12 April 2025
Take cover
Kagoshima station area in the rain
Well it is certainly raining now. In fact when I looked up the weather there was a flood warning.
Luckily the extensive station area, which houses both the normal trains, trams and the bullet train is just over the road.
There is an extensive network of department stores, a mall of sorts, food floors, golf driving range, ferris wheel, dance competition, cooking school, petting zoo, virtual reality farming simulator, holographic McDonalds sign, tunnels, just to name a few of the many attractions.
Unfortunately it really did rain and was seemingly getting harder, so it was a short outing, not too many photos.
The rain, a tram, and the grass lined tram track. All taken from a convenient overpass.
Surprise, another Shotengai. I had no idea. These things are everywhere here.
When the Shotengai in the station area runs out, you come to an old part of town, with covered footpaths only, and a traffic jam.
I walked around the back of the station and discovered the local Bic Camera store.
Next I headed up to level 6, the food floor. Exciting. Probably 20 options. There was also a ramen street in the basement,
I had omurice with demiglaze sauce and extra complexity, the hot plate is balanced on an alcohol burner, not sure why. You can see the ipad ordering device behind here, no English, but it had pictures.
I mentioned the dance competition above, here is proof. It seems to mainly be for little kids, so me taking photos was not creepy in any way.
And just when I thought I might go back to the overpass to avoid getting wet crossing the road, I found that there is also an underpass, that directly connects to my hotel.
Hopefully when I wake up tomorrow it is not raining too much so I can run a lap of Sakurajima. There is a 10% chance between 7am and late afternoon of any rain. The paths are all roads so there wont be volcanic mud. And hopefully the overnight flood will put out the farmers fires.