My wife and I went to Kyushu for sightseeing last weekend. First, we went to Tachiarai in Fukuoka prefecture and visited the KIRIN Fukuoka brewery on Saturday. KIRIN is well known as a beer company not only in Japan, but also in Asia. This factory produces a lot of beers for Kyushu area, Korea, China and Taiwan. We joined the guided tour and looked around inside the factory. We learned about the making process of beers. After the guided tour, we tasted some kinds of beers. Actually, I like beers, however, I like to enjoy beers with some meals rather than just drinking beers. After KIRIN, we headed to Hitoyoshi in Kumamoto by train. Hitoyoshi is a very old town and also well known for hot springs. We stayed at Hitoyoshi one night and enjoyed the hot springs there.
After checking out of the hotel in Hitoyoshi on Sunday, we headed to Kagoshima down town by highway bus. We visited Shoko-Shuseikan Museum and the Japanese garden “Sengan-en”. These sightseeing spots are located at the same place, so we looked around both. Actually, they say that Kagoshima is the first place for Japanese industrialization. In the 1700's and 1800's, Japan had a national isolation policy and that policy made Japanese industrialization late. In the 1840's, European countries came to colonize Asia, plus, some countries also came to parts of Kagoshima in 1851, so Japan had to defend itself from foreign countries. Back then, Portugal, France and England had steam ships, cannons and guns, on the other hand Japan didn't have them. Nariakira Shimadzu, who was the feudal lord in Satsuma (Kagoshima), thought that Japan needed to be industrialized immediately. He commanded that Japan make iron, steam engines and electric power by itself. After they had done research, they constructed the Shoko-Shuseikan and they tried to make iron, machines for silk and glass at the Shoko-Shuseikan. Now this building has become a Museum. We learned about the history of industrialization in Japan and old fundamental machines. I had a great time in Kagoshima and felt that frontier spirits and fundamental technology is very important.
