:: At the Southern Tip of Kyushu, Kagoshima
Kagoshima(鹿児島).
The southernmost prefecture of Kyushu,
lying even further south than Jeju Island in latitude.
Apart from Okinawa,
it’s the southernmost of all Japan’s prefectures.
In Japanese dramas and films,
people from Kagoshima are often treated as complete country folk.
That’s how remote it is.
It might be a bit like how we Koreans think of Ttangkkeut Village as very far away.
Even though Jeju Island is actually farther.
:: Too Well-Equipped to Call the Countryside
In Japan,
not all infrastructure is concentrated in big cities like Tokyo or Osaka.
Maybe it’s because the country is large,
and places like Kyushu, Shikoku, and Hokkaido are separated as islands.
Cities at the level of a prefectural capital
seem to gather the infrastructure of the surrounding area
and keep the local economy running.
Kagoshima City is the same.
Kagoshima Prefecture may be a remote countryside at Japan’s southern tip,
but Kagoshima City is a big city with a population of nearly 600,000.
It even has a department store with over 200 years of history.
You may not call it a metropolis,
but it’s a mid-sized regional hub with plenty of infrastructure.
Actually, for travel, a city with this much infrastructure is more convenient.
A small town with fewer than 100,000 people has its quiet and calm,
but finding a good restaurant or a good bar gets harder.
So if you want to avoid the crowds of Tokyo, Osaka, or Fukuoka,
but don’t want to put up with the inconveniences of a rural town,
a city of this size might be a good choice for your trip.
There are plenty of good restaurants and good bars,
and you can even go shopping.
It definitely has a different flavor from the giant cities,
packed with people and full of foreigners.
Maybe that’s why.
I got hooked on Kagoshima.
:: Already My Fifth Visit!
This trip was my fifth visit.
The first was in 2017, when I was traveling around Kyushu.
To get to Yakushima(屋久島), I had to take a boat from Kagoshima.
That was when I first discovered the taste of Kagoshima’s kurobuta(黒豚) and shochu.
After that, I couldn’t travel for a while because of the COVID period and other reasons.
In 2024, I was finally able to travel again after a long time,
and my first destination after COVID was Kagoshima.
In 2025, I visited twice.
And this year, 2026, I came here again.
This time I was also curious about other parts of Kagoshima,
so in the first half of the trip,
I passed through places like Izumi(出水), Akune(阿久根), and Satsumasendai(薩摩川内).
And finally, I arrived in Kagoshima City.
It’s a city I’ve already visited five times.
To be honest, it’s no exaggeration to say
there isn’t much in Kagoshima City to go around for sightseeing.
So on this trip, my time in Kagoshima City
is filled with nothing but eating and drinking.
That’s why most of the streets I walked in Kagoshima
are around Tenmonkan(天文館), the downtown district.
Kagoshima, at the southern tip of Kyushu, with its blazing sun,
in late July, right in the middle of summer.
Maybe it’s not an easy travel plan to put together.
If it were a place with a shining sea like Okinawa, that might be another story.
But surprisingly, Kagoshima was less humid than Seoul, so it was fine.
Though the sunlight was much harsher.
This is my first time seeing Kagoshima’s streets in summer,
so clear that the sunlight stings.
I walked all over the streets, pressing the shutter nonstop.
The alleys I had seen so many times
were shining in different shapes and colors under the bright, clear sunlight.
