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A wise man once said that the most famous places are often the least known. So it is with Japan. Most Westerners believe this thousand mile long island-nation consists entirely of cluttered apartment blocks, noisy pachinko parlors and crowded expressways.

Most of them are wrong. They have yet to learn of Kyushu. As the southernmost of Japan's four main islands, Kyushu has more in common with the lush pastures of Ireland or the damp green forests of Oregon than the chaos of Osaka. On the one hand, the Japanese are the most urbanized people on Earth. Yet they are among the world's largest consumers of natural resources. But they also profess quite sincerely to a profound, centuries-old love of the land and the sea.

Hence, when the Japanese yearn to return to their roots, when they dream of the Japan of their childhood, it is to Kagoshima Prefecture, on Kyushu's southern shore, that they flock. This is their version of summer in Montana, or autumn in the Scottish Highlands.

Yet the Japanese don't flock south for spiritual reasons alone. They go for physical pleasure as well, as the volcano-ridden prefecture is renowned as the nation's hot spring heaven. There are over 2,000 hot springs in Kagoshima; many are located high in the mountains, others overlook the sea. And scores more are situated inside or attached to charming Japanese hotels called onsens.

But it's not just the land that's different in the south. Unlike their northern cousins, Kagoshima folks have lively, outspoken personalities. They're more individualistic, more emotional and far quicker to laugh.

Diet may have something to do with it. While most Japanese prefer seafood to beef, people here are impassioned beef-lovers. Happily, their prefecture is Japan's leading beef producer and hundreds of cattle farms dot the high rolling hills here. Town proud Kagoshima residents will happily reveal to visiting gaijins that much of what passes for the fabled butter-soft Kobe beef in Japanese restaurants abroad actually comes from the lush pastures of Kagoshima.

Other local food favorites include barbecued spare ribs. There is also a popular local snack known as "tori-sashi." Never mentioned in the tourist literature, tori-sashi consists of tender cuts of farm-fresh chicken, served raw, then dipped in soy sauce and searing wasabi. The tart condiment blends perfectly with the bland tasting chicken.

Kagoshima people even have different drinking habits. Their tipple of choice is not sake, but a powerful potion called shochu made from sweet potatoes rather than rice. With an alcohol content that tops 20 percent, shochu is far more powerful than sake. Probably that's why, when the locals get rowdy, they are referred to as imozamurai ("potato samurai").

Kagoshima's cultural credentials are impeccable. The true cradle of Japanese civilization was not in the flashy neon-lit cities of the north but in this rural mountainous prefecture. When the Gods descended to Earth it was in the mist-covered mountains here that they first touched down.

A Kagoshima man designed the famous "rising sun" emblem of the Japanese flag. And Japan's majestic national anthem is based on an ancient local folk song. Even Buddhism was first introduced to Japan via Kagoshima, from the nearby Korean peninsula.

Yes, Tokyo is fashionable when you want to tell the folks back home about the $20 hamburger you had there. And Kyoto truly is temple-encrusted. But for my money, this beguiling region is where the real heart of Old Japan still beats.

People here still live in houses with red ceramic tiled roofs and still sleep on soft futons set atop green-tinted tatami mats, where your final sensation, before drifting off, is that you've fallen asleep in a field of freshly cut grass. In Kagoshima, kimonos aren't trotted out for tourists, but are worn on frequent occasions, simply for the pure personal pleasure of it.

Kagoshima City is the prefectural capital. Like most Japanese towns, it is spotlessly clean and crime free. With its breezy seaside location on Kagoshima Bay, it's easy to see why it has been designated a sister-city to Naples. The Mediterranean mood is enhanced by Sakura-jima ("cherry island"), a smoldering 3,300-foot volcano which looms over Kagoshima Bay and bears more than a passing resemblance to Italy's Mount Vesuvius.

For visitors, though, the incontestable gem of Kagoshima is Kirishima National Park. Established in 1934, it was the country's first national park. With the exception of some traditional Shinto shrines and cozy little Kirishima Town, this sublime pine-covered preserve is unchanged since the Japanese Gods first arrived.

