March 9

3-8: Today we were in Kagoshima, Japan. You could see the volcano - barely - as we came into port this morning BUT the day was misty or polluted or something so the volcano disappeared into the mist. We had a great tour today. We went up into the mountains to the town of Chiran. It was a beautiful drive. Our tour guide was great - he talked a lot about WWII which Ginnie and I found fascinating. He said that the history books in Japan do not mention any of the atrocities that the Japanese committed during WWII - or any other time for that matter - because Japanese are taught never to speak ill of their ancestors. Amazing. He said he was a University graduate who had learned to speak English before he got an accurate picture of WWII. He told us that one of the ships that actually was sunk about 600 meters off the coast of the Kagoshima area by bombers was reported to be destroyed in a sea battle off of Okinawa according to the history books! We went to the Kamikaze Museum which was very interesting. A man gave a talk - even though we really couldn’t hear him - about the kamikaze pilots - read some of their letters which were written before taking off on their missions which were interesting. The average age was very young - most of them under 20. The museum itself was good BUT only if you spoke Japanese - nothing at all in English. The grounds were absolutely beautiful. There were a couple of shops but not much in the way of souvenirs - mainly food. Very strange - you have all these tourists ready to buy and there isn’t anything to buy! After the museum we went into the town of Chiran which was an old Samurai village. The houses from the 1600s were still there and still occupied! The gardens were typical Japanese gardens - small and much more attention paid to form than color. Of course - it was not color season either. The town of Chiran also had a foot deep canal that ran down the edge of the sidewalk that was filled with huge carp! Our guide said the carp was very revered in Japan. All in all it was a great tour - we really enjoyed it. Still hard to believe we were in Japan and are now headed to China! The pictures are a statue of a kamikaze pilot, stone lanterns (there were lots of them), the gardens, the inside of a samurai house, the canal and the carp. And last but not least a Japanese style toilet - western toilets were few and far between!