Continuing on about Nawang and Rigo's Excellent Adventures in Japan...  another highlight of our action packed 2-weeks together included a rafting trip with the Happy Raft company down the clear waters and challenging rapids of the Yoshinogawa River.  The Yoshinogawa is the second longest river on Shikoku Island, it's 194 km long and spans across all four prefectures on the Island.  It is regarded as one of the three greatest rivers of Japan along with the Tone and the Chikugo, and is nicknamed Shikoku Saburō (Saburō is a popular name given to third sons in Japan).  After the last night of the Awa Odori Festival, we set off at 11 A.M. Sunday morning to the small town of  Iwahara, Ootoyo-cho located in the middle of Shikoku Island.  Happy Raft has many adventure options including, One-Day rafting, Canyoning and combinations of the two, but due our time constraints we chose the Half-Day Oboke course.  Oboke is the name given to the rafting canyon, which means in short, big danger.  Ironically, Oboke just happens to be the middle name of Bani, an Australian friend of David my co-worker who decided to join us on our journey.  With a video camcorder in-hand, Bani, a.k.a. "Big Danger" documented our experiences, including some of his own dangerous highlights.  Words are hard to epress how much fun rafting was, and although I admit I am not much of an extreme sports person, this was a lot of fun and I definitely plan to take a crack at the One-Day course in the future!  Thanks to Bani, I don't have to write too much more about the experience, because he made a YouTube video of it!  Just a small disclaimer, when Bani asks me, "Can you tell us about this shirt of yours?" I thought he said, "... about this trip of yours?"...  That wild outback Australian accent will get you every time...  :)

 

Note: For more information about Happy Raft, see their website at www.happyraft.com  

 

       

This 2009 Awa Odori was one of the best in my many years in Japan, because my good friend Nawang and his friend Rigo came to Japan to take part in the festival!  During their 2-weeks in Japan I experienced many new things myself, so I plan to write a few blogs detailing some of the many highlights of our time together.  After spending a couple nights in Osaka, Nawang, Rigo and I headed back to Tokushima where I introduced them to the largest 4-night summer dance party in the world, known as the Awa Odori Festival.  As I have in the past, we danced the first night of the festival with the Tokushima International Association (T.I.A.), a fun international dance group.  Unlike many professional groups that practice months prior to the festival, T.I.A. is called a niwaka-ren, meaning a group that just goes out and wings-it.  After a reception party with food and dollar beers, we practiced and took their new, and in my case polished dance skills to the big stage!  The second night of the festival, I arranged tickets to watch the show from the stands to get a different perspective as spectators of the dancing.  The third night of the festival we danced with the Asahi Beer group.  Unlike with T.I.A., where foreigners are given a lot of rope to be funny and are expected to act like "dancing fools" for the amusement of the crowds - Asahi Beer is a proud group, comprised of almost all Japanese members, including the celebrity Asahi campaign model, Koboyashi Yumi.  Being introduced to the group for the first time by my student Toru, the pressure was on all of us to dance to the best of our abilities.  With T.I.A., we wore the traditional "happi" coat and headband, however, with the Asahi Beer group we were required to wear the white shorts, plus the "tabi" socks as well.  In full traditional Awa Odori gear, we danced into the night with as much grace as 3-guys filled with Asahi Beer, wearing tight shorts and uncomfortable rock magnet socks could have mustered...  All kidding aside, a BIG THANK-YOU to Toru, his wife and sister for the wonderful experience!

 

  

Continuing about my recent trip home...  After my stop in South Korea, it was onto Seattle to catch-up with friends and family!  This 2-week trip home was great and the weather was beautiful, as it always is in June and July!  A nice two month break from Seattle's annual year long rain festival...    There were many highlights on this trip and I'll share a few...  The first weekend, I went to my first ever professional soccer game, a Major League Soccer (M.L.S.) match-up between the Seattle Sounders and the Colorado Rapids!  Although I've never been a big soccer fan, living outside the United States I've come to realize first-hand that American basketball, baseball and football are hardly worldwide popular, and most often takes a back seat to soccer around the world.  With this new appreciation and liking of the sport, I watched Seattle's finest score 3 goals to defeat Colorado in the rowdy section with my season ticket holding friends.  As I always do when I return home, I like to have a day with my niece (7 years old), and this year we included my nephew (2 years old) and my friend's child (2 years old) for the first time.  The day was action packed and included a visit to the Seattle Children's Museum, rides at the Seattle Center Fun Forrest, and a trip to Toys R' Us!  Great times and great pictures!  Another highlight was a ghetto Vegas night party with my friends at a hotel near the old Tulalip Casino!  Tulalip, Washington has two casinos, an old one and an extravagant newer one.  Sure, going to the new Tulalip Casino is where some people think is where it's at...  but some things are not necessary, like all that "Pirates Of The Caribbean" horseshit, or "Rock and Roll Grunge Tip".   Guys like us gotta kick it old school."  If you didn't catch that, it was a quote from Swingers.  After a game of Texas Hold "Em, we headed to the casino, played some Black Jack with the Tulalip locals, and everyone in our group got comped a meal!  Props to Tenpa for convincing the Pitt Boss we deserved it!  Final highlights include, celebrating the 4th of July at Seattle's International Beer Festival and spending time with everyone at a barbeque hosted by my older sister and her family! 

 

Note:  For a look at all my pictures from my trip home, see my Seattle 2009 album!