After a 5 hour train ride we arrived in Kagoshima for the night. Last stop before Yakushima!
It’s not the prettiest of all cities, but there are some nice parks and a view of the Sakurajima volcano.
In the evening we went to Kagomma Furusato Yataimura, a food street close to the train station, where we ate some delicious Shabu Shabu while listening to a local band.
Shabu Shabu is a hot pot dish where you dip thin slices of pork (Kagoshima’s speciality) in a broth to cook it! It’s the best!
YAKUSHIMA
We took the ferry to Yakushima in the morning. It takes 3 hours to get there by speedboat. If you’re lucky, you will see some flying fish!
The weather in Yakushima is unpredictable. When we arrived it was pouring and we got really worried for our hike trough the forest the next day, but luckily it cleared up (sort of). The island is tiny and we could not find any big convenience stores close to our guesthouse, but luckily there were some awesome restaurants with amazing fish dishes and the local speciality: Flying fish! Raw or fried… it’s really good!
In our guesthouse we could order a bento for the day of the hike. It was delivered at 5 AM, for those who left really early. Most people rent cars because it is the easiest way to travel around the island and there are only very few buses. But we took the bus anyway so we left at 8 AM with the first bus and got back at 4PM with the last bus.
We are not experienced hikers but we were able to do A LOT of walking in 6 hours (we really took our time and took tons of pictures) and didn’t get lost once. Just follow the pink ribbon. We took the red, the yellow and the green trail on this map.
I had a minor shoe incident and lost my soles after 30 minutes but was still able to get to Taikoiwa rock, where we were supposed to have a great view… except we didn’t because we were in a cloud.
The forest is majestic. The trees are huge and I felt like a wood fairy jumping from stone to stone to cross a river. The higher we climbed the more misty the woods got. The atmosphere was really magical!
Here’s some green overload.
Next we will visit Hiroshima and finally, TOKYO! See ya!
Part 1: Kyoto
Part 2: Kyoto (2)
Part 3: Koyasan and Nara