In the morning I disguise my worsening condition (I now have a full-fledged cold) and borrow my mother-in-law's scooter for a long ride. It's an absurd little bike, a Suzuki "Love" 110 that has skinny tires, a cute little windscreen, and a basket on the front. Any bike that allows your knees to touch each other while riding cannot be taken seriously. But riding this bike is better than riding no bike, and I putt off gratefully after borrowing a helmet and gloves from Makoto (Satomi's brother).

The bike is new (one month old), with only 49KM on the odometer. Made in Thailand (and probably gray-market), it has various stickers and instructions written in the looping and inscrutable Thai alphabet.

I ride for many hours but never really get the hang of shifting. The problem is that it has no manual clutch and it needs to be babied into gears, particularly on the downshift. Worse, the shift pattern is exactly reversed from a "real" motorcycle. I keep forgetting this fact and slam the thing back down into first rather than up into third when accelerating away from intersections (this results in at least one near-death experience when I shift incorrectly while trying to turn right across traffic).

But I have a fine ride anyway. First I meander my way north through a maze of small Kagoshima neighborhoods, keeping Mount Sakurajima and the morning sun to my right while avoiding the congested traffic of downtown. I go over and around many hills, and spend at least forty minutes making what is probably a fifteen-minute drive using a more direct route. But this meandering gives me an opportunity to get accustomed to the handling of the little bike while also getting used to staying on the proper side of the road and learning the traffic signs. I also enjoy the feeling of anonymity riding a scooter (and more particularly, wearing a helmet and sunglasses) gives me while riding through the side streets. I can stop anywhere, pretending to be on some errand, and just watch people go about their business.

Navigating by the sun, I find my way to the shoreline at the north end of the city and connect with Route 10, which loops around the north section of the large bay in which Kagoshima and Sakurajima are located. Traffic is relatively light once I'm out of the city, and the views out over the water are pretty, if a bit hazy. The wind has shift a bit southerly, and the ash from Sakurajima is helping to make a smog layer over the bay.

About ten kilometers up the road I briefly stop to look at fishing boats and take pictures, then continue on. At the town of Kajiki, located at the extreme north of the bay 30 kilometers from Kagoshima, I'm momentarily confused by street signs and find myself on a small dirt path between farm fields. My bladder has been nagging me, so I take the opportunity to stop and dampen the dust on the road.

Turning back to the highway, I find the correct turnoff to the south and buzz down the road to a small town called Fukuyama where I stop for gas (less than 300 yen, or $3, but for less than one gallon of gas it's not a bargain). This town has a nice old waterfront, messy with decrepit boats and abandoned equipment, and I spend some time warming up in the sunshine while taking pictures of boats, and of Sakurajima just to the south and west.

From here I can see that the winds are blowing the plume from Sakurajima in an east-northeast direction. This means that within a few kilometers I'll be riding in the ash fall. I close up my camera bag (not well enough, as it turns out) and get on my way.

Mount Sakurajima is located on an island of the same name (or what used to be an island - a land bridge was formed by an eruption of lava early in the century) that, on a map, appears like a single, perfectly round pea set toward one end of the 75-kilometer long, gently curving peapod shape of Kagoshima Bay. Moving south toward the island on the eastern shore of the bay, I begin to notice much more ash on the sides of the roads, on the parked cars, and on the houses and shops, which were now becoming fewer in number. The prevailing winds tend to be westerly and southerly, putting this particular section of shoreline to the east in the direct path of Sakurajima's frequent eruptions. Today the mountain seems more active than usual. Every thirty minutes or less a new black and gray mushroom cloud of soot comes boiling out of the summit. It is otherwise a mostly cloudless morning, but the road in some places is damp from rain, apparently created within the thick ash plume overhead.

Traveling through this landscape of filthy streets, grime-covered buildings and stinging air (the dust is blowing into my eyes as I ride) I have to wonder: why would anyone choose to live here? Even in Kagoshima City, on the other side of the mountain, occasional shifts in the winds drop black snowfalls of ash over the cars, dirty the laundry hanging on lines, and block the sun for hours. Our friends in Fukuoka, who had previously lived in Kagoshima, described the ash as "a major pain" for residents of the city. At Satomi's parents home, there are puddles of old ash on the sidewalks, and the white plastic garden furniture is grimy, needing a good hosing down before being usable. But Kagoshima City is normally on the windward side, and is not usually in the path of the ash. How must it be for those living on the lee side, subject to almost daily coatings of the stuff?

