Canyons!!!

CANYONS!!! This was an event organized by GAJET (each prefecture has an AJET group for all JETs, but Gunma’s one is particularly active and organizes quite a lot of events/activities so we’re really lucky!). Woke up at 8:00am in order to set off a bit early, since my canyons tour was at 13:30, and I was having lunch there beforehand. Filled up on petrol before I set off (and very glad I did as fuel was so much more expensive in Minakami! ¥126 in Takasaki VS. ¥140 in Minakami!). I drove for about an hour and a half because I didn't take the toll road (the toll road would’ve been a 1 hour drive but cost ¥1600) and arrived much earlier than I planned before 11:00. Everyone was still out on their morning tours and stuff, so I sat around, patted the canyons’ staff’s awesome dog Scooby (he’s the biggest golden retriever I have ever seen and he is just gorgeous!!!), and went to a Family Mart with some other ALTs who were a bit hungry. Came back for lunch at the canyons’ facility, and we had roast pork with chutney, rice, pasta salad, salad, and fries! You could get as much rice, salad, and fries as you wanted, plus there was tea and hot seaweed soup as well. People started slowly coming in either from their respective cities/towns, or from the morning tour. It looked like they all had a great time and I was very excited for my own tour in the afternoon.

After lunch we met up for the canyons briefing (I did the Fox Canyon tour) where our guides explained about some safety rules and the like. We then got changed into our swimsuits, got our wetsuits and put those on, and then went outside for our helmets, life jackets, and gloves! The shoes we got to wear were really cool and grippy – so grippy that you could literally just climb up wet rocks! I totally felt like Spiderman wearing those shoes. We then piled into a bus and drove about 10 minutes to the start of the canyons. The guides were also our photographers, so we took a group photo before we started, and he showed us the different positions for floating down the river, and we were off! The water was really cold and refreshing, but you were so insulated in your wetsuits you didn't really feel the cold at all. We started off walking in the river first, and then got to get down and float down it a bit! We also made a human chain and floated down together which was really fun! We came up to our first waterfall pretty early on, and we each got let down halfway-ish, then just dropped completely. That was super fun! Although you really have to remember to hold your nose because the water going up your nose is so uncomfortable. There were some more jumps, waterfall slides, sliding down backwards, and some more jumps. Overall it was a ton of fun and it was great being in the water, but next time I will definitely do the Fox Plus tour because personally there weren’t as many jumps and dives as I thought there would be in the Fox tour.

We piled back into the bus and headed back to the lodge, took off our wetsuits, showered and got changed, and then got ready for the BBQ! It started a bit later than the planned 17:30 because the hiking group was still up in the mountains! We were all a little worried because the weather was rainy and it was pitch black, plus no one from the hiking group was replying, but they made it back in the end thankfully, and got to join us for the BBQ! After the BBQ a live band performed, then someone started DJ-ing, and the party started. You could also see a little bit of the stars as the clouds cleared up, so I tried to do a small timelapse, but I forgot to bring my lens cloth with me so it fogged up and I couldn't finish it. Went to bed earlier than the others at 23:00, some people stayed all the way till 3:00am!!! Our lodge rooms were really nice – tatami with futons so we all slept relatively well, also because we were all dead tired!