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Kagoshima At the top of Shiroyama Park with smoking Sakurajima in the background.
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| Dinner at "Ohashi", izakaya | Walk up Shiroyama | Walk to castle ground and museum | |
| Sengan'en - garden, house, museum | |||
| Kagoshima, base of the Satsuma clan. For a hundred years or more, Satsuma was the most properous fief of the shoganate. This wealth was wholly at the expense of the Ryokyu people whom the Satsuma samuraii pitilessly exploited as colonial masters. (Only after this trip did I get cognizant of history by reading "Okinawa: History of an Island People.") | |||
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My friend Itsuko joined us at Kagoshima. We met at a hotel near Tenmonkan, an are known for shopping and eating. We found a small cool izakaya near the place where it said sardines was their speciality. The place was run by a family and had a very homey atmosphere. The food was good, too.
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For sightseeing, we went up Shiroyama Park for a view of Sakurajima, a well known active volcano that is a symbol of Kagoshima.
Kagoshima will suffer grievously when Shiroyama has its next major eruptions. At present it has to tolerate costly ashfalls when the wind blows its way from the crater. | ||
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Kagoshima was the last place where the Satsuma Rebellion (1877) was fought. In spite of the local samurais contribution to the Meiji Restoration, they were not treated by the government well. They were also against rapid modernization. The rebels fought the government army in Kumamoto and Kagoshima. Saigo Takamori led the Satsuma rebels, lost the war and commited suicide. This was the last stand for the samurais old ways and the Meiji government began to modernize full speed from then on.
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Sengan'en was a villa built by the 19th Satsuma lord Shimazu Mitsuhisa around 1660. It had a view of Sakurajima and was also known for its large Japanese garden. In 1852, the then lord Shimazu Nariakira feared colonization by European countries after learning of China after the Opium War, had a Western reverberatory furnace built next to the garden. It was known to be Shuseika project. The industry built around it not only produced steel, arms, ammunition and ships but also textile and food. We wanted to see the factory but unfortunately it was closed for renovation.
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_23nov22-aqu_1326.jpg The villa that we did not go in.  |
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_23nov22-bw_1304.jpg Lunch break at Wengan'en.  |
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