This past weekend I went to Minakami in Gunma prefecture with ten other Saitma ALTs, to go Canyoning. What was supposed to be a simple train ride up to Gunma ended up being quite an ordeal.
I met with two other JETs named Erin and Stella at Omiya station so that we could catch the 9:58 am train on the Takasaki Line. We were supposed to arrive at Takasaki station in Gunma just before 11:30, to catch the next train to Minakami, but before we eCanyCven reached Kumagaya station, the train stopped and didn’t move for over an hour. We’re not sure why the train was delayed, but the English version of the JR train line status website just kept saying that the delays were due to “car problems.” It also never updated how long the delays were going to be. There were a few times when the train moved slowly to the next train stop, but then it would stop for a long time again. During this time, we met up with four other ALTs who were also trying to get to Gunma via the Takasaki line, and there were seven of us together who had had to switch to a new train, and had to trek all the way to Takasaki and catch the next train to Minakami. There’s only one train from Takasaki to Minakami, and it only runs once every hour. Anyway, to give you an idea of how bad the delays were, Stella, Erin and I were trying to arrive at Minakami station by 12:38, and the seven of us together didn’t reach Minakami until after 3pm.
The four other ALTs in our group had reached Takasaki and Minakami on time, but since more than half of us were late for circumstances out of our control, they called the tour company, called CANYONS about what we could do, and they were kind enough to schedule our tour for the next day. We were originally supposed to start our canyoning tour at 1:30 pm. They were also willing to push back our tour a little bit, but they couldn’t push it back so far because they only do those tours during daylight hours. I was glad they were able to reschedule for the next day, since this past weekend was the only full weekend that I have free this month.
Canyons Lodge
Anyway, we finally arrived at Minakami, and gave the waiting ALTS big hugs, and the Canyons shuttle was waiting for us to take us to the lodge. At least we still got to stay the night and have our barbecue! Originally, every one of us was only supposed to pay 13,500 yen for the barbecue, lodging, and the canyoning tour, but the next day we were asked to pay another 200 yen per person. I’m not sure what the reason was, if there was a miscalculation originally, or if it was a rescheduling fee. Either way, I don’t know.
Since we arrived just in time to just check into our rooms and have our barbecue at 6 pm, we all decided to just walk around, and look at all of the beautiful fall colors in the mountains. Every time I go to Gunma, I’m always amazed by the amazing scenery.
Beautiful Fall foliage in Minakami
Group photo
We enjoyed a delicious barbecue just outside of the Canyons lodge. Two large pans of meat, vegetables, and yakisoba noodles were provided. They even included laminated sheets explaining how to make yakisoba in both Japanese and English. We had two grills going at the same time, one for the meat and vegetables, and one for the yakisoba. I helped man the yakisoba grill. The barbecue was delicious, and we all had a good time sharing jokes over dinner.
MMMmmm, barbecue!
After we ate all of our food and cleaned up the barbecue area, we went on another group walk in the dark. We stayed along the road, but we kept walking until we could get somewhere dark and far away from all of the house and street lights so that we could look at the stars. It was very beautiful, and it was the first time I had seen the Milky Way in months. Even though my town, Ina-machi is sometimes considered countryside, it still has a lot of light pollution. Minakami is one of the perfect places in Japan to explore nature and get a great view of the night sky.
When we returned to the lodge, we grabbed a few drinks from their bar in the lounge, and played a few rounds of “big booty,” before wandering back upstairs to our rooms, changing into our PJ’s and then crawling into Taylor’s room to play a few rounds of Uno, and trying to lift everyone up while playing light as a feather, stiff as a board. This was actually my first time playing that game, even though it’s a supposed to be a quintessential slumber party game all girls play growing up. I was lifted up too. I was just glad everyone had the sense to let me down instead of dropping me head first.
Even though we were all tempted to stay up later, we had the good sense to go to bed before midnight, since our tour was going to start at 9am the next day.
We grabbed breakfast at 8am, and then packed up our stuff and checked out of our rooms before our tour. Our Tour guide was a red-headed New Zealander named Mike, who was great at making “dad jokes.” He helped us find some wetsuits that were in our sizes, and then the guys and girls suited up in separate dressing rooms. He pulled the wetsuits over our own swim suits. You don’t have to wear a swim suit necessarily, just something you don’t mind getting wet, so long as it’s not cotton, since cotton wicks body heat away.
The wetsuit consists of socks, a kind of jumper, and a jacket to zip on over all of that. We also had to put on special shoes, gloves, a lifejacket, a harness, and a helmet after all of that. The wetsuits are hard to get on, since they really cling to your body. Poor Erin had to get two other girls to help her, and they actually stood up on benches and lifted her up trying to get her legs to go trough her wetsuit.
After we were all geared up, we piled into a van and were taken to Fox Canyon. We started in apart of a river that was somewhat shallow, and got used to the water temperature, and practiced techniques that we would need to use for canyoning. It was mostly floating on our backs and practicing steering with our hands, and knowing what to do when water got in our noses. I have to say, I got water in my nose many times, and it was very clean by the end of our tour.
The “before” photo at our starting point.
So to those of you who wondering What the heck is canyoning anyway? It’s basically swimming, climbing, and jumping your way down a river deep in a canyon. We were also dropped from a waterfall. This is where the harness comes in.
Mike strapped us in to a rope at the top of a 20 meter high waterfall. He would then lower us down one by one. After lowering us, he would let go of the rope and let us drop into the water below. We could also choose how high we wanted to be dropped from. I was the second person to drop down, right after Erin. Most people in our group asked to be dropped from a high point, but I asked to be dropped from a lower point. I was very nervous at first, just letting myself go down a waterfall, but once I felt the harness holding me up, I let myself wriggle down further, before giving Mike the go ahead to drop me.
