I went to Shikoku yesterday to go rafting with the guys from Happy Raft in central Shikoku. It was supposed to be myself and a group of 9 people with the guides. However, the group of 9 delayed their trip, and so I ended up with a private trip with 4 guides! Pretty sweet deal.
Central Shikoku is covered with lush green mountains, much like the North Shore in Vancouver. And like the North Shore, they get a ridiculous amount of rain. There was a torrential downpour all day, which was joined by a thunder and lightning storm towards the end of the trip. I've never seen it rain that hard in my life. Because of all the rain, the river was just crazy. It was awesome! I got thrown out of the raft once, which was actually quite embarrassing because it was during a relatively mild part of the river. I didn't have my feet anchored into the boat and we went through a rough patch I didn't notice and lost my balance.
After rafting, I went to catch the train back home. However, no trains came. There was no announcement, and no one else was there because it was such a tiny station. I waited 4 hours and no trains came in either direction. I found out after that the rain had caused such severe flooding that they had to shut down the tracks for several hours. So the owner of Happy Raft, Mark, an Aussie, took me to his buddy's guesthouse where I spent the night for 2000 yen ($20).
On the way home this morning, I stopped at Kotohira, apparently the most popular temple in all of Shikoku. It was interesting but I think I'm at the point now where I've seen enough temples.
Because the rain was so crazy, I couldn't take any pictures while we were rafting. The picture just above this is in the equipment room at Happy Raft. The picture at the top I took during my 4 hour stint at the train station after rafting. Please forgive my hair as I didn't shower after rafting. You can't really make it out in the picture, but the rain is like a monsoon in that picture.
After leaving Yakushima, I returned to Kagoshima on Kyushu. I spent a few days there, exploring the city as well as Sakurajima, a volcano that is a 10 minute ferry ride from downtown Kagoshima. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate so I was unable to see the peak of the volcano.
I then went to Kumamoto, to see Kumamoto Castle, which although it was interesting, can't compare with Himeji Castle. After Kumamoto, I went to Fukuoka, a very interesting city about the same size as Vancouver. Apparently, the city is famous for its tonkotsu ramen (pork broth soup) and its bijin (beautiful women). I didn't try the soup, but they're certainly not wrong about the second part. I will be returning in the near future.
The one thing I realized from this trip, is that travelling in Japan would be that much more enjoyable if my Japanese was a higher level so I could have real conversations with people. Therefore, I've decided to put in more time studying so that for my next trip in August, I will be able to hold simple conversations with people.
For Golden Week I went down to Kyushu and Yakushima. Yakushima is a small island that is a 2 hour speedboat ride from the city of Kagoshima on Kyushu. The island is a UNESCO World Heritage Centre, mainly because of the extremely old cedar trees in the island's interior. The island's oldest tree, the Jomonsugi, is estimated to be somewhere between 3,000 and 7,000 years old. There are also many monkeys (yakuzaru) and deer (yakushika) on the island. This picture I took at the Oko no taki (Big River Waterfall). The Japanese love to rate things, and so this waterfall is considered one of the 100 best in Japan.
The people on the island were incredibly friendly. As there were very few foreigners, all of the school kids would either stare at me, or approach and talk to me in Japanese, or say anything they knew in English to me. The people speak a dialect called Kagoshima-ben, which was not only extremely difficult for me to understand, but it was even hard for tourists from other parts of Japan to understand.
I went to Shikoku yesterday to go rafting with the guys from Happy Raft in central Shikoku. It was supposed to be myself and a group of 9 people with the guides. However, the group of 9 delayed their trip, and so I ended up with a private trip with 4 guides! Pretty sweet deal.
Because the rain was so crazy, I couldn't take any pictures while we were rafting. The picture just above this is in the equipment room at Happy Raft. The picture at the top I took during my 4 hour stint at the train station after rafting. Please forgive my hair as I didn't shower after rafting. You can't really make it out in the picture, but the rain is like a monsoon in that picture.
