Kagoshima

Sorry for the delay in this post--Japan does not allow ship-to-satellite communications in its waters, and we missed yesterday. So, Kagoshima:

There was a huge mess trying to get off the ship. Due to H1N1, they wanted an additional paper from everyone and they wanted to see and scan EVERYONE on the ship before they would let ANYBODY off. So, we were about 4 hours waiting!!! Ugh.

When we did get off the ship, the GAiGO kids were waiting for us. (Cruisecritic shore tour with English students as guides) Because we were late, bits of the tour had to be shortened or cut out, sadly. Anyway, the first thing we did was take a 15 minute ferry over to a volcanic island, where we got out and looked around the landscape. We also did a lot of chatting with "our" students. Then back to the mainland for a bit of a bus ride to a Japanese Garden. Absolutely gorgeous--we could have spent a lot more time there. We had box lunches in the Empresses Room--an honour--sitting on the floor. Then, a bit of a tour around the city of Kagoshima and back to the ship.

The kids were wonderful. They could speak excellent English, they were in guiding us around on a national holiday, and they were really friendly and obviously having fun.

When we got back to the ship, there was a performance of Taiko drumming. 10 drums--but the biggest was on its own trailer and was about 2 meters diameter drum surface. Boy did they play! Laurel's desire to join one of the Winnipeg groups was reinforced.

As we were leaving, the Sakurijima volcano let loose with a gas, smoke and ash eruption. Amazing to see the ash rolling down the mountain and just about over the place where we had earlier observed the volcano from. Lots of pictures.