No Sweat

Posted byrandy@letters-to-rachel.memorialPosted inAdrift in the World, Along the Way, Updates From the Abandoned Planet, Video LoggingTags:, , , , , , , , , ,

Dearest Rachel –

Unlike the night before, when we were heading in to Nagasaki, and I was literally sweating out my fever, last night was a relatively easy night, even if I was still having difficulty breathing from time to time. Often I either get too warm or too cold, but last night went pretty much just right.  I didn’t work up the slightest sweat throughout the night.

As a result, I decided to skip taking a shower – I’ve been having issues with the water leaking out onto the bathroom floor lately for some reason – but I did take something of a furo bath in the solarium hot tub.  So I’ve been rinsed off and cleaned up, at the very least.

And given the cloud cover, it doesn’t look like I’m going to be doing a whole lot of sweating during the day today, either.  I don’t know if I like it this way – this level of cloud cover might obscure our view of Sakurajima – but as I’ve said many times before, these cities don’t have any control over the weather that we encounter when we visit them. It just is what it is, and we have to deal with it. Personally, as long as they don’t burst open while we’re here, I think I’m okay with this – and while my weather app suggests that there will be rain in town today, that won’t happen until like five or six in the evening – at which point I should long since be on the ship, and we should be, if not already cast off, at least in the process of doing so.

***

We’re actually out of the theatre almost ten minutes before our call time – guess I should show up a half-hour early more often, after all – and I’m given a map of the area on my way through the terminal building.  Urakami-san tells us we will only be going to a single stop today, but is more than willing to drop people off at the Aeon Arcade after we’ve been to the panorama site.

Turns out Kagoshima contains several hundred islands; which, I suppose, shouldn’t be surprising, given that ‘island’ – ‘shima’ – is part of its name.  Ten or eleven of them contain active volcanoes, of which Sakurajima is only the largest and most famous.  It’s also the most recently active; Uramaki-san informs us that there was a small eruption just last night.  “Are you scared?” to be here, she asks with a smile; clearly, she isn’t, so I guess we might as well not be.

The volcanic soil isn’t good for growing rice in, but the natives made do by growing sweet potatoes; likewise, since they couldn’t make saké, they distilled a beverage called shochu from a combination of these self-same sweet potatoes, buckwheat and/or sugarcane.  Evidently, its taste differs based on the combination of the various ingredients; how much of each is used, and so forth. Additionally, since it’s distilled rather than brewed, it has a significantly higher alcohol content than saké. At this point, I wonder if I should even bother with taking notes, as this information isn’t something I’m likely to work with or use, but whatever…

As we ascend Shiroyama to view the city, she tells of the last stand of Saigo Takamura during the Satsuma Rebellion.  There are a couple of caves on the way up, in which he apparently holed up to hide from the opposing forces for about a week, before committing seppukku.

In any event, after a few twists and turns, we’ve climbed the small mountain – well, perhaps more of a hill, given its relatively gentle slopes – and are able to get out and take a look around at the city.

Interestingly, on the way back down, I decide to take a picture of the azaleas in bloom, and get an additional surprise when I do so:

This doesn’t necessarily say anything for or against the city, but this is where I caught this thing – and it was so easy, too. I don’t often find myself in the right place and the right time, pointed in the right direction to catch these things, so I’m particularly proud of this.

***

Kagoshima, from what I can tell, suffers from an identity crisis – or maybe it’s just a matter of marketing. There doesn’t seem to be much that it has that some other city in Japan doesn’t already do or have bigger or better; including its smaller (! I still can’t get over that fact) neighbor to the northwest.

For instance , if you think in terms of Christianity – Saint Francis Xavier spent more of his time in Japan in Kagoshima than in Nagasaki , and established a church here (which this particular building commemorates) – Nagasaki has whole cathedrals, as well as memorials to its martyrs. And at the same time, the vast majority of folks in Kyushu are still both Shinto and Buddhist (a concept that I cannot wrap my head around, as it would seem to me that following two religions at the same time is a case of “you cannot serve two masters,” not that they would be familiar with the expression).
Then, there’s Sakurajima. A volcano this large, towering this clearly over a city, would be considered the iconic site of not only the city, but in perhaps the entire country anywhere else. As it is, however, it plays such a small second fiddle to Mount Fuji that I didn’t even know about it until I started researching the city the other day.
Meanwhile, consider Saigo Takamura, the “Last Samurai.” Instrumental in modernizing Japan’s military in order to reestablish the emperor and depose the shogunate, he then discovered that those same modern weapons that granted him and his men victory would also render them, as samurai, obsolete – who needs bushido, after all, when you have bullets and bombs? – which disturbed him to the point where he took up arms against the very empire, he tried to help reestablish – and predictably, was crushed.

But as far as I can tell, Kagoshima doesn’t sweat these things, either. So what if it’s considered to be a backwater? It could be Osaka or Kyoto, and Tokyoites would still consider them to be such; so why go through the effort to impress the unimpressable? They seem content to be as they are.

***

At this point, Urakami-san offered to drop us off at Chuo Park, across the street from a shopping arcade. I actually confuse it with a different shopping center some distance across town – but in either case, I’m more than happy to disembark. I’ve still got my cold medication to locate, at which point, I hopefully can make my way around and do some other shopping along the way.

Not only that, but having missed out on the opportunity to take the trams in Nagasaki, I wanted to make a point of doing so here in Kagoshima, if for no other reason than to say I’ve done so – although, just being able to get around is a pretty good reason in its own right.

As usual, when I’m walking around and filming myself, I didn’t have a lot of time to take notes down, so I’m afraid those meanderings will have to be covered in another video. It’s a long one, though – I hope you don’t mind too terribly.

At least Friday will be relatively quiet while we’re at sea. But in any event, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.

Published by randy@letters-to-rachel.memorial

I am Rachel's husband. Was. I'm still trying to deal with it. I probably always will be.

2 thoughts on “No Sweat”

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