Sugoku Kawai!

This is the car I rented for four days, to visit Kirishima National Park. It is a Nissan March. It is sugoku kawai! (extremely/exceptionally/unbelievably cute.) Kawai rhymes with Hawai’i.

I think I ended up with this car because, at the rental company, the girl at the counter could point outside at the only blue car on the lot and ask, “Blue car is okay?” The rest of the cars were white or silver.

I drove from Kagoshima to Ebino-Kogen. The car has a “navi” (GPS navigation), but it is in Japanese only. However, I got the rental people to enter Ebino-Kogen as the destination, and I was on my way. The navigation system is very nice to have! It talks to you in a cute Japanese woman’s voice. It also shows the lane arrangement at upcoming intersections. On the highway, it draws a picture of upcoming interchanges. It will also suggest alternate routes, as they come up.

The navi picks the fastest route, but, in my case, it chose the toll expressway, and it cost over $20 to drive 80km! I actually did want to get to Ebino-Kogen quickly, so it was okay. On the way back, I took a slower route on free roads.

You may notice that the car has slightly ’60’s retro style to it. This is a trend in Japan, probably spurred by the success of the New Mini. One manufacturer especially, Daihatsu, is making cars that on first glance look like they are from the ’60’s, and only closer inspection reveals that they are modern. They have big grills and chrome rings around the lights.

Anyway, the car was great, and driving in the Japanese countryside and small cities is not a problem.

Hot Coffee in a Can

This is hot coffee in a can, from a vending machine. Coffee is usually a pick-me-up, but “Deeppresso” sounds like it will knock you down!

Life is Not All Cherry Blossoms

There are some plum blossoms, too!

Kirishima National Park

I had three days to explore the park. It is not really big, so I saw most of it.

This park has the equivalent of New Zealand’s Tongariro Crossing. You can hike about 15km, across a number of volcano peaks. I didn’t do the entire hike, partly because of weather, and partly because I did not know how to arrange transportation back to the starting point. It was very overcast for two days, and the middle day was clear, but extremely windy and hazy (so the views would not be great). I did hike to one of the lower crater lakes, and partway on another part of the trail.

I stayed at a nice ryokan. It is definitely “low season”, because most of the lodging was very empty. I stayed in the annex building of the ryokan, and I had it to myself for three nights! It had a number of tatami rooms, a kitchen, and a Japanese bath. I bought some soba noodles to cook for dinner.

Shinkansen

The Shinkansen (bullet train) is a nice, fast way to travel. It is very comfortable and quiet.

The trip from Tokyo to Kagoshima involved four trains. On the first leg, which lasted four hours, I was in the smoking car, because no reserved seats were left in the non-smoking car. I have to say that I felt pretty ill at the end of it, and my respiratory system felt dirty for a day!

For the trip from Kagoshima to Nara, there was another 2:45 leg that had only smoking car reserved seats. This time, I chose to risk using the non-reserved car to avoid the smoking. This was a good choice, because I boarded the train at the origination point, and there were plenty of seats. Later on, the car became full and many people had to stand for 1:30!

The connections are timed very tightly. You may only have two or three minutes to change trains. On the first trip, the close connections just involved walking across the platform to a waiting train. On the return trip, however, I missed a connection because my train was late, and a six minute change became one minute, with a long walk. Fortunately, there was another train in one hour.

Nara

I am in Nara now. I will stay here for eight nights, and explore Kyoto (a short train ride) and Nara.

I tried to book a few nights in Kyoto, but it was very full. The proprietor at the Nakazono Ryokan in Kagoshima was extremely helpful, calling a dozen places in Kyoto and half-a-dozen in Nara to find me a place to stay. (He didn’t want to find me a place in Osaka, which is also close – and larger – because “Osaka is not a nice place”.)

It is definitely a high season in the Kansai region!