http://ca.f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jef ... ts&.src=ph
With picture uploads courtesy of UOD. Didn't realize he had already posted em until a minute ago, but oh well, this time you get the story.The phone does 2MP, but these are the biggest sizes I can email as attachments directly from my phone. Still have some work to do connecting my phone to a PC. DOesnt help that the operating system and all the frickin instructions are in Japanese!!!
Here's Fukuoka from the riverside.
Here's the fountain going off at the Canal City center near where I stayed my first few weeks. This place is amazing all over, I need more pictures of it:
Here's my friend Ben's neighborhood. He works for a software company and gets a $1600 a month apartment paid for by his company. The places in that odd building in the distance go for 2500 a month.
He offered to let me stay there when he first came, but not knowing where he lived I turned him down. Instead, I slept in one of these capsule pods for $30 a night:
In case you can't make it out, these are coffin size sleeping pods, with the entrance at the foot, stacked in columns of tow. Theres a little TV in each with a movie channel and porn. Joke away.
Here's the girl that works at the checkout counter at the capsule hotel. My first date back in Japan. This actually isn't a very good picture of her
Once I got my job stuff sorted out I hitch-hiked to kagoshima, at the southernmost tip of Japan, living off the kindness of strangers and trying hard to live off 5 bucks a day in the most expensive country in the world. It worked out pretty good- I slept the way there in the back of a truck, which meant I idnt have to pay for lodging that night. Other tricks- go to a 24 hour sauna late at night, and then just collapse in one of the lazy-boy chairs in the chill-out room with a t-shirt wrapped over your eyes.
Anyway, Heres a view of Sakuraijima, a live volcanoe, from the boat. It rises from the middle of the gulf like a big, life-taking cankerous sore. To the best of my recollection, there are no filters or anything on this picture. It was just a misty morning on the water. This pic turned out great.
Heres the volanoe closer up. Thats a lava field. Underneath it lies over 1000 homes. You'd expect they wouldn't build another village right under the volcanoe. But they did, not far from this spot
This volcanoe is very much alive and blows gasses and soot several times a week. At least a couple tourists die every year climbing this thing. While I was climbing it the damn thing started to have an eruption! No magma or anything, but this was disturbing enough!
No one really seemed to change pace. I don't know how to say "eruption", "volcanic ash" or "imminent death" in Japanese, so I was like "Hey! That cloud is coming from the mountain, isn't it?"
Everyone was like "well, there wouldn't be anything we could do if it did go off, so we might as well carry on." People in Kagoshima are regarded as teh friendliest and happiest in Japan. I think this comes from the wisdom of knowing that life is short and temporal and that very soon you WILL DIE.
Get this- one of them told me it wasn't so bad, because the magma from this volcanoe is really slow. So you have a good fighting chance to outrun it. See?
Heres the view from the climbable top. Further up is off limits. Thats greater Kagoshima across the water. If you go further south (to the left, actually) the bay just leads into the pacific ocean and out in to the abyss. This is pretty much the end of the island.
Next day I planned to go along the southern coast, where there are wild monkeys and ponies, but it was raining something awful, so I decided to head back up North to Kumamoto city in central Kyushu, about 3 or 4 hours hours drive away. Here are some pictures taken on the way
even on a bad day in april, kyushu is as lush and green as all get out
Beautiful waterfall. The couple I was with made a point of driving by to show me-
Here's the outer wall of Kumamoto castle. Its a lot bigger than it looks. That moat is cavernous. You have to do some neck-craning to see the look out spot
here's the actual castle
Here's a chef making my meal
Heres the soup. This restaurant is from kumamoto. Its famous all over asia, They have lots of outlets in hong kong and bangkok. I'm getting hungry just looking at it
Next week, once my visa stuff is sorted out, I'm gonna head back down south and then take the ferry out to Yakushima, a tropical island in the pacific. It has the oldest trees in the world- over 3000 years. They're supposed to be breathtaking. The island is one big mountian. It takes two days to climb. I'll bring my camera
I guess people are actually willing to pay that...me I would rather sleep in one of the lazy boy chairs at a 24 hour sauna personally. 
