Belated Kagoshima Wrap-Up

The conclusion to my Kagoshima rant was neatly swept under the rug after that second post. One of the reasons for that is that I've become more active in various after school activities at Kusu and Mori JHSs. Yes, Matt is playing scrimmage goaltender for the soccer club, tossing outfield drives back to the pitchers for the softball club and painting maps with the art club. Truth be told, there's not a terrible amount more to say anyways so here goes.

The air had completely cleared on Sakurajima when I woke at 7AM on Friday so I dashed out the door as quick as possible to take advantage of the deserted morning roads and pent of energy that 12-hours of sleep will do to me. I took the slightly longer northern route around the island to get back to Tarumizu and my car, making sure to stop off at the landmark torii (shrine gate) submerged under a pyroclastic flow in 1958. The east side of the island where it's located at is a particularly chilling little hellscape as it's where the lion's share of the ash and whatnot fall or flow to, and yet it's been rebuilt over and over for no other reason than the volcanic soils make for smashing radish harvests. Less than 50 meters from the gate, in fact, you'll find a junior high. Wonder who the JET there is.

Back in the car and on the road I just wanted a nice bath so I returned to the michi no eki and hopped in, this time sans Yakuza. After that was a long and boring trip around Kinko Bay to central Kagoshima where I stumbled upon...GASP!...free parking behind the main library. The park next door would also do well as a camp for that night, so I unloaded the bike and headed out. First stop, as if you have to guess, was coffee at the sprawling central train station. Feeling a little bit remorseful about not paying for parking (OK, that's a baldfaced lie...suckers!) I just had to try Kagoshima's amazing network of paid bike parking. Though Japan is extremely safe for bikes regularly I welcomed the enhanced feeling of security knowing that I could lock up my baby for only 100 J-bucks a day. These barns are located all over the city, allow scooters and motorcycles too and are multi-storied (you navigate the floors by conveyor belt ramps if you have a motorcycle). After the coffee I started my never ending rambling journey in and out of every street and alley in downtown Kagoshima.

I walked for about six hours straight amongst the downtown grid taking in the city's ambiance through my pores in both a metaphorical and real sense--it was damn humid after all. It's not just that Kagoshima has more shops than Oita, the aesthetic there is way more, I don't know, liberated. Especially in the area set aside for the hip and/or sophisticated local designers I really felt like I could be walking somewhere in SF, maybe the Haight (minus the drugs) or down Valencia (minus the drugs and Mexican food). There's even a fixed-gear cycle scene in Kagoshima and a shop that services the community! As much as I loathe the damn things there's something comforting about knowing there are hipsters in Kagoshima.

Actually, the hipster shopkeeper that I started chatting up about his bike started a theme for the day: talk to absolutely fucking everybody and see what happens! The result of this experiment was the discovery that Kagoshimites (?) are incredibly chatty. My two favorite chats of the day were with Hip Hop Clothing Guy, owner of a hip hip clothing store, who was absolutely floored by the fact that my hometown is within spitting distance of Oakland, CA. To him I was a hard-as-nails bullet-dodging gangsta with a Glock under the belt of my hanging Ben Davis jeans. I would really have liked to buy at least a shirt from him if they weren't all locally designed and priced from about 5000 J-bucks up. My next favorite conversation partner was Eri, the hard-smoking, foul-mouthed catty bitch manager of a Korean food stall in the Tenmonkan entertainment district. I ended up having my longest ever convo with a Japanese person with her--about two hours straight ! And not once did I have to check my dictionary! My Japanese is really coming along, if I do say so myself. Her resume is diverse, ranging from food stall manager to kindergarten teacher to hostess club manager to factory worker and more. She knows everything about everything in Kagoshima and we kept pouring each other enough drinks to keep the gossip going and coming for a good while. Good fun I won't soon forget.

I took a short break from Eri's wackiness to try out a beer bar around the corner and was pleasantly surprised to find it properly stocked and then some. Heck, it even had a local microbrew satsumaimo (Kagoshima sweet potato) beer that I partook of in all its purple glory. I went back to Eri's Korean stall and met a jolly local restaurateur who promptly began chatting and pouring me Japanese liquor. After a spell he invited me to his restaurant, an upscale sushi joint. Really upscale. I thought that perhaps he had liquored me up before to get me to spend bank at his restaurant later, but after the umpteenth plate of fine sashimi and listening to him and his staff's corny jokes he gave me his business card and covered the bill. Are the people of Kagoshima great or what?

By this time I was pretty well three sheets to the wind so I hunkered down at a filthy yakitori stall, ordered some meat on skewers and another beer and started making drunk emails to friends. I somehow found my way back to the car after that and collapsed in the back seat and fell into a fitful sleep.

Sleeping in cars is the suck.

I woke up with such indescribable shoulder and neck pains...ugh. Without much further ado or bone cracking I just aimed at the road home and started my five-hour journey up the island via public roads. Some relatively nice and charming seaside towns along the way, a nuclear power plant, Minamata again, etc., etc.

There, wrapped that up pretty quickly. I don't expect to be able to return to Kagoshima for a few more months, perhaps not until the end of summer, but when I do it'll be armed with a camera, some new acquaintances and a map of the city indelibly etched into my brain.

--Matt