The hangover was bad and whilst two Beroccas and four Neurofen managed to mask the pain, my inability to string a sentence together or make a decision was matched only by Alex's. Despite this we all agreed to drive to a lookout point that offered spectacular views of Sakurajima before heading into town. We wandered round a few shops including the 100 yen store and realised that without drastic measures, the hangover was easily going to dominate the day. That drastic measure was to go for a Ramen and by Ramen, I mean a Ramen.
Most of the restaurants in Japan have pictures of the food available on display but some actually have plastic recreations of the dishes outside for you to drool over before heading inside. Upon entering the immaculate restaurant you put your money into a vending machine and press the button for the food that want. This obviously moves Nando's into second place for the best way to serve semi-fast food and possibly further depending on what else I see in the next 2 weeks. Once sat down we snacked on some lightly salted Daikon radish (That white, subtly flavoured stuff you see coiled up underneath Sashimi) and approximately 43 glasses of water.
Then the Ramen arrived. Now I like Ramens but the last few I've had have been a bit bland and I usually douse it in soy sauce to try to revive what I know it should taste like but this one blew me away. It was absolutely delicious and more to the point it looked EXACTLY like the plastic one in the window, even the golden yolk of the egg. We slurped and slurped away at this delicious lunch and, not to be too selfish, I even allowed my tee shirt to have its fair share as well. Once done we headed over the road for a Frappuccino at Starbucks before nipping into an electronics store to try a find precisely the type of power converter I'd forgotten to buy at Manchester airport!
This was a problem. Much as you probably won't find a Japanese to UK power converter in Dixons, the same is true in Japan. Fortunately, Alex made a few calls and found someone who was willing to lend me one for the next 2 weeks. After stopping at his flat to collect it, we got on board the ferry for the short crossing to Sakurajima to have a closer inspection of Kagoshima's impressive yet much unloved volcano.
It was a beautiful day and Sakurajima could be seen in all its glory but despite my strongest will for it to erupt, it merely puffed out sulphurous steam from several vents long its jagged top. The trip around the volcano is quite long but peppered with examples of the local's attempts to minimise any problems should an eruption occur, including huge trenches to help the lava find its way to the sea. Once behind the mountain, the vents of gas were even clearer and we stopped in the lava field that had resulted from the last big eruption in 1914 and sampled the smells of sulphur in the glorious and extremely hot afternoon sun.
The drive back to the ferry was at a much slower pace and we stopped to look at a Shinto shrine that had been almost completely buried in ash in 1914. We re-joined the ferry but despite our propitiations to Sakurajima, the mighty giant gently spluttered little wisps of steam instead of exploding violently on behalf of its guests. It was at this point that Alex suggested that we all have a can of coffee.
I probably should have mentioned this before but it seems that no matter where you are in Japan, you are never more than 6 inches away from a vending machine, usually several. Within these incredibly simple and easy to use devices lie a standard selection of soft drinks as well as a multitude of cans of coffee, hot, cold, black, white and goodness knows what else! My first can was the most interesting, partially because the machine in question was situated between furrows in a vegetable patch and partially because the coffee itself was cold, white and very sweet. This would have been OK had I not made the mistake of looking at it and discovering that the creamy flavour came from little globules of condensed milk that hadn't quite dissolved. This doesn't look very nice at all and I decided that my next can was to be hot. If you've never had a can of hot white coffee (and lets face it, why would you) then you can never truly appreciate just how many aspects of the experience feel totally totally wrong. First of all the can is hot. Second, there is no fizzing noise when you release the ring pull. Third, the liquid in the can is not as hot as the can itself. Fourth, well, why go on, it's lukewarm, artificially sweetened, mass-produced coffee with globules of evaporated milk in a piping hot can but you know what? It's actually quite good!
By the time we'd finished our coffee it was time to go home and after taking Oscar for a quick walk, we all wandered down to the supermarket (more of that later ;-) to get the relevant bits for dinner. Chisato then rustled up a delicious Yaki Soba which we washed down with half a can of Asahi each (yes the hangover was still raging). As Alex and I were feeling pretty useless it didn't take us long to finally call it a night so we ll retired early in the hope of finally killing off Friday night.
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