at an angle with diamond blades
Satsuma Kiriko Glass: Glass is polished
Satsuma Kiriko Glass: Gallery and shop with the final products. I wish they made smaller pieces that I can afford so I can get some for souvenirs. They are so pretty!
After this, we took the city view bus back to the JR station and checked into our hotel. Just FYI, there’s a post office near the Kagoshima JR station if you need to mail off post cards!!!
Later, we caught the tram to the ferry terminal, and rode the ferry over to Sakurajima island and back (tram and ferry covered by the cute pass).
I love ferry rides!
View of Sakurajima from the ferry. This was already after sunset, so the picture wasn’t great. (We have a better picture the next day when we waited for sunset to take the picture)
View of evening Kagoshima skyline from the ferry
From the ferry terminal, we took the tram back to the JR station, and on the 5th floor of the JR station is a tempura restaurant called Nakumura on Google maps, but there’s no English name on the restaurant store front so it’s a bit hard to find. The best hint is that it’s on the 5th floor and then walk around to find a shop where the store front looks like the below picture. The tempura here is so good! They fry the pieces separately and give it to you as it comes out of the fryer so each piece is super fresh. And the price is so reasonable (3000 yen for both of us, $21). Pictured above is when the fish pieces came out of the fryer.
After eating the fish pieces, the shrimp and squid tempura came out. Then the vegetable tempura came out. The little bowl in the left corner are the 3 different salts you can dip your tempura in: citrus salt, truffle salt, pepper salt. There were also jars of pickles to go with your rice if you wanted. And apparently you can get free refills of rice. We heard the two guys in the table next to us ask for it.
Here’s the store front so you know how to find the restaurant.
Day 2
Meiji restoration museum: opens 9-5pm, 300 yen per person, get a discount by showing CUTE pass
Meiji restoration museum: Here, there are exhibits to show samurai culture, as well as the important figures of the Meji restoration and western technology that was adopted during the Meji period. However, the best things were the two films at 9:15AM and 9:50AM at the downstairs theater. There’s two seats with headphones for English translations, and watching the two films explained the entire history of the Meji restoration, and how the satsuma students went to London to learn the western technology to bring back to Japan. If it were not for these two films, we would not have gotten as much out of the museum, since most of the details at the exhibits were in Japanese. After watching the films, then it was easier to walk around the museum for another 30 min to see the exhibits.
Meiji restoration museum: Theater on the bottom floor. Must watch! Very well done, and there are English translations headphones on two seats (seats have a sign that says English)
Meiji restoration museum: Western telegram
Saigo Takamori, one of the leaders of the Meji Restoration, was tall. They think this was because the Satsuma (present day Kagoshima) samurai ate meat.
Dolphin show at 11:30am in front of the Kagoshima aquarium, which is by the ferry terminal. The aquarium is 1500yen, $10pp, 9:30-6pm. Use city bus coupon for a discount ticket and it will be only 1200 yen. BUT the dolphin show is outside the aquarium, so it's actually a FREE dolphin show. We were short on time, so only stayed to watch the dolphin show by the canal, which they called dolpin waterway. It’s lined with umbrellas to provide shade from the sun and there are signs talking about the dolphins. There are 10mins of free shows. Weekdays 3x (10.30, 12.30,14.30) weekend 3x (11.30,13.30,15.00).
Udon station on the ferry! This is only open from 11:50am to 5:50pm because when we were on the ferry last night, there was no udon. A lady rolls her udon materials from Kagoshima onto the ferry and prepares udon for you. It’s one of the “things to do” at Kagoshima since the ferry ride is only 15 min. So you order your udon, eat it with Sakurajima in the backdrop, and return the bowls back at the counter, all in 15 min. So, yep we got our bowls of udon!
Sakurajima Visitor center: after getting off the ferry, we walked 12 min to the visitor center, looked at the exhibits, and watched their 13 min film with English subtitles to learn the history of how the caldera and bay were formed, and the recent Sakurajima eruptions, before taking the hop on hop off bus.
We then took the bus to the stop called Akamizu, it’s a stone statue of a concert here years ago.
Back on the bus to ride up to the observatory view point. This is the closest you will get to the volcano
View of bay
Free foot bath near visitor center with views while you soak. Water looked kinda sketchy though because I’m not 100% sure all the tourists read the signs that they are supposed to rinse their feet BEFORE putting them in the onsen.
After rinsing and drying our feet, we walked back to the ferry terminal. There was a shrine near the terminal, so we took a Quick Look and then hopped onto the ferry. It was only 4:30PM, so we rode the ferry back and forth without getting off so that we had front row seats when it was close to 5:35PM for sunset pictures of Sakurajima. Here’s a picture of Sakurajima at sunset with its puff of smoke in a golden hue.
Back at the JR station, we ate dinner at a place that had yakisoba and shaved ice. The shaved ice here is good. It has a top layer of shaved ice that already has cream/milk in the ice block so it has flavor. And there’s fruit on top and on the bottom, but this shaved ice is not as good as the ones we had in Korea.
Yakisoba was good. It had an okonomiyaki flavor…
After dinner, we rode the ferris wheel. You get ON at the 6th floor of the mall instead of the ground floor, which is unique (400 yen per person with the CUTE PASS discount, otherwise it’s 500 yen pp).