As you probably know, I love Japan’s culture of onsen, bathing in volcanic hot springs. But nothing good in life is free, and the wonderful hot water pouring out of the Earth does come with a cost in the form of volcanoes and earthquakes. Japan is an extremely active place seismically, with 108 live volcanoes (a very Japanese number indeed) which represents about 10 percent of all active volcanoes in the world. Currently a volcano called Mt. Shinmoe on Japan’s southernmost island of Kyushu is erupting, blasting smoke, ash and lava into the sky and causing residents to head for the hills. Happily, there have been no deaths so far, since if there’s one thing Japan is good at it’s disaster preparedness. While Mt. Shinmoe’s name sounds like surprisingly moe (the word that’s come to describe the super-cute anime characters seen in modern anime), the mountain’s name uses the kanji for “burning,” much more applicable in this case. The volcano is famous because it was the evil lair used by the villain in the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice.
“No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to burn.”
