South Kyushu Travel Video Guide

South Kyushu Travel Itinerary

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Southern Kyushu consists of two huge, empty prefectures which offer few historical or cultural sights, but buckets of scenery - mostly of the volcanic variety - and further stops on the onsen trail. The most interesting area is westerly Kagoshima , whose main city sits in the shadow of a grumbling, ash-spewing volcano, Sakurajima . Most people come simply to view this troublesome beast, but Kagoshima also has one or two worthwhile museums celebrating its role in the Meiji Restoration, and provides a gateway to the Satsuma Peninsula. Here, the small town of Ibusuki is devoted to hot-spring bathing, including a seaside sand bath, while nearby Chiran houses another of Japan's disturbingly ambiguous war museums. In this case it commemorates the kamikaze suicide bombers, many of them mere teenagers, who rallied to the imperial cause at the end of World War II. From either Kagoshima or Ibusuki, ferries ply south to Yakushima . A paradise for botanists and hikers, this mountainous island is covered in ancient, misty forests where only in the last few decades five-thousand-year-old cedar trees have been discovered. Back on the Kyushu mainland, there's very different walking

country around Ebino Kogen , a high, open plateau ringed by volcanic peaks, before the mountains fade out towards Miyazaki . The only large town on southern Kyushu's southeast coast, Miyazaki is a useful base but has little to detain you. Its artificial, indoor beach, Seagaia , is an extraordinary concept, though the real coast probably holds more of immediate interest, notably Aoshima 's subtropical gardens and the celebrated cave-shrine of Udo-jingu .

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