Kagoshima: 6 Things to do Plus Hotels and Food
- Next Stage Travel
- Jan 14
- 7 min read
One of the bigger cities on Kyushu with over half a million people, Kagoshima is a nice place to spend a few days. Jump to our Food, Hotel, or Shopping sections on this page.
This is one of the final residences and gardens used by the Shimadzu clan at the end of the Edo period and after the Meiji restoration in 1868. Both the house and gardens are spectacular. It’s easy to spend several hours here even though the gardens are relatively compact, between eating lunch at Ohkatei (with stunning views of Sakurajima volcano), exploring the house and gardens, trying your hand at making different folk art, or shopping at several food and folk art shops.
Sengan-en. 9700-1 Yoshino-chō, Kagoshima, 892-0871, Japan. Open daily 9 AM - 5 PM. 1600 yen pp.
Nearby is the Former Kagoshima Spinning Mill Engineers' house. It needs a separate ticket. It has some history of the industrialization and the architecture is a western- Japanese mix
Former Kagoshima Spinning Mill Engineers' Residence. 9685-15 Yoshino-chō, Kagoshima, 892-0871, Japan. Open daily 9 AM - 5 PM. 400 yen pp.
Museums
Most of the museums are located in the same neighborhood
Reimeikan - Kagoshima History Museum and Fine Arts Center
This history, folklore and culture museum is well-curated and pretty well-explained. Major signs and significant information is posted on several languages (including English) but individual placards are in Japanese (easy to translate with Google translate).
Kagoshima’s history, while paralleling that of mainland Japan in terms of the shogunate and Meiji restoration, was also much more influenced, early on, by other Asian cultures, and starting in the 1600s, by European countries (particularly Portugal and England).
Whenever there was a significant civil war (of which there were several, leading up to the Meiji restoration when the shoguns gave way to a centralized government ruled by an emperor), Kagoshima warlords seemed to often be on the losing side. This, in turn, may have led to Kyushu having had less impact internally. However, starting in the mid-1800s, rulers in Kagoshima and nearby started sending people to Europe to learn and bring back that knowledge to incorporate into Kyushu life.
Reimeikan. 7-2 Shiroyamacho, Kagoshima, 892-0853, Japan. Open daily 9 AM - 6 PM. 410 yen pp.
This is the local natural science museum. It has various live exhibits of local reptiles, amphibians and, surprisingly, many aquatic insects. Also many geology exhibits, videos of local geological interest, volcano presentations, and a lot of taxidermied animals and pinned insects. Exhibits are primarily in Japanese so Google Translate or Papago are helpful.
Kagoshima Prefectural Museum. 1-1 Shiroyamacho, Kagoshima, 892-0853, Japan. Open daily 9 AM - 5 PM. Free
Temples and shrines
October-November is a popular time for parents to take children, especially 3, 7, and 9 year olds, to the temple for a blessing. We visited this temple on a Saturday in late November and it was full of adorable children dressed in kimonos. (there’s a photography studio on the adjacent block that rents kimonos in all sizes and provides photography services at the temple.). At the entrance to the shrine is a tree pruned in the shape of a bird with outstretched wings.
Terukuni Shrine (Terukuni-jinja). 19-35 Terukunicho, Kagoshima, 892-0841, Japan. Open 24 hours a day. Free.
Shopping
Yamakataya is an historical, upscale and very lage department store (3 buildings!). Like many other Japanese department stores, it has tailors (should your coat need repairs while you are here), formal wear (including kimonos), housewares (cooking, dishes, etc), electronics, stationery, wigs, clothing, those cute leather school backpacks, cosmetics, furniture and food.
It is in the Tenmonkan shopping area which is many blocks wide and long and mostly covered. In the photos below, the last picture is a museum recreation of one of the streets in this area at the turn of the century. At the time, the street was covered with fabric awnings. In another photo below you can see the same street covered with glass
There’s a lot of food here as well. There is a grocery and ready-to-eat food vendors in the basement of the department store. You can see the sushi (bonito for 432 yen, or $3!), kara-age, and wheat gluten we chose for a lunch in the photos. There are additional vendors and restaurants on floor 6. There is also a sweet potato vendor outside one of the covered entrances, run by the department store. Photos of the vendor stand and the sweet potato are also above.
One Saturday in Tenmonkan, there were special events for kids to let them play in and around various public vehicles like earth movers, street sweepers and the like. They had small uniforms for dress up. There is also an armed service recruitment office (permanent) that has dress up clothes for kids and activities. On the same day in within Tenmonkan, there was a huge Hokkaido food fair.
Hotels
We stayed here while we were in Kagoshima. This is a nice business hotel. Business hotels in Japan have small but well-organized rooms. The bed was comfortable, and the room clean. Breakfast is about $12 additional. The location was fantastic, right in the Tenmokan area. Buses and trams (and taxis) are plentiful, and we walked easily to the museum area. From our room and the hotel public spaces is a sweeping city view.
