Do you have an idea how many tourists from abroad visit Kagoshima ?
About 80,000 foreign tourists per year come to Kagoshima for traveling (83,926 tourists in 2000)!! By nationalities, the largest group of tourists comes from Hong Kong (37,707), then Korea (19,363), Taiwan (7,389), USA (5,860), and finally China (1,189). (Numbers of tourist in 2000) Although traveling alone or in couples has been increasing, travelers from Asian countries like Hong Kong and Korea still travel in big guided groups. You may have seen them in the middle of Tenmonkan arcade sometimes.

People who travel alone or in couples are usually "backpackers", which is a very casual way to travel, always with a backpack on their back! Most backpackers are from Western countries, and even in Kagoshima you will sometimes see them around the city. They usually get information about the places they want to visit through internet, or backpackers guide books.

In Kagoshima city, there is a family-run inn "Nakazono Ryokan" which is a member of Japanese Inn Group near Kagoshima City hall. About 70% of their visitors are foreigners, due to the cheap accommodation rate. There are some regular visitors who visit Kagoshima and stay there every time. This year, a German tourist group came again in September, and I decided to join them for one day. They made a cycling tour around Sakurajima.
(This trip was reported in September.)
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I met them at the bicycle renting place. The guide, Mr. Wolfgang, who speaks very fluent Japanese introduced me the group. They were very nice, three men and two women, with a wide range of ages. The guide was a former foreign student in Hokkaido. He liked Kagoshima since the first time he came here. For this day I also became part of the group. I was surprised, when I knew that nobody knew each other before the trip, and all met in Osaka for the first time!

Mr. Wolfgang told me how he and his travel agency designed this kind of travel for small groups (5-8 people) during 3 weeks around Japan, not only visiting the usual sightseeing spots or cities, but also small towns where you can feel the nature and the local lifestyle, staying in budget places and using public transportation to be closer to local people.

After getting off from the ferry in Sakurajima, we headed to the left where a residence area is near the Sakurajima port, and the road is smooth and extended by the bay. We saw the fish cages in which fishermen told us, they culture "Kampachi" and "Yellow tail", very common fishes in the area. After a while, we reached Saidou beach, which is the only natural beach in Sakurajima. For the German people, that wasn't certainly the idea of beach though.

Mr. Wolfgang got a flat tire, but fortunately we found a very kind man who helped him to change his bike at the bicycle renting store. In the meanwhile, the rest of the group took a break and rest on a nice small beach with black and brown small light stones, next to a small fishing port. One of the guys finally decided to swim, so changed clothes and jumped in the water: This was the first time to swim in the Pacific he said!! Others walked along the beach picking up shells and wood.

When Mr. Wolfgang came back with a new "mama-chari" (usually for ladies), we started our trip. After a while, the road became gradually an upward slope. We started to see many brown pine trees and it was quite strange since pine trees don't change color with seasons. We knew later that pine trees have been dying, due to a special insect that attacks them.

The bay disappeared from our sight and the road slope became quite steep, so that we walked for a while. Once we got the top downhill was very nice and curves were exiting! There was a small wooden cottage with some cars parked in front. We stopped by, and an old woman was selling Sakurajima small sweet mandarins and bottles of golden colored camellia oil. On the ground, seeds of camellia to produce oil were placed to dry. People use the oil for the hair. After drinking juice we continued our trip.

We realized how Sakurajima has some small bays with artistic shape lava rocks, greenery pine trees, a clear dark green sea and many fishing boats inside. When you see it from the hill, these bays look like hidden secret bays.

In the East side of Sakurajima, we didn't found many houses; only sea or green. From the foot of the mountain to mid way up the side, you could see only greenery fields, but somehow they were strange. Looking carefully you were not able to see single trees and most trees were covered by a weed like ivy. It looked like as if you put over a huge net of ivy on the field from the air.

Houses appeared gradually and finally we reached the buried gate, which is a Shintoist shrine gate buried by lava in the huge eruption of 1914. This is the only thing that remains from former eruptions. The place is often visited by tourists; during our stay there, we saw around 8 groups, including a Polish one.

We headed then to the place where Sakurajima and Osumi peninsula are connected, downhill most of the time. The traffic became heavier and we had to be careful, since cars passed quite close to us. Even though the view of Osumi peninsula and Kinko bay was wonderful. For the German people this was the real Japanese Kagoshiman scenery. Not far from
there, we found the Arimura viewpoint, which is one of the main sightseeing spots in Sakurajima, usually busy with people. We stayed for a while. After the Furusato hot spring, we could see the rocky surface of Sakurajima. The road became flat with sea and lava field to our left and lava field and Sakurajima to our right. We reached the Lava road.

After the lava road, we saw a residence area and after it we found a "Sakurajima-yaki kiln", which is Sakurajima pottery made with glaze containing volcanic ash and using hot spring water. They are usually shiny black or dark brown color and it is one of Sakurajima's specialties.

We finally arrived to Sakurajima port again. We all were quite tired but really satisfied with our bike tour around Sakurajima.