Right before I went down the waterfall. I’m totally NOT scared at all.
We also came to a smaller waterfall called The Abyss. Even though it wasn’t as high, but it had more white water, and we had to be prepared to have our hands up when we reached the bottom so that we didn’t hit our heads on the rock wall when we resurfaced.
There was also a rebar ladder to the rocks just a few feet down from the base of The Abyss so that we could go down multiple times. First was a just sliding dow feet first, then sliding down head first. Sliding down head first was actually a lot less scarier than I thought it would be. I definitely did not get any water up my nose that time. The third time was just simply jumping from the large rock that jutted up next to the mouth of the waterfall. Mike gave a countdown for everyone, but I was the only person he had to give a countdown for three times. I kept hesitating because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to jump far enough away from the rocks I was standing on, but in the end, I was fine.
Just before jumping into the Abyss.
Near the end of the tour, there was one smaller section of the river where we slid down backwards, and even though Mike told everyone to cover their noses, this was where I had the most water go up my nose, but I still found it exhilarating to go down backwards, even though I was nervous at first.
At the very end, there was large rock overhang where everyone took turns jumping over and over again into six foot deep water.
I jumped maybe three or four times, and I finished by doing a front flip. There were a few people who were trying out different dives and flips, and even back flips.
After everyone was slowly wearing out from jumping repeatedly, we took one last group photo and climbed out of the water and into the van back to the lodge.
The end of our tour.
Our tour from the beginning when we first jumped into the water, until we piled back into the van took just over an hour and half, but I was quite hungry and tired when we got back to the lodge.
If it was hard putting the wetsuits on, it was harder taking them off. I needed Mike to help me pull off my socks, and Erin needed help again to get her wetsuit off as well.
After a quick shower and changing back into our clothes, we headed back up to the lounge, where we were treated to complimentary hot tea and soup, and could take a quick look at the official photos and videos taken by their camera crew.
Hanging out in the lounge post tour.
Overall, I have to say that I really enjoyed canyoning, and I’m glad I took this chance to hang out with this group of ALTs.
We also learned that Canyons has developed something called snow canyoning, which is similar to what we did that day, but in snow, and sliding down snow banks, and jumping from heights into nice powdery snow. We even saw some video of some the snow canyoning they did last year. As far as we know, they are the only place to offer this sport. I think I, and a few other people in our group, are already planning to come back this coming winter to take part in snow canyoning.
Canyons was actually really great. I’m glad they were able to accommodate our schedule change, and I love that they’re able to accommodate foreigners and Japanese people alike, and offer tours in English and Japanese. If you’re looking to do some outdoor adventuring in Japan, I would highly recommend checking our Canyons in Gunma. I know I’ll be going back before I finish my term here in Japan. You can check out their website right here.
Not long after we gathered our things up again, Mike drove us all back to downtown Minakami. Many of the ALTs got out of the van and immediately went to catch the train home, but Erin, Taylor, Joey, Stella and I decided to stay awhile linger and catch a late lunch that Mike recommended to us. I forgot the name of the restaurant, but their specialty is a baked curry with cheese on top. Mike recommended many restaurants to us, but once he talked about cheese and curry, I was sold.
Everyone ordered the baked cheese curry. We also had our choice if we wanted chicken, vegetable or sausage curry. I chose sausage curry. It was delicious. I’m glad I decided to stay for lunch.
Amazing sausage and cheese curry.
We also told the restaurant that we stayed with Canyons, and were treated with a free small bowl of vanilla ice cream for dessert. It was the perfect treat to offset the spiciness of the curry. Mike actually told us there were many places that gave discounts to people who stay at Canyons, including onset. A lot of would have liked to have gone to an onset after canyoning, but since it was Sunday and we had to make sure to get back to work the next day, we just didn’t have the time. It would’ve been nice to go if we were able to go on our tour as scheduled the day before. Oh well, things don’t always work out.
After lunch, we walked back to the train station, only to realize that the next train to Takasai wasn’t going to leave for another 50 minutes, we decided to do some omiyage or souvenir shopping. We bought our omiyage at a store that was literally right across the street from the train station. The store had a an orange cat for a mascot, and he sat on a leash in front of the store. It turns out that the cat’s name is Love, and apparently he’s been featured on two Japanese travel shows! So of course I had to get my picture taken with him.
Me and Love the cat!
When Stella was buying her omiyage, she started a short conversation with the store owner, and pretty soon all five of us were invited to tea at the back of the store! I was amazed by their hospitality. They gave us green tea, and some homemade sweets. I wish I had a small present from America on hand to give them in return.
Tea time at the back of the store.
Stella actually had a pack of cookies on hand to give back, but one of the store ladies refused, but the grandfather was sitting in the back took some. He then came over to sit at the table with us. We learned that he was the vice principal of the local high school in Minakami for many years, and then showed us a photo of his 70th year eighth grade class reunion. Honestly, Japan is the only country I can think of where classmates would get back together for a school reunion past 20 years, and only for High school and college, not even Middle school!
We had to cut our tea time just a little short so that we could catch the 3:58 train back to Takasaki. I bought myself a drink for the ride home, a little bit of umeshu, in a souvenir cup. However, most of us fell asleep not even ten minutes after pulling away from Minakami station. Luckily for us, the JR trains were not delayed again on Sunday, and it only took us an hour and a half to get back to Omiya station, instead of the excruciating four hours it took to get up there.
I’m glad I took this weekend to get back to Japanese nature. The entire area looked like the background of a Ghibli film. If I had more time to take, I would’ve stayed for hiking and for onsen. I definitely love visiting Gunma.
Jet Set Victoria 