For an extra $100 per night, you can stay at this swanky hotel, which is a city unto itself (note that we did not stay here, but visited for dinner). (The last photo above shows the hotel, the brown building on the horizon, as viewed from the Roynet Hotel) We went there for dinner and— truly—got lost more than once in the maze that is this place. They have more than a dozen restaurants, a photographer and 2 photo studios, a FamilyMart, gift shop, spa, and indoor/outdoor bath with a view of the whole city. It seems a popular spot for large banquets.
It is isolated from the downtown but they run a bus (full sized) to the Tenmonkan area and a few other areas every 30 min.
Food
Ohkahtei — this cafe is located in Sengan-en, has decent food and the view of Sakurajima is stunning (see above details about Sengan-en for more info and pictures).
Jimbee Izakaya. Japan, 〒892-0842 Kagoshima, Higashisengokucho, 18−3 萩原ビル 1F They focus on fish. The chef was super friendly. All the dishes we got were good and the special bonito sashimi alone was worth the visit (first photo). It had just the right amount of salt, sprinkled with crisp garlic slices and arugula. Other standouts included tempura bonito, fish namban, and marinated pickled bonito. The cover charge was whelk in a good sauce on an irori grill. All the other sashimi was good as well. Vegetable tempura was good. Clean bright place and walked in with no reservation on a Friday at 6 pm.
Umenohana: this chain, focusing on tofu and yuba (tofu skin), is in most large cities in Japan. We struggled a little to find spots worth including in our blog from our few days in the city, and always use Umenohana as a backup. They have an outlet in the department store basement (Japan, 〒890-0053 Kagoshima, Kinseicho, 3−1 山形屋2号館 B1F) , as well as a stand-alone restaurant (Japan, 〒892-0842 Kagoshima, Higashisengokucho, 1−38 アイムビル 15Ｆ). We ate at both places. The photos are from the restaurant.
Keitan Tempura in Hotel Shiroyama (Japan, 〒890-0016 Kagoshima, Shinshoincho, 41−1 SHIROYAMA HOTEL Kagoshima 1F) -- a good, formal tempura experience. In the photos below, note the raw ingredients the chef shows us before we are served the same items tempura-fashion, and the tempua fig, which was a first for us and very delicious.
Getting here was an adventure. We walked from our hotel downtown to this massive complex high on the hill, but GoogleMaps didn't reveal the altitude change necessary. Let's just say we walked up about 500 steps into a dark parking lot. Once we managed to find the front door, which was down a dark street apparently not popular with foot traffic, it took us at least 10 minutes to find the actual restaurant within the hotel. This is a city unto itself, complete with a Family Mart, bakery, about a dozen restaurants, 2 photography studios, banquet halls, a bath, and of course the hotel itself. To get home, we hopped in line for the hotel's bus to downtown, which was a much easier way to travel! Reservations recommended.
Good Morning Good Breakfast 旅じたくの朝ごはん by Wakimoto
(〒890-0046 Kagoshima, Nishida, 2 Chome−13−16 ザウルスハウス 1F)
Yes! Great breakfast spot. The tofu hit the spot. It is nicely marinated, warm and creamy. They top it with pork
You also get a soft egg( add to your rice and mix)
Pickles
Small meat salad
Small tofu salad
Good miso soup with lots of mushrooms
Green salad -- top with sesame dressing on the table
While it was a 20 min walk from our hotel, the quality of the food is worth it over the hotel buffet or other, bigger breakfast spots we found in the center shopping area. This is also quite close to the train station.
Sweets and Bakeries
Akashiya for karukan. Akashiya is an old-fashioned sweets shop from the late 19th century with regional delicacies. Their most famous cake is a gluten-free cake called karukan, made with yam, rice flour, and sugar. The Akashiy stores can be found at Sengan-en in the foods gift area, the JR Station, the Fukuoka airport (but no karukan at this location) and at the MAIN SHOP in a cute old building near other shopping: (4-16 Kinseicho, Kagoshima, 892-0828, Japan)
Hatoya Bread
There are 2 locations of Hatoya in Kagoshima, and we visited the one in the CenTerrace (1-1 Sennichicho, Kagoshima, 892-0843, Japan) but you can also find them at JR Train Station (1-1 Chuocho, Kagoshima, floor 2 of AMU plaza). They have some nice looking savory sandwiches, but we stuck to the sweets. We were especially impressed with the Sakurijima bun, a local specialty though the Hatoya Bread chain can be found throughout Japan. This bun looks like the iconic volcano of Kagoshima, is dotted with chocolate chip volcanic rocks and filled with "lava" cream. It was a very good balance of flavors and textures. Apparently, their fruit sandwiches are offered in a vegan version. We got several sweet buns to try, even though we were trying to avoid gluten and sugar on this vacation, but at these low prices it is much easier to be satisfied with just a bite for the sake of research.
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