Miyajima brief

We had a wonderful trip to Miyajima (a small island off the coast of Hiroshima). The fireworks show was spectacular! We got back late last night, spent all day today unpacking, doing laundry and repacking because we leave early tomorrow morning for Mt. Fuji. So the full details and pictures are going to have to wait until we get back.

mud volleyball

One of our Japanese friends asked us to play in a mud volleyball tournament last weekend. When she told us about it, I thought that it was going to be really muddy, but it was more like knee-deep water volleyball. The top several inches of the ground were muddy and horribly difficult to walk through early in the day -- several people lost shoes. All of the Japanese people in their samurai shoes had a distinct advantage. But the mud compacted down as the day went on and it became easier to move around.
Our friend originally wanted to sign up for a different, larger tournament, but all of the spaces filled. The organizers of that tournament told her that a different small town was starting their own tournament this year, so she signed us up for that one. I was really impressed with the organization and turn-out for the inaugural event. Things ran very smoothly all day, but what else should I expect in Japan?
The organizers were incredibly excited to have foreigners playing in their tournament. Jason and I were both interviewed by the local news. Here's the translated transcript of our interviews -- it was, of course, all in Japanese:
Cameraman: Hello.
Me: Hello.
Cameraman: How was the volleyball today?
Me: It was great. I really enjoyed it.
Cameraman: (talking really fast and using big words)
Me: I don't understand what you said.
Cameraman: Is this your first time playing mud volleyball?
Me: Yes. It's my first time.
Cameraman: Fight.

Cameraman: How was it?
Jason: It was good.
Cameraman: Is this your first time playing mud volleyball?
Jason: Yes.
Cameraman: Where (something Jason didn't understand)?**
Jason: I'm from Canada.

**Jason assumes that whenever anyone asks him a question that begins with where that they're asking him where he is from. I imagine the cameraman was pretty confused, though, if he'd asked Jason something like, "where did you hear about the tournament?", only to have Jason tell him "I'm from Canada."

Our team also won the equivalent of the Miss Congeniality prize, I'm guessing just because we had some foreigners. But it was a fun day and we had a great time. We're already plotting what we can do better next year.

karaoke

I channeled the pre-creepy Tom Cruise at karaoke on Friday night, and Jason put on his blue suede shoes and brought the King back to life. Good times.

Go Carp!

This is a spectacular catch made by the Carp's center fielder.

Canyoning

The second day of our adventure was canyoning -- something that neither of us had heard of and even as we set off for the day we weren't really sure what we were going to be doing. After completing our adventure, we'd say that canyoning is climbing/jumping/zip-lining/sliding down waterfalls. It's fun.
Our gear for the day included: two wetsuits, a helmet, a life vest, special socks, special shoes and a safety harness. We looked like pros once we were all suited up.

Shikoku travels

While we were down rafting we stayed at a guesthouse owned by one of the rafting crew members. It was a nice, low-key place. We had the whole place to ourselves the first nice, but it was a full house on the second night. The group included a family that was good friends with the guesthouse owners and several of the rafting crew.
They were very kind to us and invited us to join them in some of their festivities. They'd cut a long bamboo pole in half, propped it up and ran a hose. This create a chute down which they were putting noodles. The small children would use their chopsticks to try to pick up the noodles. It was a fun game and it was nice to be included with the Japanese families. Actually, some of the Australians/Kiwis who run the raft company have married the locals, so they were mixed families. One woman explained to us that her son is a "Japiwi" Japanese/Kiwi.

Rafting

We spent the beginning of this week in Shikoku (it's one of the smaller islands in the southern part of Japan). We traveled to the mountain region in the middle of the island because I'd found a place with whitewater rafting trips.
The entire area was beautiful. The last part of our train ride followed along the top of the gorge with a great view down to the river. We saw some big rapids and a lot of white water, which made Jason a little nervous for his first rafting trip.
We had a great time on our all-day rafting trip. The big rapids were fun but not scary. Jason's been telling people that the only time he fell in the water is when I pushed him in. This is not true. He also fell in when we flipped the raft while surfing.
There was a section with some large rapids that created waves where we could go "surfing" with the raft. Our guide would steer us into the wave and then try to keep us there so we could ride the wave. It was wet and quite the ride, and frequently ended with the raft being tipped over. Jason went twice and then decided that he'd had enough, but I went back five or six times.
There are more great pictures -- and a few videos -- on the picasa site.