March 1985
On my Spring Break trip to Kyushu seeking warmth and sunshine from a still cold Sendai, I ended up in Kagoshima on the southern end of the island. Kagoshima was an amazing city of itself, but it was totally dominated by the active volcano, Sakurajima across the bay.
Upon arriving in Kagoshima I took a long bus ride around the end of same named bay to Sakurajima "Island" (which was now connected to the mainland due to constant eruptions). I found a very basic youth hostel right under the summit. Everything about the experience was extremely exciting and "edgy". I had seen several volcanoes by that point, some of which were also active, but merely steaming - not erupting. The land around the youth hostel was barren and newly created, a literal moonscape. I recall that there was not a lot to do except "be there". The volcano was in "very active mode" so there was no climbing allowed, period. I assumed life on Sakurajima Island would not have been easy. The views back over Kagoshima Bay were incredible.
That night the room rocked with several explosions. All of us in the hostel sat up in bed wondering if "this was it"? We waited nervously and nothing more happened. We all slept fitfully after that. In the morning at breakfast we asked the hostel manager if there had been a major eruption last night. She replied, "Was there? I didn't even wake up. It must not have been too big". Wow - I couldn't imagine living right under a constantly erupting volcano and becoming blasé about it.
I returned to the relative safety of Kagoshima the next day. After that I headed south to the famous spa town of Ibusuki. While taking the train along the bay, Sakurajima had a "real" eruption which I caught in the above photo. Wow! That was my first real volcanic eruption. All I could think was if the manager of the youth hostel had slept through THIS one??
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