Fukuoka

Mes excuses--je suis pressé alors les descriptions seront uniquement en anglais.  あまり時間がないので、説明は英語のみです。ごめんなさい！

Sakurajima was blowing her top!  If Hugo Chávez had been there, he would have said that the air smelled like sulfur.

Me with the Moriyas, who drove me to the ferry even though it was their day off!

Another Sakurajima radish (my foot is there for scale).

Then, it was off to the big city.  Is this a dig at my weight, Kagoshima?

I know I've been here too long when I don't laugh at things like this:

Genie Gabe.

And a 5:30 AM, 6-hour bus ride later, I was in Fukuoka (福岡), which is on the northwest coast of Kyushu.  I took in some seriously sweet weather.  These are ducks in Ohori park, the biggest public park in Fukuoka.

Practicing on the water.

A peace post inside a Buddhist temple (I saw one of these at Riverdale, and another in Queenstown.)

And of course, the cherry blossoms ("sakura," 桜).  Hanami (花見) is when you have a picnic underneath the blossoming cherry trees . . .

Which dovetails right into these Buzzes Lightyear in baby shoes on the checkout desk of a second-hand clothes shop I stopped in at.

Next stop . . .