Andrew Zhao

To Kagoshima#

We woke up fairly early with the intent of getting breakfast and taking our time with breakfast! But sometimes dreams can be memes turns out, and somehow despite having more time than the day before, we found ourselves speed walking to the train station and getting on the Shinkansen with minutes to spare. We made it though, and we settled in for an ~2.5 hour train ride down to Kagoshimachuo Station. After arriving at the station we looked for the shuttle stop but struggled to find it, since it seemed to be across the street not even in the station transport zone. Admittedly we did give up pretty quickly because we were still slightly traumatized from day 1’s shuttle fiasco, and we didn’t have much time before the next one, so instead we took a taxi!

We dropped our bags off at the hotel and set out to grab lunch. It was a fairly short walk across a busy street to the unajyu restaurant that we had our eyes on. Fortunately for us the wait was fairly short, and they gave us menus to look at while we were waiting around. We decided to go big and each get the largest unajyu size (consisting of two eels), as well as one each of both liver and belly skewers. We also got a plate of eel bone chips that if I remember correctly were a free gift, which went perfectly with the draft beer I had ordered. When we placed our order the waitress did a double take and asked us if we were sure we wanted to eat that much. We confirmed we did, because how could we not when Kagoshima is known for unajyu. I didn’t know before visiting but apparently Kagoshima is the biggest producer of unagi in all of Japan.

Lunch#

I actually really liked the bone chips, I would’ve snacked on so many of them if I could. The unajyu was also really, really good! We were absolutely stuffed afterwards but we finished every single bite of the meal. Once we paid the bill we decided it was a good time to start heading to our 2PM reservation for a glass cutting experience. It was something I had randomly stumbled across a while ago while looking for things to do in Kagoshima. Their website was pretty confusing so I had reached out to them beforehand to see if we could give it a try! Fortunately they accepted, and so we made the trek up. The train section only took about 40 minutes, but it the nearest stop was in a town called Kajiki across a small mountain. The next stop was past where we were going by quite a distance, so we got off at Kajiki and walked. It was only about a mile, however we had to walk on some small country roads without any sidewalks, keeping an eye out for cars coming from both directions.

Satsuma Kiriko#

It was really peaceful though, with the surroundings being really quiet outside of the occasional car until we got up to the main road near the top of the mountain. We arrived at Art Deshimaru a little early, and wandered around a bit outside and watched for trains passing by on the same line that we had been traveling on before.

We headed in a little early to look around the shop a bit. The glass displays were honestly breathtaking, but also the prices were (understandably) wild too. I probably would’ve bought at least one or two pieces if it was easy to transport back safely. At this point I also didn’t know what kind of experience I had signed us up for, I figured that it would be something basic like a small glass plate or something. Imagine my surprise when after checking in the staff asked us to look at some of the shelves and pick a style of glass cup that we liked. We both picked a base design to copy, and they gave us a blank to draw our designs on. It took a while to get all the details in, but as we were sketching I accidentally overheard the staff talking about Hololive and reacted. They were surprised since at this point we had mostly been using Google Translate to communicate, but we did manage to talk a little bit about it since one of the staff had gone to a convenience store to purchase some event goods for her daughter that morning.

After inking our designs, we moved on to actually carving our designs out. They gave us some small glass pieces to learn and practice on, showing us the different techniques and providing feedback on what we were doing wrong or right. Once we felt like we had the practice down, we switched to cutting out the designs of our cups. It was actually fairly difficult since the blade was on the opposite side of the glass where we couldn’t see it, so certain angles let you peek through the frosted glass while others you just had to know where the blade was. It was surprisingly safe too, apparently the blade is designed to only cut through hard surfaces like glass, so skin contact doesn’t really hurt since it’s too soft to catch.

We definitely got glass dust all over our clothes while cutting the glass, since the tub wasn’t able to catch all the dust. It was really fun though, and we were both locked in trying to get our patterns just right. There was a lot of complexity in getting the angle correct, the cut deep enough, and not going past other lines. It took a while to complete the carving, and the staff checked in with us frequently to see if we had questions or to chime in with tips and advice. I chatted with them about VTubers as well here and there since we had talked about Hololive earlier, which was also really fun. The main staff member helping us showed me the shrine they had at home for their oshis which was really cool to see!

