Many of the major train stations across Japan have their own meeting spots, such as the Hachiko statue at Shibuya or the Silver Bell at Tokyo Station. In Kagoshima Chuo (Central) Station’s case, it’s a tall cedar tree dubbed Deai-sugi (encounter cedar), which stand surrounded by benches at West Exit.
The tree is an actual Yakusugi, a Japanese cedar that grows on the island of Yakushima at altitudes 500 meters or higher and is typically over 1,000 years old. The forest in Yakushima is now half the size of what it once was, due to the samurai cutting down the once-sacred Yakusugi trees for timber. They are protected today, and only driftwood is used in handcrafts.
Estimated to be over 3,000 years old, this particular tree at Kagoshima Chuo Station was cut down during the Edo period, losing its upper half. The remaining half had since stood on the spot, and was gifted by the island to the station to celebrate the inauguration of a (now defunct) express railway named after Yakushima.
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