Looking death in the eye, aka White Water Rafting Part I

Morning people,

Before I kick this one off (I fear I will have a LOT to say...) and forget I wanted to tell you: this morning I went for a little run (cannot overemphasise the 'little' part...) and saw a SNAKE run over on the road.  It was maybe 30cm, maybe a little more.  Flat enough that I could look at the scales, not so deaded that it was just a flat dry thing.  If I had a camera on me I would have taken a pic - because you KNOW you want to see a flat, dead snake!

Ok, so to the big one: white water rafting!!

Friday night Jeff and I headed down to Fukuyama, where we met the bus of JETs bound for Shikoku Island (I'm skipping a big bit there so I don't bore you to death.  In a few words, 1.5 hr drive to Fukuyama, met Gabrielle at supermarket so she could show us the way back to her house, drove to her place, ran from her place to closest bus stop, 20min bus to Fukuyama station, used station toilet - grossest, smelliest squat toilet with no paper, found place where JET bus was picking us up from, waited for half hour while the bus was late, THEN met the bus of JETs!).  I was a little overwhelmed at first, as the bus was already pretty full of JETs from Hiroshima, who were a) excited and b) had been drinking.  They all knew Jeff and were politely enthusiastic about meeting me (read between the lines when 'politely enthusiastic' coincides with 'drinking').  But after the bus started and everyone was made to sit down so the bus driver didn't get pulled over by the cops, I had a chance to chat to some of the people Jeff had made friends with.  That was good, being able to put faces to names. 

I know I'm probably stupid for being surprised (again and again) at this, but it always impresses me how every time Jeff says he really likes someone or really got along with someone, that I find them really cool too.  I mean, even with best friends there are inevitably SOME people you disagree on.  But Jeff's judgement seems to strongly coincide with mine (though mine are inevitably expressed much stronger, while Jeff is more willing to give someone a chance when I think they are a git).  So I enjoyed meeting the people he had hung out with at language camp. 

Anyway, that night we drove about an hour and a half, maybe two, crossing the bridge to Shikoku Island (one of the big four, kind of South-east of the main island, Honshu).  We stayed the night in a traditional hotel, a ryokan (hope I spelt that right!), where we stayed on tatami mats with futons.  There were two of us couples sharing a room, which was slightly odd, but good because we didn't have to worry about a raging party in our room (he was a fairly quiet American guy who spoke a bit of Japanese, she was a quiet Japanese girl who spoke a bit of English.  Fascinating, having a relationship where there is no language they are both fluent in.  Or maybe that's a recipe for success - at least from the guy's point of view!). 

We spent AGES that evening wandering round the streets in search of a conveni - stupidly we let a drunk guy look at the map initially.  Finally when it was clear we weren't getting anywhere useful our Japanese roommate took the map and directed us to the conveni.  Luckily it was a nice night for walking, because we had walked in a big circle to find the conveni when it was pretty much straight down the road from our accomodation!!  Stupid drunk gaijins.  After getting a couple of drinks and some midnight snacks we went back to one of the other rooms to be sociable.  About 1am I decided there were too many fart jokes and Gregg was getting more nude than I was comfortable with, so I took off back to our room and not long after the rest of our room followed.  Sleepy time!! 

6:40am we started our day with a traditional Japanese breakfast.  I hadn't had one of those before, and to be honest, I wouldn't rush to have one again.  I don't remember EVERYTHING served, but will try to list what I remember: half raw egg served in some kind of broth, a fish steak, several types of pickled vegies, some kind of sweet bean, rice, miso soup, green tea, seaweed, salad (lettuce, tomato, ham and salad dressing), and more pickled THINGS (nope, no idea what!).  I admit I am rather pedantic about breakfast, and NEED to start my day with a balanced nutritious feed - usually porridge or muesli with fruit and yoghurt, although occasionally I have toast with - you guessed it - fruit and yoghurt.  So we all felt a bit out of kilter starting the day with such an odd assortment of food.  At least I had managed to eat all mine - many others, Jeff included, couldn't stomach that food at that time of the morning and consequently were really hungry by the start of rafting. 

Yes, the rafting.  I'm getting there.  After another hour and a half bus ride we all piled off at Happy Raft.  There a Nelson boy gave us our forms and explained things, a bloke in the biggest pounamu ever got us into our wetsuits and a bloke who - according to all the Americans - looked like the Dad in Boy gave us the safety talk.  The four of us Kiwis on the trip were cracking up  - we come to Japan to go rafting and it's all Kiwis!! 

However, when we got put on our boat we got an Australian guide - they cleverly have plenty of guides, so foreigners get an English-speaking guide (well, Australian is close to English :P) and Japanese customers got a Japanese guide.  I guess for safety reasons you don't want to go down rapids unable to understand what your guide is telling you! 

There were two notable things about our boat: we had Sarah, a physically timid English woman who only came because Jeff peer-pressured her into it and she was TERRIFIED.  And for our guide we had 'Milky' - and we were his first ever boatload of customers to take down the river.  I think you could safely say he was also terrified.  So, as you can imagine, not a great combination!! 

We started our day by plunging into the water while we were waiting on the boats - we were SO hot in our wetsuits, fleeces and helmets in the hot sun!!  So we were all wet before we even got into the boats :)  Back at base everyone had been complaining about wearing wetsuits and 'do we have to wear fleeces?'  I kept telling them that I'm sure the guides knew what they were doing recommending we wear them, and that five hours on the river, wet, especially if we were in the shade, was a LONG time and they would get cold.  Sure enough, as soon as everyone plunged into the river their eyes widened with the shock of the cold water and there were no further complaints about wetsuits or the ugly mustard fleeces! 

As we set off down the river our guide taught us the basic commands - paddle forwards, paddle backwards, stop, lean left, lean right, hang on and get in.  We also had safety talks about what happens if your boat flips or if someone falls out and needs the safety rope (turns out we needed all that info!).  I was pretty laid back about the whole affair - having done the 7m waterfall in Rotorua, I expected the day to be fun, but not scary.  How wrong was I!

The morning was pretty calm most of the time, with fairly small rapids warming us into it.  There were LOADS of other boats out, so you were safe in the knowledge someone would fish you out quickly if you fell.  In fact, our company had at least six boats go out at once and apparently there are TWENTY different companies running tours on the river, with no coordination between them as to who goes when.  So before every rapid there were actually traffic jams, and we would have to pull up to the side and wait our turn! 

Perhaps the scariest bit was when our guide made us turn around, hunker down and face backwards while we went down a particular rapid.  As we went down, I could see the tension and fear on 'Milky's face - probably the scariest moment up till then!  Sitting at the front of the boat, it had never occurred to me I wasn't in confident, capable hands!! 

Then, just before lunch, it happened.

Oops, sorry, out of time!  Will have to finish this tomorrow.  Watch this space!!