Japan (Lonely Planet, 11th Edition) - Chris Rowthorn [563]
Ebino-kōgen Onsen Hotel (0984-33-0161; www.ebinokogenso.jp, in Japanese; s/tw per person with 2 meals from ¥9200/10,800; ) The friendly front-desk staff of this large ‘people’s hotel’ communicate well in English. The facilities are excellent, the location superb and the restaurant makes tasty affordable meals. The lovely rotemburo is open to the public from 11.30am to 7.30pm (¥500).
Getting There & Away
The main train junctions are JR Kobayashi Station, northeast of Ebino Plateau, and Kirishima-jingū Station to the south, but a direct bus from Kagoshima to Ebino-kōgen (¥1570, 1¾ hours) is the best method of public transport. Schedules change often.
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KIRISHIMA-SHI KOKUBU
Directly north of Sakurajima you’ll find Kokubu, Kagoshima’s second-largest city. It’s still rural, but has a growing population and branches of tech giants Kyōcera and Sony.
Sights
UENOHARA JŌMON-ERA SITE
If you have an interest in archaeology, you’ll want to detour to see Uenohara, once just a remote make-out spot with an empty parking lot and a few lonesome vending machines. Uenohara was transformed when during routine excavations, Jōmon-era pottery shards were excavated and found to be the oldest on record, leading to entirely new views about how civilisation developed in Japan. It now appears that the first humans may have come from the south rather than the north, via canoes or rafts along the Ryūkyū island chain. A re-created Jōmon-era village, demonstrations, tools and artefacts make this appealing museum (; 48-5701; admission ¥300; 9am-5pm, closed Mon) a fascinating spot.
Getting There & Around
Kokubu is easily reached by train from Kagoshima (Click here). Buses from Kokubu Station (¥400, six daily) arrive at the Uenohara Jōmon Site in 24 minutes. The last bus back departs at 5.35pm. Car rentals can be made with Toyota Renta Lease (0995-47-0600; 8am-8pm), three minutes’ walk from Kokubu Station; turn left at the first street after the station.
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KAGOSHIMA
099 / pop 604,480
Sunny and oddly relaxed Kagoshima, ‘Naples of the Orient’, is the southernmost metropolis of Japan’s four main islands, set against the backdrop of a very much living volcano, just across the bay. Unfazed locals have been known to raise their umbrellas against the mountain’s recurrent ablutions, when fine ash falls to the ground like snow, coating the landscape and obscuring the sun – creepy, yet captivating.
There’s plenty to see and do here and it’s worth staying for a few days.
History
For much of its history Kagoshima prefecture was dominated by the Shimazu clan, who held sway for nearly 700 years, until the Meiji Restoration took hold, beginning here. In 1865 the family helped smuggle a dozen young men into the UK to study Western technology first-hand. A statue in front of JR Kagoshima Station commemorates these adventurers who defied a national ban on foreign travel.
The Kagoshima (or Satsuma) region has long been receptive to outside contact and for many years was an important trading post with China. St Francis Xavier arrived here in 1549, making Kagoshima, like Nagasaki, one of Japan’s earliest gateways to Christianity and the West. Contact was also made with Korea, whose pottery methods were influential in the creation of Satsuma-yaki (Click here).
Orientation
Kagoshima spreads north–south beside the bay and has two JR stations, the main being Kagoshima-Chūō to the south. The city centre is where the Tenmonkan-dōri shopping arcade crosses the tramlines. The garden of Sengan-en Click here, one of Kagoshima’s main attractions, is north of JR Kagoshima Station (the other one) but most of the action is around Tenmonkan, north of Kōtsuki-gawa, with beloved Sakurajima often in view.
Information
Numerous places in the city (including the tourist information centre) carry an excellent English guide called Kagoshima. It has a host of activities and model excursions broken into three-hour, half-day and whole-day sections, all with detailed