Kagoshima was the last of 4 prefectures that we were able to visit during our 6-day trip in Kyushu.
It was difficult for me to figure out the best course of action for the logistics for getting to Kagoshima, but we ended up keeping the rental car and driving ourselves from Kumamoto to Kagoshima city. It took about 2.5 hours which is much longer than the 1 hour shinkansen ride, but for the convenience of access to the park and the cost, I think we made the right choice.
Sengan-en
This is a Japanese-style landscape garden and it's quite large! We were lucky that the weather was so clear during our visit. Parking was nearby the entrance with a 500yen fee (I think?). The entrance fee to the garden itself was 1000yen per adult (I got a 100yen discount on my ticket because I'm a Toyoko Inn Member lol).
Stunning view of Sakurajima
We opted not to pay to enter the house, but still felt like it was cool to look at from outside!
There was definitely a lot more to this garden than just the pretty landscaping, and we were very happy to learn more about the background and the history in the area from the little orientation center. Unfortunately, the museum was being renovated during our visit, so we didn't get to check that out too, but I have a feeling it would have been very informative as well!
I really wanted to try to fit in one of the JR Kyushu D&S trains as part of our trip since they seem to be quite highly recommended. Fortunately, this one actually made sense with our itinerary, running between Kagoshima-Chuo station and Ibusuki station.
We returned the rental car in a bit of a hurry and made it to Kagoshima-Chuo station in time get to the platform and see the train arrive.
All the seats are reserved on this train and there's only 2 cars, so it's pretty tiny! We were able to get two solor seats next to each other facing the window in Car 2.
There is a special Ibutama bento that's only available on this train, so I made sure to order one in advance online. The process was very easy! Once on board the train, I let the staff know I ordered a bento and they provided it after confirming my reservation and seat number.
There are also other limited on board sale items available that you can purchase while on the train. We got the Ibutama chocopan (because I saw the guy next to me get it and it looked good lol) and the Satsuma Gold craft beer in addition to the bento.
Lots of counter space and easy to enjoy the view looking out the window while riding the train!
The train ride is about 51 minutes and takes you along the Kagoshima Bay coast, heading south. There are a few stops along the way, but no one really seems to get on or off the train there.
We arrived at around 12:50 and were excited to explore Ibusuki for the afternoon!
Eeveelution pokelids / pokemon manhole covers
If you are interested in one of the siteseeing/D&S trains from JR Kyushu, I would recommend knowing the date and time in advance and jumping on the reservation process ASAP when they're available 1 month prior. I actually missed out on getting us seats when they first released, but kept checking back and was able to get us these two seats next to each other on the 2nd train of the day. Reservation online is fairly easy with JR Kyushu, and I was able to pick up the tickets when we arrived in Fukuoka on Day 1 from the Midori no Madoguchi ticket machine no problem.
At Ibusuki Station, there is a tourist information center where you can also rent e-bikes. Unfortunately, there are only 5 bikes there and you can't reserve them in advance. There was only 1 bike available when we first arrived, so we walked around on foot for a bit and when we returned, there were 2, so we immediately asked to use them! The fee is really inexpensive, only 600yen for 2 hours and they provide a helmet as well.
This is primarily what we came down to Ibusuki for! This area has all 9 Eevee/Eeveelution Pokemon manholes or Pokelids, and we were determined to get to them all! The tourist information center even has a map with all of their locations.
First one is really easy! Eeevee is right by Ibusuki station.
Next one we walked to is Umbreon (apparently "Blacky" in Japanese lmao).
It took us about 40 minutes to get to these 6 pokelids on foot and then about a 20-25 minute walk back to Ibusuki station.
Espeon is still within walking distance of the station near Ibusuki's Central Park but wasn't in the same direction as the others.
Jolteon was a bit harder to find than we had initially anticipated as we got used to navigating on the bikes. It took us nearly 15 minutes with the bike to get to it from the previous pokelid.
Last one, 9 of 9 is Leafeon which is way, way, way out there, even 15 minutes of biking past Jolteon and definitely not something we could have reasonably walked to (especially because there isn't anything else specifically to do at the destination which is an empty campground, I think)
Absolutely worth it and a nice way to quietly enjoy being in Ibusuki after catching the siteseeing train down. It might have been nice to have tried out the hot sand bath while we were there, but we were happy with the accomplishment of getting to all of the Eevee covers (since they're quite spaced apart) and having a fun bike ride as well.
(We caught a local train back to Kagoshima-Chuo station. The local train runs only once or twice an hour and takes much longer than the siteseeing train which runs as a rapid. Luckily, we had seats the whole way and were able to relax for about 90 minutes.)
CUTE Pass
For Day 2 in Kagoshima, we planned to go to Sakurajima, so we started the day by purchasing a CUTE Pass from the Kagoshima-Chuo Tourist Information Center. It's available in a couple of different places and can be purchased in advance since you scratch off the day of validity yourself. Cost is 1200yen, and you can use it on any Kagoshima municipal bus (including the city view/island view hop-on-hop-off buses), the streetcars and the Sakurajima Ferry for the day. Definitely consider this if you're using public transport to get to the Ferry and planning on using the bus around the island.