On Sakurajima island itself there are, remarkably, a number of substantial villages with thousands of permanent residents. Even under the constant threat of major eruption (ash is one thing, but lava flows are quite another), people are born, grow up, make a living and carry on as though there is nothing out of the ordinary sitting in their backyards. And in their backyards it is: it's not really correct to say that the island contains an active volcano, it's more correct to say that Sakurami Island (which is a mere eight kilometers in diameter) is the volcano. The mountain appears on most maps as "On-take", but it is known everywhere as Sakurajima (Island of Cherries).

(The International Association for Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior, IAVCEI, has listed Sakurajima as one of sixteen volcanoes worldwide that deserve close monitoring and attention. Kyushu actually hosts two of these sixteen volcanoes, the other being Unzen four hundred kilometers to the north. Because of its close proximity to a major population center, Kagoshima City, Sakurajima is deemed one of the world's most dangerous mountains, along with Mount Rainier and a small number of other famous and potentially devastating peaks. For those who are interested, there is a live "volcano cam" on the Web at www.kkis.ac.jp/sakura/sakura0.htm.)

All sides of the island are dominated by massive and recent lava flows that extend down-slope from the jagged crater into the sea. There are no real flatlands here, just a few small fishing towns carved out of the lava shoreline, and the larger settlement of Sakurajima town, which sits on the western shore facing Kagoshima City just a short (two kilometer) ferry ride away. In Sakurajima town there are shops and schools, gas stations and dental clinics, all the usual services of a small city. There are only a few things (other than the unusual rock formations) that might lead one to suspect this town is different. For example, schoolchildren wear bright yellow hardhats as they walk to and from school, and every few hundred meters along the streets, heavy concrete bunkers provide a place to hide if the ash fall should become a rock fall, or if the lava should begin to flow.

I take the bike around the ash-covered northern side of the mountain, pausing to admire two very pretty inlets formed from lava flows and now containing small fishing harbors. I stop and look at a large and ancient stone toori, originally over ten feet tall, that was buried by lava in 1925 and now stands only two feet in height. (It was this flow that also completed the land bridge connecting Sakurajima Island to the mainland of Kyushu Island.)

At Sakurajima town I stop at a grocery store and pick up three sushi hand rolls and an orange juice, then ride down to the national park visitor center, now closed for the season, finding a nice spot on the lava rock beach for a picnic. After the snack I ride seven kilometers up a winding road to the volcano observation platform and visitor center, which sits on a rock outcropping about halfway up the mountain. Riding up the hill, I see the huge lava dams that have been constructed (and continue to be built) in an effort to control and direct the flows when the inevitable next major eruption occurs. (These lava dams are barely visible from across the bay. They seem mere scratches on the side of the volcano, and it seems impossible that they could make a difference.)

The ride down from the mountain is good fun, but I keep leaning the bike too far on the curves and scraping the foot pegs. About this time I notice that the speedometer has quit working. The odometer shows around 130KM total, but I have no idea how far I've actually ridden. (And the shiny blue and purple paint is now caked with the abrasive ash. I may have some apologizing to do.)

I continue to ride around the mountain, on the southern side this time, passing a number of very attractive homes near the shoreline. Again, one has to wonder about investing in so tenuous a piece of real estate, but the setting is spectacular indeed. There is less ash evident on this side, but it is still here, and the freshly formed lava rock is a constant reminder of the risks of living "under the volcano".

After leaving Sakurajima island, my tentative plan had been to ride a bit farther south and catch a ferry back to Kagoshima City from Tarumizu, but when I reach Tarumizu (or what I believe to be Tarumizu) I can't find the ferry terminal. I do find a passenger ferry terminal, but it's closed for the season so I ride back north, back onto Sakurajima Island, and to the ferry dock there. A ferry is just loading; I pay 280 yen (passenger fare only, apparently the scooter is free) and take a quick ride across to Kagoshima.

The ferry takes me to the North end of the city and Satomi's parents live at the South end, so I have to ride through the city. Unlike in the morning, however, I'm now confident enough to tackle rush hour traffic along the waterfront, and even practice some of the lane-splitting tricks that I've seen other scooters perform to beat the cars and get through quickly. From the ferry terminal to the house takes no more than fifteen minutes, even with a few wrong turns.

For dinner we have impressive quantities of sashimi. I've never eaten so much raw fish at one sitting. When I open my camera after dinner to change film, I find a disturbing amount of ash scattered around inside the body, and on the shutter mechanism.