Sorry for taking so long to get a new post up! I’ve been busy with this and that, but I decided that enough was enough and that I’m writing this thing now. Thank you for bearing with me. I also decided that from now on I’m going to use a jump on my posts, since the long pages on this site are making it difficult for some people to load it properly. Click the following link to read the rest of the post.
Last Monday, I wrapped up the last day of what was a great way to spend a weekend: out with my new club on a three-day trip to a river to do some rafting and partying. We went down to the Ani-gawa river, which is about two hours south of Hirosaki by car. The days were tiring, with us rafting almost 8 hours a day, but it was a rewarding experience and a great time to practice my Japanese, since there were no native English speakers around.
I got started on the trip the day before with the weekly meeting. I knew that there were plans for a rafting trip the coming weekend, but I’d yet to confirm whether I was coming. That night, I was able to borrow a large hiking backpack in addition to a sleeping bag and start getting ready for the trip. I had a bit of an adventure the following morning getting my clothes washed for that night, when we would be leaving. The dryers here are a real pain and take at least three hours to dry anything. This was coupled by the fact that the dryers that day decided to start turning off randomly, so I had to babysit the things all day to get my clothes dry enough to pack. I think from now on I’ll start using the laundry mat down the street.
I showed up around 6 or so and there was already a good group there. I went over some last-minute preparations and checklists to make sure that I had everything. Pretty soon, we were hitting the road. I was riding with Makiko, who I’d emailed with before. There was an MP3 adapter for the stereo in the car, so we were taking turns with our players. Makiko got excited looking through my collection because she saw that I had a lot of Mars Volta, of whom she is a big fan. That makes sense, since her email address has the words “the mars volta” in it. We jammed out to some Mars Volta, after which we switched over to some Pixies. The ride up was alright, lasting about two hours. We pulled into a parking lot, which at this point was very dark. Everyone started turning on their headlamps, which I did as well. I asked about having a fire, since what is a camp out without a fire? To this, I was informed that we were camping next to an elementary school and that they wouldn’t appreciate it none too much if we burned up their baseball diamond. We got the tents all set up and then out came the alcohol. I helped myself to a beer and got to talking with a bunch of the club members. I was shocked to find out that we had to get up at 6 a.m.! I decided it would be best to get into bed sooner rather than later, so I said my goodbyes and climbed into my sleeping bag in the large tent.
That was the scene the first morning. That girl in the middle of the shot is actually Makiko, the Mars Volta fan. The food being prepared on the right was a delicious breakfast of instant ramen. We ate in a big group, after which we started getting ready with the rafting gear. Around 7 or so, we were off. The launch point for the boats was actually very close to where we were camping. We turned off a bridge and started going down a dirt road incline. Here was a bridge I saw along the way:
It was at this point we had a bit of a sticky situation. As the truck in front of us made its way down the steep, narrow road, it became stuck in a bunch of mud near the bottom, right were all the gravel ended conveniently enough. It took us a good 30 minutes to an hour to get both the truck and van back up to the top of the road. Glad that that was over, we started grabbing the gear and carrying down the rafts in teams. Those suckers are heavy and my hands and arms were burning by the time we made it to the bottom.
I wouldn’t be going rafting the first time around, instead I would a suppaato, or a support team member, in charge of riding in the van and keeping tabs on the groups down on the water. Everyone practiced throwing the rescue rope before the boats were off. I also snapped off some shots as the boats made their way down the river:
We got into the van and made our way down the road. We stopped on top of a tall bridge over looking Ani-gawa, where I got a shot of the beautiful northern Japanese countryside:
The hills were rolling and covered in green trees as far as the eye could see. Really, I was taken aback and just how full of nature Japan was and how much it resembled my home state of Maine. I think the most stunning thing is the hills - they are tall and surround you whenever you venture out into the countryside.
Soon, the first group was done with their run down the river, taking about two hours or so. The support guys, including myself, helped the rafting teams carry their gear back up the steep embankment and up onto the rafts. We piled into the vehicles and drove back to the starting point, where we enjoyed a lunch of bread slices, cheese and various jams.
Next, it was my turn to head down the river. I strapped on the wet suit and donned a lifejacket. Soon enough, we were making our way down the river. Ani-gawa is much more interesting of a river to raft than Iwaki-gawa, I must say. The white water was abundant but not overly difficult and it was punctuated by periods of calm water to recuperate. The only thing I noticed, which was true for Iwaki-gawa the week before, was that the water level was a bit lower than normal, but that didn’t put a damper on the trip at all. About thirty minutes down river there is this large boulder sticking out over a deep, calm pool of water. Of course, we all just had to jump off it. We pulled over into the eddie behind it and climbed up. It was about a ten foot drop into the water, so not too bad. The cold water certainly felt good considering how warm the day was.
So ended the first day. Afterwards, I learned that we would be heading to an onsen, a hot spring used for bathing. This wasn’t a real hot spring, though, since it was indoors, but it was my first time to such an establishment and the first time I would be bathing naked in front of so many other men. I have to say, I really didn’t feel any nervousness at all - instead, I was quite excited to see this aspect of Japanese culture.
