I have never seen an active volcano in real life before, so when John reminded me that there was one just a 15 minute ferry ride away from where we would be spending the weekend, of course we had to go. Andrea had invited us to her birthday party in Kagoshima City on the Saturday night, so John flew down early on that morning and I drove down from Miyazaki to fetch him.
Just 40 minutes drive from Kagoshima Airport, Sakurajima (桜島) is one of three volcanoes under a Level 3 alert by the JMA. At regular intervals, large amounts of ash and stones spew from its southern peak.
We navigated our way down to the parking lot of the ferry, and realised we had driven straight on to the boat! It was positively freezing up on deck, but we braved the wind long enough to snap a few photos. Fifteen minutes later, we were driving out the other end.