I took a trip down to Kagoshima, at the bottom of Kyushu, to tag trees for work. In order to build a Jungle for Donkey Kong Country, we needed to find jungle trees in Japan. While Kagoshima isn’t quite the jungle (and it does get chilly but not frosty in winter), plenty of palm trees and other jungle-like trees grow well in that climate.
Located at the very bottom of Kyushu, Kagoshima Prefecture is a lush prefecture full of volcanoes and dramatic nature. I landed in the afternoon at Kagoshima airport and took a taxi to the city. As we came in for landing, I could see the rolling hills covered in lush greenery and Kagoshima’s famous volcano, Sakurajima (桜島) across the bay. From virtually anywhere in Kagoshima that is not blocked by buildings, the volcano is visible just across the water, a constant wisp of steam and gases rising from the very active volcano.
Even in recent memory, the volcano has erupted dramatically. In 1914, after roughly a century of dormancy, the volcano erupted dramatically. The 1914 eruption included large lava flows in addition to the more common explosive eruptions from subduction zone volcanoes. This eruption connected the island of Kagoshima to the mainland by a thin isthmus.