Savvy return visitors head here directly from the airport, transported in immaculate taxis piloted by smiling drivers dressed like the Love Boat's Captain Stuben (complete with commander's cap and white gloves). As your cab hugs the winding road and climbs thousands of feet into the
mountains, the air cools and the sunlight is filtered through the trees.

Here is a fertile land littered with age-old volcanoes, cool alpine lakes, and thousands of mysterious sulfur springs. If you're a James Bond fan, you've been here before, at least vicariously. When the producers of the 007 films wanted to make their first movie in Asia, they chose this extraordinary landscape as the location for the motion picture You Only Live Twice.

For the energetic there are more than 20 different peaks to climb, including five major ones of nearly 5,000 feet. Spring and autumn are arguably the finest seasons to visit. By late September and right through October the sun stays toasty warm, but the air is crisp and fresh.

The fiery hues of autumn spill down Kirishima's densely forested slopes in a stunning riot of color. Set against a cobalt blue sky, the Japanese maples and the radiant gold of gingko trees are almost painfully beautiful. But I found spring equally exquisite with entire mountain meadows carpeted in endless acres of pink and white azaleas. My first night's stop was at the Kirishima Kanko Hotel, a favorite with Japanese families. With several hundred rooms, this is easily the
largest hotel in the national park, and boasts the largest hotel spa, the steaming hot sulfur-infused water being piped in from volcanic vents located deep beneath the hotel.

Huge natural rocks and bamboo curtain walls divide the enormous indoor pool into sections for males and females. After a long day of serious hiking behind you, I can attest that there is no sensation more wonderful than to soak for an hour in a sultry mineral bath.

Then, once you're steam cleaned and boiled as pink as a barbecued prawn, you retreat back to your tatami room to don your cotton yakata robe and slippers. Then make tracks for the restaurant where dinner awaits, including servings of sizzling steak or delicious grilled tuna. After diner, everyone from grannies to grandchildren, pad around in their slippers and robes, giving the whole hotel the mood of one giant slumber party.

Having been to Japan before, I had meticulously followed all the rules, such as soap-scrubbing myself raw before entering the public baths. But no Westerner can be in this country long without doing something woeful. My turn for cultural calamity came when, salivating for my steak, I hotfooted it down to the hotel's dining room wearing the wrong bloody footwear. I was first alerted to this mortifying fact by some giggling schoolgirls.

Then a waitress kindly informed me that I was wearing my bathroom slippers. This fact was made apparent to every person I had encountered because printed on each of the cotton flip-flops were the words: TOILET SLIPPER. Alas, I cannot read Japanese.

Far smaller and more romantic than the Kirishima Kanko, is the 12-room Ijinkan Hotel, which is situated in a dense storybook pine forest. The fairy tale feeling is continued in the European-style bedrooms with brass beds, polished wood floors and fluffy comforters. But best of all, was the Ijinkan's tiny sulfur hot spring where, because of the small size of the outdoor pool, mixed bathing is a must. What's more, the rule here is a traditional "towels only." None of this yakata nonsense. On the evening of my stay I was invited to share the bath with four lovely Japanese girls who gamely giggled throughout. Try to find that in Tokyo.

On my third evening, I opted to stay at a truly traditional onsen. Situated in a rocky gorge just above the gurgling Amori River, the Gajoen onsen recreates a quintessential rural Japanese farming community of the 1920s. There are about a dozen miniature thatched roofed Japanese houses set on a sloping hill just above the river. Aside from three different types of hot spring baths, some of the rooms have a mini iron bath set out on the balconies that overlook the river. Mornings were wonderfully misty here. No one speaks English at the Gajoen, but that only enhances the feeling that you are not in Kansas, Toto.

Closer to Kagoshima City, is the charming old Furusato Spa Hotel, which boasts an enchanting outdoor hot spa situated just above the ocean. Mixed bathing beneath the stars is allowed here too, but alas, everyone must wear their white cotton yakata. Here, on the penultimate evening
of my stay in Japan, I sat neck-deep in the toasty waters, my face cooled by a fresh sea breeze. A small flask of sake - my pre-dinner drink - was gently pushed out to me on a floating bamboo tray.