Sakurajima
The ferry landing is right next to the Kagoshima Aquarium. Easiest access to this area is by bus, but you can also catch the streetcar and walk a bit as well. The Sakurajima Ferry runs every 20 minutes (at the top of the hour, 20 minutes past and 40 minutes past) and takes about 15 minutes each way. The ala carte fare is quite cheap, just 200yen, so if you don't get the CUTE Pass, it's still relatively cheap to catch the ferry!
We didn't need to buy a ticket, so we just walked right on the waiting boat and waited until it was time to depart.
Once arriving at Sakurajima, we literally missed the Sakurajima Island View bus (leaves at the top of every hour and 30 past), by less than a minute as we saw it pull away from pretty much everyone who was on the same ferry as us just maybe 75 feet ahead. But oh well, we walked around for a bit as we waited for the next one.
We got off the bus at the fourth stop which is the Sakurajima Visitor Center so we could learn more about the island and how it came to be.
We hopped on the next Island View bus (half an hour later) and rode all the way to Yunohira Observatory where you should have another great view of the volcano but also the city! The bus stops here for 10 minutes, so if you want to disembark here, you can still get on the same bus to keep going if you don't dawdle.
We got back on our same Island View bus and made our way back to the original Sakurajima Port stop. From there, we simply got on the next ferry back, no problem!
The CUTE Pass also has offers or other discounts with some of the landmarks or attractions in Kagoshima. The Amu Plaza has a ferris wheel that has a 100yen discount with the pass, and since we had some time to kill and the weather was still beautiful, we decided to go for it.
This ferris wheel has some gondolas that have transparent walls and you can choose to wait for one when boarding (which we did).
The view was definitely best experienced in person with yet another great vantage point of Sakurajima, and we were happy with decided to do this to close out our visit!
白熊果琲 Shirokuma Hatebe(? not sure of the reading of the last two kanji)
Of course, we couldn't leave Kagoshima without trying the popular shirokuma dessert! This is a shave ice type sweet dessert, often with condensed milk and fruit with certain elements placed to look like a bear face!
This is my last post in the Kyushu trip series! I hope it was of some use or interest if you hadn't been introduced to this region yet. This wasn't as robust of a trip as the one we did in Tohoku which was much different due to the use of the JR East Tohoku Rail Pass. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), the JR Kyushu Rail Pass isn't available to foreign residents, so our travel had different parameters on it and we explored in alternate ways.
This is a hop-on-hop-off style siteseeing bus where it takes you to different points of interest around Sakurajima and you can get off the bus wherever you want and then hop on the next one when you're done and keep going. If you don't have the CUTE Pass, I would recommend the day pass for the Island View bus at least because otherwise you have to pay for each stop!
If you rent a car or bike or don't mind spending a bit more time, there are easily a handful of other stops on the bus that can be of interest. We didn't want to keep waiting 30 minutes checking the time constantly, so we were happy with our two, but there's definitely more out there, like the hot spring, buried shrine gate, and the Arimura lava area.
Admission comes out to 400yen per adult with the discount. (To apply the discount using the ticket machine, tap on the lower left corner of the touchscreen on the machine. There's no button there, but apparently that's where all the discount tickets are hidden. The attendant had to briefly leave the ride to show me!)
What we ate in Kagoshima
Kagoshima is known for their black pork (kurobuta), black beef (kuroushi) and more recently, black chicken. For our dinner in Kagoshima, we decided to splurge a little bit and check out Karen 華蓮 in Tenmonkan.
The regular shabu shabu is quite popular here, but we opted for the sukiyaki course featuring both pork and beef and a side of udon.
Staff assisted with starting the sukiyaki including cooking the first set of beef and pork, but eventually left us to it as things needed more time to cook.
The dessert with the course was actually quite good! We both really liked the sweet potato ice cream.
Ichiniisan is a chain that features Kagoshima pork as well. This wasn't our first choice for lunch on our second day (first choice was closed unexpectedly), we weren't unhappy with it! Again, this restaurant offers a hot pot option for the pork, but we wanted to try the tonkatsu instead.
These were nice sized lunch portions. I had the tonkatsu with the shabu-style pork in it which meant it was thinly sliced layers of pork in the breading. My husband had more typical shoulder cut I think but his came with a huge bowl of tonjiru (his soup bowl was the same size as my soba bowl).
We got the pudding version, and this was a delightful treat after lunch. The fruits and jellies add the right amount of contrast and variety.
I'm really glad we were able to actually achieve seeing the full sets of both the One Piece statues in Kumamoto and the pokelids in Ibusuki, because leaving out one or two would have felt awful to me. While it likely meant we weren't spending our time with other activities in the area, I think it was a worthwhile journey to get to them all.
Let me know if you've been to Kyushu and what we missed!
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