New Year in an Unquiet Land

My wife and I made our annual New Year's Day trip to Japan. This year, that day was interrupted by the massive Noto earthquake. Fortunately, we were far enough away that we only felt a rolling sensation, like the deck of a ship cresting a wave. We were in a store at the time; the overhead signs swayed a few inches, but the main effect was everyone's cell phones simultaneously sounding an emergency alert. For those who were closer, the quake shifted the entire coastline of the Noto peninsula by up to 800 feet. The destruction was immense. The TV networks showed nothing else for the next week.

After New Year's Day, we headed south to Kagoshima, where we had booked a hotel that looked out across the bay at Sakurajima volcano, just a few miles distant. The mountain dominates the skyline above the city, smoking and steaming, with a trail of fine ash drifting away to the southwest (away from the city). Sakurajima is one of the most active volcanoes in Japan with frequent eruptions disturbing the bustling city.

We toured the volcano and the area around the bay. We saw massive black lava flows from recent eruptions, amazingly with small towns tucked between them with people still going about their lives. A shrine gate buried in eight feet of an old ash flow was mute testimony to how life can change when the land grumbles.

We also saw spectacular waterfalls, some steaming hot and laden with sulfur, beach sands that were hot to the touch, and numerous hot springs where Japanese flocked to bathe in the waters. It's one of the most mountainous areas I have seen. The peaks aren't very high, but they're squeezed together so tightly that nothing is flat and the roads make their way through tiny valleys that wind between them. It was a reminder that no matter what alien worlds we imagine, this planet has wonders aplenty if we just get out and see them.