After dinner, guests here also putter around in the lobby in robe and slippers, and the soft comforting chirp of crickets could be heard from behind the front desk - where the Furusato's staff keeps them as pets. "Furusato" is an indefinable Japanese expression; roughly translated it
means "intensely homesick for." And that's pretty much how I felt when I had to leave the Furusato.

For me, one highlight of travel is the hunt for new and different foods. If you have the guts for it, figuratively and literally, food can gain you entry into another world. And nowhere is that truer than in Kagoshima.

For less bold bon vivants, Japan's traditional culinary treats are served everywhere. Japan's most famous dish, in fact, was actually invented in Kagoshima, but not by a Japanese chef. When Portuguese traders first arrived in Japan in the 1600s, it was on Kagoshima's craggy shore that they landed. They brought with them firearms, the Catholic faith, and a delicious deep-fried shrimp and vegetable dish, which virtually everyone - including most Japanese - thinks is a Japanese invention, but is not.

As ardent Catholics, the Portuguese gave up meat on Friday as a form of temperance. From this word, comes the Japanese transliteration "tempura."

As any Japanese will readily tell you, to spend time in Japan without sampling the nightlife would be a dereliction of duty. After dark, Kagoshima City comes alive with scores of lively bars, discos, restaurants and nightclubs, all far less costly than those in Tokyo's Roppongi district. A 40-minute taxi ride from Kirishima brings the intrepid traveler to Tenmonkain, Kagoshima City's neon-lit entertainment district.

There are many places to enjoy Kagoshima's unique food and drinks, but if you're going to go traditional, you may as well do it in a genuine down-home style tavern such as the Shochu Heaven. This, I discovered, was very much a Japanese version of Cheers. Here, everyone indeed knows your name - if your name happened to be Hashimoto that is. The instant I stepped through the door, I seemed to step through a kink in the fabric of time; suddenly I was whisked back to the Japan of the 1960s.

Raucous, good-natured laughter, flushed red faces and fresh white socks greet every visitor as the door swings open on a cool spring evening. The dark wood walls are almost hidden behind hundreds of bottles of sacred shochu.

Here I was introduced to yet another of Kagoshima's unique culinary enticements: basashi. Served with ginger and green onions, a plate of eight thin slices of raw horsemeat costs about $10. At first glance it might be mistaken for beef carpaccio, and the taste is surprisingly pleasant: sweet though slightly chewy. The Japanese refer to it as nsakura niku, as the meat has the light pink color of cherry blossoms.

Imported from Chile and Australia, with iron-clad hygiene standards, the meat is considered a gourmet treat and can be served grilled which gives it a taste like venison. Thought to be high in protean, but low in cholesterol, it can cost more than the best prime beef.

But the most enjoyable aspect about Shochu Heaven, is its beloved owner, Sachiko Hamazono. Ruling the roost for 20 years, she is known by her loyal patrons as the Princess of Tenmonkain. Dignified and graceful, she pads back and forth, greeting every patron at the door, arranging their
shoes in neat alignment, giving them advice about her menu and, eventually, even helping them out the door when they start to whinny too loudly.

Even history buffs will find Kagoshima an appealing destination. Much of it is World War II related and tragic. Roughly the shape and size of Hawaii's Pearl Harbor, Kagoshima's beautiful bay was used in early 1941 by Imperial Japanese Navy pilots to practice bomb runs on the US Navel Base.

Then just four years later, the war came home to Kagoshima. The phrase "death before dishonor" has a quaint, almost comic ring these days, like something you'd come across only in the design catalog of a tattoo parlor. Yet half a century ago, several thousand young men, many in their teens, took the adage literally, accepting certain death in the name of honor. In the final months of the Pacific War, these adolescent pilots were trained to destroy American ships approaching Japan by flying headlong into them.

To stiffen their resolve, the Japanese commanders (tucked away safely in Tokyo) proclaimed the young flyers "Thunder Gods," declaring that after the thunderous explosion of their airplanes the aviators would become divine spirits. The military also called them kamikaze - "divine wind"
- a reference to the typhoon winds that had saved Japan from attacking Mongol fleets in the 13th century.