That’s a shot of the exterior. The place was named using the word “huntsman” in the local dialect, and the inside was full of pictures of an old man wearing animal furs in front of a fire. The place was a sort of hotel/onsen combination, which I was told is quite common. Behind a blue cloth hanging over a door way marked with the kanji for “male” I found the locker room. I got undressed and carried my soap and shampoo with me inside the onsen proper. The main draw of an such a place is the pool of hot water, which is akin to a hot tub in the U.S.. But before going in, one must wash at one of the little stations lined up along the wall. There is a sink-type fixture with hot and cold water and a shower head, which you use while sitting down on a small stool. I washed up and then soaked in the hot water, talking with some of the guys there. I found the water to be extremely hot, probably hotter than a hot tub would be. Soon enough, it was becoming unbearably hot and I just had to get out, which was about the time that everyone was finishing up anyway. I found myself to be fairly dizzy and out of breath as I made my way out to get dressed and then get in the car. Soon enough, though, I started feeling really refreshed. I could see why the Japanese enjoy such places, you feel just wonderful afterwards. The whole process is one by which you can relax and recuperate. We ended up going two more times over the course of the trip and I enjoyed each subsequent trip just as much as the first one. Before leaving that day, though, Chiba and I got a picture together behind the little wooden set-up out front, I the huntsman and Chiba the bear. It was quite silly:
That night we were making sukiyaki, which is a kind of Japanese stew. There was cabbage, negi onion, tofu and beef in it, in addition to a particular type of sauce. I was starved at this point, what with the long day of rafting, so I helped chip in to speed up the process.
The sukiyaki was topped off by eating with a nama tamago, or raw egg. It was quite delicious, especially considering how hungry I was.
The next day I once again started out on support. Once again, I got some nice shots of the countryside:
That day I got to raft twice. Since we didn’t have any issues with the cars that morning, we were able to get a third trip down the river in. That night we had some curry with hot dogs added, which was a new experience for me. I’d say it wasn’t too bad, since I usually eat curry just straight up. I also got to talking about English with everyone in the circle, which was sparked by me reading off some English on people’s beer. Most of the beer cans in Japan, nay all of them, have English written all over them and it’s actually quite good.
The third and final day of rafting was a short one, since we only did one trip down the river, but I was lucky enough to be able to that last time. I made sure to make the most of it by doing a front flip off of the big boulder. Afterwards, I peeled off my damp wetsuit for the final time and helped get all the tents down a gear packed away into the vans and cars. The day was rainy and overcast, so I just chilled out and listened to some music on the ride back home. So ended my great weekend of rafting. Now the tanken-bu is getting ready for some rock climbing. We have been working on rope usage and knot tying in the recent meetings. In particular, we will be hiking up mountain streams and then climbing rock walls along the way in a process known as sawa noburi.
Well, what else have I been up to recently? Well, this past Sunday I met up with Lim, Hwang, Paku and the rest of the Korean gang and spent a little bit of time out at the Apple Park, where there was a small festival going on. In this area of Japan, apples are quite famous and economically important to the locals. There are several orchards out on the west side of Hirosaki, where I headed out to. I got a sweet picture with Lim and Hwang with the festival and Iwaki-san in the background:
The festival was a pretty mild affair compared to the crowds of people that descended on Hirosaki Park the week of the cherry-blossom festival, but it was still fun to check out.
That afternoon, I hung out in Lim’s room, watching The Office and eating some yakisoba and kimchi, the latter of which is a spicy Korean dish made with pickled cabbage. That night, we had made plans to head out to the pool hall because Lim had been invited to go by one of the members of the school’s billiards club. The pool hall was right next to Hapachi, my regular spot for nomikai. The night was fun, despite how poor I am at the game. Lim is considering joining the club, which only meets on Sundays. I might go again some time here, but it will cost 600 yen each time.
The following day, I was off with the Korean students to Momo’s again to have some tabehodai. I really love that place, lots of really great food. The meat tastes really great fresh off the grill. They also had some takoyaki, which I just had to indulge myself in. I think that is one of my favorite Japanese foods now, which I will certainly miss having once I leave. I also got some photos while there, here’s one of Nojae (on the left), Lim and I, another funny shot:
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I got my hair cut over the weekend. Nothing fancy, just took off about 5cm. It was just getting too long and annoying. XD
On Tuesday night, I headed out to this place called RAT to do some indoor climbing with some of the members of tanken-bu. I was impressed with the place as soon as we walked in.
It’d been a while since I last done any indoor climbing, but I was reminded just how much fun it is, even if I was a little out of shape. My nemesis was the red wall, which we were all taking shots at.
I managed to do the easiest course, but was just too tired to manage the next one up in difficulty. Here’s a little video of the tanken-bu in action while climbing the walls:
Since we would be soon doing this outdoors while hiking, Ise was checking out the ropes and harnesses:
I think I’ll go back there sometime. It was really great exercise and quite a lot of fun. The only problem is that it will probably add up, since it can cost up to 1000 yen for a session, and more to rent the shoes.
Finally, this evening there was a show put on by Yasu’s club, Light Music Company, at the gakkan where the welcome party was held. The show was a high-energy punk rock event, with Yasu’s group covering Minor Threat to finish off the evening. I got some video of them in action for you all:
Tomorrow they will be having another show and Yasu’s band will be playing, the same one that I took of video of playing outside the gakkan. I also ran into Saya, who I met at the welcome party. She is a member of Light Music Company and we got to talking a bit about guitar since she wanted to learn and play in some of the shows. I told her that I had played quite a bit in high school, at which she asked if I would teach her. XD It’s been a while, but I would love to play again. Yasu said I might be able to join and play with them at some point, but I’m not holding my breath. I love to watch them play, though, live music is the best.
Well, sorry again for the delay in posting. I’ve been having a busy month and my classes have started ramping up. I hope you all enjoyed, I’ll see you next time!
また、ね！
trenzzz Says:
