vacation in kirishima!!

we were in well need of a vacation, i was telling sarah, my state of affirs before we left on vacation.
If i saw a student log into lesson, i would swear and mutter under my breath that they dared come to class. Shiv would try and jinx his connection, so maybe it would make his students magically not show up for lesson.
i was so happy to go an vacation, and it was very worth it. we left the house at about 530 am and took 3 trains to get to kobe airport. our flight left at 8 35 am, and it was quite nice to finally go some where on a plane.
the plane ride was nice, and it was sunny in the air the whole way to Kyushu, the sunny happy ibe set the tone for our whole vacation. We met a nice japanese man on the plane who spoke super little english. He told us that he was going to kagoshima to pray to his family ancestors.
we got to the air port, and found out that it was a little more expensive to travel around from the airposrt than i had thought, so we took a shuttle to the hotel and decided to plan our travels from there. The weather was amazing. about +20 and not a cloud in the sky, for sure t-shirt weather. It was all i dreamed of, cause Osaka when we left was grey and pretty cold.
kagoshima was so green, it looked like the interior BC sort of, but with way more hot springs.
Our hotel was way up on a green treed mountain, and it was surrounded by this odd garden with weird plastic horses and sculptures. i think the japanese garden architect envisioned a french provincial garden, but threw in a little japanese animation and plastic horses... i dont know. it was weird and super crappy looking

the hotel on the other hand was awesome and really posh. I love ther posh life.
the hotel room was on the top floor and it looked out over the valley. At the bottom of the valley was the city of kagaoshima, and across the bay was Mt sakurajima. an active HUGE volcano, that regularily explodes and smokes.
we took a walk around the property, and down the main road to see the sources of all the hot spring water. boiling sulfur water was basically spewing out of the mountain, and the air smelt like egg fart.

. Before dinner i went to the onsen. It was so amazing, the best part was sitting in my own personal stone tub full of hot spring water, outside facing mt sakurajima. amazing! That night we had a massive japanese style dinner that was brought one amazing plate after another to our table. the next morning we had a buffet japanese/western breakfast and then set out to ebino kogen. ebino kongen is a volcanic lake hike that consists of 3 really blue green lakes in the mountain range of kirishima. once we got back dow to the visitor center there was hot springs foot pool to dip your feet in. We highly enjoyed the ice cream and kyushu ramen!!!
yeah! vacation.