Today, the sacrifice of the teenage kamikazes is memorialized in a little museum called the Tokko Ihinkan ("Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots"). The museum lies at the end of a long row of pretty white birch trees. Two white pillars at the entrance and a gently arched, gray, tiled roof give the building the look of a chapel. The grounds are covered with white gravel and landscaped with cherry trees, pensive green pines and Japanese maples, which turn deep red in the fall.

Inside display cases hold such artifacts as compasses, notebooks, diaries, wristwatches and hand-made dolls given to the pilots by their young sisters. Lining the museum walls, lit by ceiling lights, are hundreds of black and white photos of the young pilots, each with a name and date of death. One of the most poignant shows five pilots holding a puppy. All the labels in the museum are in Japanese, but a foreign visitor will have no trouble reading the emotion in the eyes of the pale young men, as they gamely pose for a last toast before climbing into what were essentially flying coffins.

Japanese young people visiting the museum today find the experience a thought-provoking one. Satsuki Watanabe, of Kagoshima City says she visits the museum whenever she is in the area: "I have heard that most of the pilots didn't think the war was necessary, but they felt compelled to defend their country," she says. "In our history, I read that a lot of Japanese people thought that the war was a bad thing, but they had to do it."

There's no question that the suicide missions aroused complex feelings in the kamikazes themselves. Some of the museum's artifacts hint at the flyers' torment. Letters bidding farewell to mothers, fathers and sweethearts convey the writers' great sadness of having to die so young.

Finally, the adventurous explorer should make time to visit the remote island of Yuku-shima, the exclamation point that is the question mark that is Japan. In 1986 the United Nations designated the island a World Heritage Site. Yaku-shima literally means "cedar island," and it is the island's dark dense forests, alive with herds of deer and wild monkeys, which have made Yaku revered throughout Japan.

When first viewed from the small plane that arrives twice daily from Kagoshima City, Yaku's jagged green mountains appear on the horizon like the turrets of a forbidding medieval castle. The forests, which begin just above the shoreline continue inland to the very tops of the 3,000 feet high mountains. Here is some of the last ancient timberland left in East Asia. Many of the largest yaku trees tower more than 300 feet into the sky and are more than 2,000 years old.

For generations, the main sources of income for Yaku's 14,000 hardy islanders have been fishing and forestry. Now it's hoped that tourism will take the place of logging. Currently, the island hosts a meager 10,000 visitors a year, mainly energetic college-age hikers who camp deep in the island's wet, green heart.

To trek through Yaku National Park (which takes up most of the island) is to enter a vast green cathedral. Here only dappled sunlight filters down through the huge cedar branches; the padded forest floor is silent and pungently scented with untold centuries of moss and pine needles. It is a vision of what the world must have been like before God created man.

The island can easily handle dedicated eco-tourists. But with several new five-star hotels already open and mass domestic tourism not far behind, the question is how to keep Yakushima's economy steaming ahead without hurting its fabled forests. The Iwasaki Hotel company may have the answer.

When Iwasaki decided to build its first resort on Yaku-shima, company executives knew that the beautiful forests were the key attraction. But they also knew that many of their guests would be far too old or frail to trek into the steep forests to get a close-up look at the biggest trees.

So they searched the world for a company that could recreate a full-scale, perfectly authentic-looking yaku. Eventually they located the Larson Company in, of all places, Tucson, Arizona. The company flew out their staff who spent weeks trekking, photographing and measuring some of the largest trees.

Today, a giant cedar tree rises regally in the center of the Yaku-shima Iwasaki Hotel's soaring glass lobby. Even by glaring mid-day light, it's not easy to determine its genuineness. And when floodlit after dark, it appears nothing less than ancient. Norihide Kuroda, Iwasaki's general manager, told me that the most common topic among the visitors to the men's spa is how old the tree is.

Nowhere in the hotel is there a sign about the great tree's origin, or the fact that it wasn't created by Mother Nature. When the resort opened, the astute contractor publicly announced that "in the building of this hotel no yaku tree was cut down, including the one in the lobby." If the spirit is worthy and a forest is saved, what does it really matter if the bark is bogus?

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