I was on a train out of Tokyo at 07.03 on Monday morning and paused for a moment on the way to the station to snap a Nihonbashi bridge lamp-post.  I hadn't slept terribly well and there didn't seem much point lying in bed moaning about it so I abandoned my seat on the 09.03 and got onto an unreserved coach on the earlier train.  It's actually hard to cancel a reservation.  It makes no financial difference to a tourist with a pass like myself but for someone who's paid £25 say for a reserved seat a simple way of doing it would be a godsend as well as making another seat available. 

That meant I got to Kagoshima about 14.30.  It is a long journey.  I bought some breakfast on the platform at the one intermediate station where I had to change trains.  It was a terribly painless change.  I arrived at and left the same platform about 15 minutes later having bought and mostly consumed said breakfast on the same platform.

There was a bit of a guddle when I did arrive.  There are two stations.  I knew that.  Booking.com knew that.  Google knew that.  I got on a tram to go to the hotel, having confirmed with another waiting passenger that the tram did go to the place I'd worked out with the help of Google etc at which I should get off to go to the Richmond Hotel.  I had asked the lady because I couldn't make head nor tail of the route information panel at the tramstop.  I still need to work on that because I went astray by tram this afternoon.

Anyway I decided to get off and proceed on foot in a Google inspired direction and after some time and some twists and turns I arrived at the Richmond Hotel.  Concern from the receptionist that he couldn't find my reservation.  Why?  It turns out there are two Richmond Hotels in Kagoshima and I was booked into the other one and the directions I had would have got me to the right one had I started from the other station.

I was still bothered about my camera lens problem so after I'd got installed I set about finding a camera shop.  That didn't prove entirely straighforward either but eventually a man with a banner took me round a corner and pointed to the giant camera sticking out of a wall at second floor level in a busy arcade.  I climbed a narrow staircase to the shop.  The man what knows wasn't in but would be back.  I left the lens and went for a dawnder and a coffee.  When I went back he said he couldn't fix it but he did happen to have the self-same lens in stock and obviously it was available should I wish to divest myself of some of my liquid assets.  I hummed and hawed and internally debated then said thanks but no thanks.

It was early evening by then so I looked around for someplace to eat and settled on a Nepalese restaurant where I had some excellent vegetable pakoras and a tasty coconut chicken curry washed down with a Kingfisher beer.  There was almost inevitably cricket on their telly so I watched that for a while before retiring to the correct Richmond Hotel. 

I'd got some information from the tourist office during my pottering about yesterday and went back there to buy a pass that would let me use the trams, buses and the ferry ad libitum.  I had breakfast of course.  This time in a branch of Mr Donut.  In Kanazawa my language classes were next door to Mr. D and I occasionally had coffee there.  They do excellent coffee but are surely in league with some dental repair company because their wares are fearsomely sweet.  They should have beware of tooth decay written all over them. 

Then I took the tourist bus around town and made mental and written notes of which spots seemed worth a visit.  I ended up back where I started in time for lunch.  I went up to the restaurant floor of the shopping centre adjacent to the station and had a lunch that included soup, rice, fried fish, chicken, various vegs and a raw egg.  I didn't eat the raw egg.  I'd assumed it was hard-boiled but it wasn't. I didn't fancy it especially since I'd left it till last.

I was still thinking about my lens.  Did the fact that the guy couldn't fix it mean it was irreparable or that it was beyond his particular competences?  I didn't want to buy a new lens and then find I could get the old one fixed in UK.  Nor did I want to miss out on getting some good snaps of the volcano.  I went back to the shop, put the lens on the camera, fiddled with it and bought it.

My test picture

Thus equipped I set off to one of the places I decided from my tour around would be worth a visit.  I quote from a tourist blurb

"Stately home and gardens of the powerful Shimadzu clan overlooking the magnificent active volcano Sakurajima. Built in 1658 by Shimadzu Mitsuhisa, Sengan-en is one of Japan’s most famous traditional gardens. Explore the expansive house and gardens to get a true feel of how a feudal lord lived. The grounds also host restaurants serving the finest local cuisine, an ultra-chic Japanese style café, and exclusive shops selling the pinnacle of Kagoshima craftsmanship."

You can get to it on the city tour bus but it's stop 12 out of 19 and it takes 50 minutes to reach stop 12.  Hard to believe but for such an apparently wonderful tourist attraction that's probably the best option.  My research said I could get to within 15 minutes walk by normal bus and the tram was said to go somewhere along that way.  I tried but failed.  

However my luck turned after an exhausting trudge around when I got on a tram with the intention of heading to the station to regroup.  The tram didn't go to the station.  I don't know to this day where it went but I got off thinking I'd just get the tram going in the opposite direction hopefully to some part of town that I recognised.  When I lifted my eyes there was the volcano.

And I was beside a river to boot.  Nothing better than walking through a town beside a river.  So that's what I did until it got dark and I left the river and more by luck than good judgement on either Google's part or mine found the hotel.

On the way I took more pictures and learnt things.

Here's  the learning bit.  The two pictures below are the two sides of a large internally illuminated panel depicting events and characters from a particular period of Japanese history.  There are eight of those along one stretch of the river.  You are invited to download an app that will tell you more and that will activate the large picture, which in this case is a battle scene.  Unfortunately it must be an iphone only app because I couldn't find in in my Android app store.

They are super but can you imagine them remaining unvandalised anywhere in the UK for any length of time at all?  Bloody sure I can't.

And here's another of the features of Japanese life that we can only dream of.

The map shows the features and facilities along part of the river.  I don't know how long it is.  I suppose it could be a mile or more.  The bridges are only a couple of hundred yards apart and it didn't take me terribly long to walk most of it.

My point though is to look at the facilities.  There is a little logo for public toilets.  I counted 11 of them.  That's 11 in a one mile stretch.  Are there 11 public toilets remaining in the entire City of Edinburgh????