:: Kagoshima After Dark
This post is just a whole lot of photos
of Kagoshima’s streets at night.
I’ve gathered night scenes
from all over Kagoshima that I walked through on this trip.
For me, Kagoshima is a city where the night matters more.
It’s a city of drinks and food, after all.
Eating good food,
drinking as much as you like until late,
and then walking the night streets without a worry.
That’s exactly what Kagoshima’s night streets have.
:: I Thought I Knew Kagoshima
Kagoshima.
This was already my fifth visit to this city.
None of them were business trips.
Every one of them was for travel.
The first visit was short,
just two nights on the way to Yakushima.
After that, though, I always stayed
five days and four nights or more.
Never a short stay.
Maybe that’s why?
Before this trip, I thought something like this.
“I’ve been to Kagoshima City many times and know it well,
so there’s nowhere new I need to go.”
A careless thought.
My fifth visit.
After coming back from this trip,
my thinking changed a little.
Strangely, a lot of places look new.
There’s still plenty of food I haven’t tried,
and plenty of restaurants I haven’t been to.
There was even a place I found
after the trip, while putting these posts together.
The area around the Kishaba tram stop(騎射場駅)
is quite a busy spot,
yet I’d never even heard its name.
There must be more places like this.
Widen the view to Kagoshima Prefecture,
and it’s even more so.
I still haven’t tried the famous sand bath in Ibusuki(指宿),
and I’d like to visit Nishi-Oyama Station(西大山駅) once,
said to be the southernmost of all JR stations in Japan.
I want to eat katsuo in Makurazaki(枕崎),
which reportedly makes about 40% of Japan’s katsuobushi,
and I want to soak in a hot spring in Kirishima(霧島).
The Osumi Peninsula(大隅半島) is unknown territory.
I don’t even know if it has any famous food or towns.
No idea at all.
I still really don’t know Kagoshima well.
:: Still New, Still Mysterious
Maybe,
I’ve only just made it over the Peak of “Mount Stupid.”
I was ignorant of my own ignorance,
under the illusion that I knew everything.
And through this trip,
I came to see clearly that I don’t know it all.
So for me, Kagoshima
will remain a place that is still new and mysterious.
I’ll keep going to Kagoshima whenever I can,
and going again.
Because good food and good drinks are waiting there.
