Chiran gardens & Museum, Ibusuki - 15 May 2017

Saigo Keiichiros Garden (garden no. 1 of the Chiran Gardens)

Monday, 15 May 2017: Samurai gardens, a Peace Museum and a Wellness resort at the seashore.

Morning in Kagoshima: love the cute pole for doggies  

After breakfast at Starbucks Kagoshima, we visited the awesome Chiran Gardens. These are former Samurai houses and gardens, which were built about 250 years ago. 7 gardens with arrangements of stones and beautiful shaped trees are famous, they still breath the atmosphere of the village as it must have been in the Edo period.  

azalea

parasite (staghorn fern) in the neatly manicured tree

cake and cold coffee/tea at a teahouse in the Chiran Gardens

creativity at the teahouse

Near the Chiran gardens is the Peace Museum, which displays materials left by the 1023 deceased army pilots during the Kamikaze (the Japanese call them tokko)  operations in Okinawa during the final moments of WW II. At Chiran there was a training school for these young boys (most of them were in there twenties, some even 17 years old). The museum tells the personal stories of individual pilots and displays relics and their farewell letters, which was explained well by our English audioguide.

Moving on to our home for the next 2 nights: the Ibusuki Hakusuikan resort: a very large hotel at the seaside with hot baths (onsen), sand bath, swimming pool (closed, doesn't open until July (!) grr), adjacent golf course and more.

We were kindly received and given instructions where all the activities are located and brought to our room. After a beer in the 'bar', which wasn't easy to find, we enjoyed a lovely Japanese dinner. 

the Hakusuikan hotel, our room with our yukata's, belt and socks 

Here are the mandatory 'food pics'  

some of the many courses of this evening's Japanese dinner

Tomorrow we intend to take a hot- and sand bath, linger and read a book for a change.

dikke kus

Carina

Volcanic eruption and great Japanese & French food- 14 May 2017

This afternoon: an outburst of the volcano when we arrived at Kagoshima, arghhh

Sunday, 14 May 2017: from Kumamoto to Kagoshima.

This morning, after a wonderful sleep in our posh beds and dito hotel in Kumamoto we left town after a, by now well-known, breakfast at Starbucks (coffee and a wrap with veggies).

Heading for the volcanic island of Sakurajima, which is opposite the place where we will stay; the town of Kagoshima. 

We passed a lot of forest and tunnels.

lots of tunnels

on the road

When we arrived at Kagoshima we saw an eruption of the volcano... arghhhh. We headed for the ferry to the volcano island of Sakurajima, which was a lovely trip with this warm weather. 

first eruption after arrival at Sakurajima

volcanic landscape with the volcano in the back

Tori that disappeared under a stream of lava in 1914

many shelters here

fishermens place

when watching the volcano at the last observation point, suddenly ...

there was another eruption as if the volcano said: bye bye see you next time 

Our hotel for tonight is rather different than the one from last nite: no luxury room, but basic and an old place, which badly needs some refurbishing.

We went into town to have dinner and drinks, which was superb.

We opted for a sushi place this time: the 'Kikaku sushi': all fresh and great fun to see the chefs preparing the food and hear them shout all the welcoming and other messages (no idea what they said).

Some photos of the great food we had and the chefs that prepared it:

tempura

After our sushi meal we crossed the street to visit 'Charlemagne', a French cheese and wine bar, where we had dessert.
After the cheeses we couldn't resist having a real french crepes.

Tomorrow we will travel to the south of Kyushu to let ourselves be burried in black volcanic sand.

Keep you posted

Carina