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“Subarashii” means ‘splendid’ in Japanese and that’s a fitting description of this year’s trip to the Land of the Rising Sun. John Bell and his wife, Sarah Anderson, were my “Guests of Honor” this year and they were so nice to travel with. We shared many great moments- at times laughing until we cried.
We did have some concerns before we left. Sarah’s mom was fresh out of the hospital and she wasn’t comfortable leaving her all alone while we traveled for fun to the other side of the world. John’s mom saved the day by volunteering to be with Sarah’s mom for the duration and that eased our minds enough to make the trip possible as planned. And I was deep into some work at the Cheat Festival site- helping to install an upgraded electric system for next year’s Festival- which basically involved digging some tough holes in hard dry ground with a post hole digger- long story I don’t need to go into here. Suffice it to say I got enough work done to be OK with disappearing for a couple weeks- but I had to work to the very last minute and in the process I woke up an ancient shoulder injury left over from trying to cartwheel long boats back in the early eighties. I hurt it pretty good- but I was about to go play - so I wasn’t too worried about that.
To start the trip off, I thought it would be entertaining to run the Cheat Canyon the day before we left at ELF(Extremely Low Flows) levels in Thrillseekers. John and Sarah weren’t very familiar with that science- but they were up for anything and agreed to give it a try. We had about 110 cfs which everybody *knows* is impossible. That’s maybe negative 6” or so on the Albright gage. Well- it was fine and no one had any real trouble- although someone may have swam the first rapid- but I don’t remember that real well- with all the sun and fun and all. The Cheat was so clean you could see the entire bottom most of the way! Thanks Keith Pitzer and Friends of the Cheat! Experiencing all those Cheat River rocks up close and personal was a good way to get off the grid and kinda re-start our minds for the adventure ahead. Jenkinsburg featured over 200 partyers- a strange mix of locals, students, and others who defied description- but everyone was surprisingly well behaved- loud but not shooting guns or anything. Lots of jumpers off the bridge. But- really it was a pleasant experience. My old buddy Ralph Teter was there to pick us up- so everything was cool. My shoulder still hurt a bit- but no big deal...
We were on the road at 4:15 the next morning- all excited. Pittsburgh International Airport was quite accommodating and easy to deal with. We did a five hour hop to San Francisco and got ready for our long haul over the Pacific “in the box”
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Before:
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John and Sarah~ Undaunted and stuck on ready in San Francisco.
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Landing in Japan...
John’s thinking, “Jim said we would turn into pasty-faced people after ten hours...”
Sarah’s thinking, “How’s this going to be? How’s mom?”
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Steadfast and true- our dear friend Taiki Sugawara shows up on time to babysit us for the next week and a half. John gets elected navigator to get us through Tokyo to Hiro Enomoto’s home near Sagomi Ko (Hiro’s Lake).
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We arrive at Hiro’s house in the evening but get to meet his wonderful neighbors for a Japanese barbecue which featured pheasant, mutton, and fish and lots of yummy Japanese home cooking. I get to try out my Japanese- which leads to a lot of laughs as I try to describe my family. It turns out my Japanese was comparable to their English- so we pieced together the information a bit at a time- great fun! We stayed at Hiro’s beautiful house up on a hill and hooked up with Shiro-san- one of Japan’s coolest squirt boaters.
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Our Hiro on the right.
Shiro-san provides the adult supervision...
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We move on to “JB”- our first squirt destination, which is new to all ‘gaijin’ including me. It was recently discovered by Shiro-san and is a first class sinkery. We got sweet downtime in the cool clear water. John was even bringing souvenir rocks up form the bottom! Then we enjoyed a late lunch at a nearby restaurant. This place is also very close to a shrine, a brewery, and a kayak school- what more could you want?
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John walks across a bridge just above the JB arena. The guy in the river is filming for a Japanese NHK tv drama series.
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That night beside Hiro’s Lake we witnessed “fishprinting”, where lucky fishermen get to have evidence of their big catch- and the fish get to live another day. You start by inking up the floppy fish.
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Then- at the same time you keep the fish from flopping and press some clean paper on his inky side. Not as easy as it looks.
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The happy fisherman have proof to take home. The fish lives to swim another day.
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On the way to JB the next day we checked out this cool rustic furniture place.
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Shiro shows us how to ring the lunch bell at the nearby shrine.
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A tantalizing peek at the JB arena- the distant eddy. It’s really a lefty regular or backcut- but you can’t see that from here. Subarashii- yes?
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The local kayak school has enough boats- but the owner- an expert woman kayaker bought an extra squirt boat from Sarah!
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This frog light lives at the nearby kayak school. Let’s go boating! Next we drove to “Borubas- the site of this year’s “Squirtogether”.
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To get to Borubas- we had to drive around serene Fuji-san. Wow! A rare look at her without clouds obscuring the top.
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Borubas was low... Will it work to sink our heads??
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I sink so. It’s tricky and only about 6’ deep- but it WILL work. 200 cfs maaaybe...
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The Mighty Taikster made us awesome miso soup for Saturday morning - loaded with mushrooms and potatoes. John says, “Hmm... Cho oishii desu!”
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The Zombies were riding the “Broken Bus” hard and heavy all day Saturday. Lots of the Nihon-jin have picked up their game and are fetching serious downtime. The guy with the wood Jeff-san helmet is Taiki. photo by Rolly-san
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My shoulder got worse with all the play- but that didn’t stop me much. I started dosing ibuprofin pretty hard.
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The party that night started with celebrating the accomplishments of the Japanese squirt team- Yoshiko, Toru, and Mo-chan. We are all so proud of them- Toru took a silver medal! photo by Rolly-san
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OK- so after a while the auction and party got a little out of hand (maybe it was the whiskey- or saki- or beer...) and we started tossing people around to celebrate their purchases. Everyone does that- right? What a hoot! Once again I fell asleep to the sound of my Japanese friends laughing- delightful!
photo by Rolly-san
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Then, in a blink- it was over all too soon.
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We drive off to visit my old friends the Ono-sans- wondering how long it will be before we can return. A whole year??
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Sarah meets Satomi-san- possibly the best cook in all of Japan!
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Then we head off to the Naruto Straits- home of some of the biggest baddest whirlpools on the planet. Next year... yeah- I’ll ride those next year...- really!
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The blob in the center of this picture is a jellyfish about 2’ wide and 5-6’ long- seen from hundreds of feet up. There are sharks here too. Next year I’ll wear a tough shirt.
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That night- we camped at this nearby beach and got to see such a peaceful side of Japan. Just sleepy fishing boats, soft waves, flying fish and Tambi( kites- a large hawk-like bird). We told funny stories that night over some beers and laughed till we rolled on the floor.
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The next day we visited Horyu-ji- with some of the oldest wood buildings in the world! It was really impressive with it’s ancient buildings built from the virgin trees of Japan 1,500 years ago.
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The old builders had great respect for whirlpools too.
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Then we head back to Nagoya to sight see and shop in the underground city with Satomi-san. We also visited the Tokugawa Museum and Oasis 21.
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Then- way too soon- we jump back into Taiki’s car and travel back through Tokyo- where they LOVE their buildings. And we go on to Narita airport to say our good byes to Taiki and make our long way home. How could it all happen so fast? We so want to go back. Next year- it’s going to be a big event. Stay tuned for that!
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