As the unfortunate home to one-tenth of the world's active volcanoes, Japan lacks no variety in these ill-tempered peaks.
Some volcanoes, like Mount Fuji, are majestic affairs and have inspired poets and artists for centuries. And then there are others, like thuggish Mount Unzen, that inspire feelings of a different kind.
Unzen dominates the Shimabara Peninsula, a kidney-shaped land mass at the southeastern end of Nagasaki Prefecture. I approached the town of Shimabara by ferry from Kumamoto one dull, gray morning, and the brute character of the volcano slowly revealed itself as the mist lifted here and there, uncovering its great scars and the pyroclastic debris that litters its slopes.