After finishing up they told us that they would polish up the pieces and ship the final product to us since we wouldn’t be able to come by again before leaving. I was super appreciative that they took the time to teach us and were patient with translating back and forth. They were all super friendly and amazing! The experience was a bit more expensive than expected but it was well worth it since it was so unique being able to learn about satsuma kiriko from artisans. They asked us where we were staying and were shocked when we said we were all the way in Kagoshima, and thanked us for coming all the way to their shop. When they found out we were planning to walk back towards the station, they stopped us and offered us a ride there. We were pretty hesitant since they had already done so much for us, but they pulled out the translator and hit us with something along the lines of “Our connection through Hololive must have been a work of fate so please let us do this for you.” That and they needed to run an errand anyways so it made it nearly impossible for us to refuse! At the station the staff member even helped point out which platform we needed to get on to go the right way. It was truly the greatest example of omotenashi I’ve ever personally experienced!

(The finished cups arrived safe and sound at my place in May, a little over a month later! I keep mine on a shelf for display, the way it catches the light is breathtaking!)

Pre-dinner Walk#

Back in Kagoshima after another hour long train ride, we decided to walk around the waterside a bit before dinner. There was a park the spanned a good amount of the waterside that we walked along that gave us a beautiful veiw of Sakurajima right as the sun was setting. We saw what looked like high schoolers or college students taking pictures together nearby which was oddly idllyic, like a picture perfect youth memory.

Dinner#

Somehow we walked far enough that we ended pretty close to Tenmonkan, the busiest shopping arcade in Kagoshima. Since we had a bit of time before our dinner reservation in the area we decided to make the unhinged decision to first get dessert at a cafe that served shaved ice. I did a double take while we were standing in line since the store was called Shirokuma Cafe, like one of my favorite anime series. I thought it was pretty funny that one of the menu items had Gintoki, which as far as I knew is the main character of Gintama, and didn’t have an actual meaning in Japanese. The shaved ice was surprisingly filling, which was a bad sign since we were getting dinner down the street back to back with this place.

Dinner was at a restaurant that serves the flavors of Kagoshima. We were specifically looking for a highly rated place that specialized in Kurobuta (black pig), which Kagoshima is the largest producer of. We both ordered one of the large dinner courses, which ended up being a crazy amount of food but it was so worth it because we got a large variety of dishes. The full course menu was:

• Kibinago sashimi (Silver-stripe round herring)
• Free-range chicken sashimi
• Nagarame sashimi (similar to abalone)
• Katsuo tataki (skipjack tuna)
• Baikai su (whelks)
• Satsuma-age (fried fish cake, a Kagoshima specialty)
• Rokuhaku Kurobuta Pork Tonkotsu
• Ceramic plate grilled Japanese black beef
• Rokuhaku Kurobuta Pork Shabu-shabu
• Kibinago tempura
• Satsuma soup
• Rice
• Dessert

Everything was so good, and it wasn’t very expensive. While we were eating I overheard the customers sitting next to us, which was a dad and daughter duo where it seemed like the dad was taking her out to celebrate or something but she seemed really disinterested and not really engaging with his attempts at conversation. I felt a bit bad for them since it seemed like the dad really wanted to care but didn’t know how to express it, I hope they figure things out in the future. Jim and I talked about a wide variety of topics over dinner, ranging from money to relationships to life in general. Sometimes good food and drink while travelling really brings out interesting conversations which I personally greatly enjoy!

We stopped by the lounge at the hotel afterwards but service had already stopped since it was late, so we returned to our room. The room we got had a wild open design with no wall between the glass-walled shower and the beds, so we agreed on just not looking while the other was showering. Only to realize that there was actually a partition hidden that you could pull out and block off the bathroom! We chilled a bit and chatted about the next day’s plans before going to sleep. Reflecting on the day, I wasn’t feeling very confident in my Japanese especially since the accent was throwing me off, but nonetheless it was still a really fun day!

JR Pass Value after day 2#

Cost saved: ¥34,920

Time Travelled: ~10 hr

Not covered by JR Pass#

Cost: ¥280

Total Transportation Time#

Time Travelled: ~10.5 hr