Rafting, May 28th

Bryce got a wild hair to go rafting, thinking it would be good to go before the weather turned too nice. So on a cloudy, rainy Sunday morning, Marc, Bryce and I hopped on a bus with a vague idea of what we needed to do find a place to go rafting (raeputing). First we took a bus north to Yang Yang, and from there we got bus east to Inje, a smaller city in the mountains (but then, what isn't in the mountains?).

We sort of stood around at the Inje bus station wondering what we should do next. We asked about a bus up the river valley and were told there was one soon, and in the meantime, Marc exercised his obnoxiousness on the locals. I walked around the corner to wait in peace, and Bryce went to find some water.

When we both returned to Marc, we found that he had cornered a young couple, and what do you know, the girl's father was the senior managing director of one of the adventure companies in the area. They offered to take us by taxi to meet him at his bungee jump, but we politely refused, saying we'd rather wait for the bus. Just joking! We jumped at the chance to meet Mr. Chu who ended up offering to drive us personally up the river at 2:00. That gave us an hour to kill during which we grabbed some food at a great little place overlooking the river.

At 2:00 we found Mr. Chu at the bungee jump, and he drove us up to his rafting location. We got outfitted with life-jackets and helmets (they had to rip the padding out of the biggest helmet so it would fit on Bryce's head) and then paired up with a group of Koreans in order to fill a raft. Our guide led some paddling practice on dry land so we could get our rhythm down, and then we hit the water. The Koreans got a kick out of counting the 'one-two' paddle rhythm in English, just for us. I quickly learned the words for 'forward' and 'reverse' and every once in awhile, the guide would yell 'Rolling!' and we'd rock the raft back and forth as hard as we could. There wasn't alot of really 'white-water', but the guide made things fun, and the people we were with were great. Everyone got thrown in several times which was frigidly shocking. Unfortunately I was not able to take my camera on the river, but thanks to the adventure company, I have a nice shot of us on the river. More pictures are available here for the date 5/28.

At the final destination, we showered and met Mr. Chu and the other Koreans for snacks. Mr. Chu said he had a friend from Gangneung who would take us home for a fee about equal to the buses, and we agreed. It was also alot faster than the buses, as the guy drove insanely fast down the windy mountain roads. I couldn't sleep for the sharp cornering, but neither could I keep my eyes open for exhaustion which made for an interesting ride home. I ended the day with a pot of tea with Liz at a rooftop cafe.