"Sakurajima" means "cherry blossom island." It's not an island anymore, though. In 1914 a massive lava eruption connected it to mainland Kyushu on the eastern side (I'm on the west of it). Anyway, the thought of living in the shadow of a severely active volcano is kind of cool. It does have its benefits, like the awesome view I get right onto it and the bay from my fifth floor window. I take a fair amount of pictures. Sakurajima also provides the area with a lot of hot springs, of which I have visited two so far.
However, it's perhaps more trouble than it's worth. This thing spews out ash in eruptions like the one below almost every day, often multiple times in a day. In the summer, when the winds are a-blowin', it sends giant clouds of ash over the city. More on that later.
Recently we had an annular eclipse visible from southern Japan. I was quite excited about it. So I got up at like six in the morning and got ready to see it around seven. But it was a cloudy day. I'm a little off topic here, because it wasn't really the volcano's fault. It just happened to be a really cloudy day, as it often is. Anyway, we had to watch the eclipse on tv. I did take these cool shots of Sakurajima, though.
This is a picture through my windows. That gunk on it is ash. This is what we deal with.
This is also ash, all over my balcony.
This is still the eclipse day, but from the roof of the dorm, a little later in the morning. It's constantly Ghostbusters sky over here.
Anyway, so it's been a record-breakingly ashy season so far. One day a week or two ago, the winds dumped this absolutely massive cloud of ash on the city, and all the cars were black with it. The school was covered.
The clouds of ash look like these dark clouds, so sometimes it's hard to tell if it's weather coming our way, or if the volcano has erupted. Sometimes you can hear a boom and the windows rattle when it does erupt, but not always.
So like at school on my floor is a big roof balcony, and every day teachers and students and staff members (not cleaners, though. We don't have those. More later.) would be out there cleaning this big balcony, and for like three days they'd only get it half done. Then we'd come back the next day and the winds would have blown more ash on the clean half, so they'd do that half again that day. Eventually they wised up (after a lifetime living here, jeez) and spent an extra hour or two to get the whole thing done. But then really it just ends up being covered in ash again the next day. They should call the town Sisyphus instead. HA.
People rely on heavy rains to wash this stuff away, and luckily the rainy season is soon upon us. But when it's not raining, all over the city you see these special yellow bags to put soot in. I don't know what happens to it when the trash man picks it up. If ever.
Last night I went out to eat with some people near the harbor, and when we left the restaurant it was actually snowing ash down on us. It was awful. I had to wear my big sunglasses, even though it was dark out, and put my hands around the top and sides to TRY to prevent ash from flying into my eyes. It hurts when you get ash in your eyes, and then you can't wipe it out, because your hands are filthy with ash, also. I'm considering getting some actual goggles to wear around outside. I had to walk home for like a half hour, but it seemed like forever. It was like being in that desert motorcycle race from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
When I finally got home I felt like about the dirtiest dirty that ever dirtied, although it turned out to not look as bad as it felt.
I thought about taking pictures of my white sock ash lines, but the camera doesn't pick up so much.
Here's last night's wicked scary lookin' sky.
They say that all the little eruptions are good for releasing the pressure that builds up in there, which makes a major earthquake less likely. I just hope it's not as bad all summer as it has been recently.
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