Japan Guide
Kyūshū
Chūō Park
The best place to start exploring Kagoshima is in Chūō Park, west of the Tenmonkan arcades. A bronze statue of the close-cropped, portly Saigō Takamori stares seaward across the park's north corner; unlike the more relaxed portrait in Tokyo's Ueno-kōen, this shows Saigō as an uncompromising military leader. Behind him, carp-filled moats and some bullet-pocked walls are all that remain of Tsurumaru-jō following the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion.