Row, Row, Row your boat
So on Saturday, Adam and I went on a water-rafting trip through the USO. It was so much fun! OK so at first I thought I was going to die, but it got better as we went along. Here's a fun pic of us in our gear:
On our tour there were about 30 people or so with one English-speaking guide. When we got to the rafting place we had to divide into two boats - Adam and I ended up in the boat that didn't have the English guide. One girl in our boat did speak Korean but she was pretty slow in translating it to English. So to say I was a little concerned when we started off would be an understatement! Especially since I'd never been rafting like this before. While on the bus, our tour guide had gone over some key Korean words that we should know: left, right, stop, go, that kind of thing. But the problem is he said them all slow and let's face it, in real life, people don't talk that way! So of course it was near impossible to understand our river guide once we were in the boat.
So the trip starts off with us all trying ot paddle together. OMG, it was hilarious. You would have thought that no one had tried to paddle a boat before! lol. It's not that hard, after the guide says row, you row! Eventually our guide decided we were ready for the river (or more likely figured it was as good as it gets) and we headed toward the first rapids.
OMG, this first rapid was huge! People were flying all over the boat like crazy. I seriously thought I was going to die. And of course it didn't help that we'd started into it sideways, since we weren't capable of paddling all together. Plus to top it off, I ended up being at the very back of the boat which is slightly higher than the rest of it so I was bouncing around like crazy!
Luckily we all survived the first rapid and it went to large calm area where all these boats were gathered to do "teambuilding" exercises. I personally think that the reason we had to go through the crazy rapid first was to scare us all to the point that we'd appreciate the fact that the river is dangerous and would then pay attention to the teambuilding. Basically the exercises involved us rocking the boats like crazy and standing up and balancing on the edge of the raft. We were all also required to get into the water and swim around, probably to check everyone's life vests. I think this might have been my favorite part of the whole trip simply because we got to swim around - it's been so long since I've gotten to swim, I miss it!
I must say that the exercises did make me feel more comfortable with the boat since we'd been able to see just how much it could rock around with out tipping over. Always a good thing to know! The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, just beautiful scenery, lots of splashing between boats, and the occasional rapid along the way. There was definitely more calm parts than rapids but that's to be expected since we're not exactly looking for a Class 5 trip, LOL. Adam didn't like this though since you had to row all through the calm parts.
My favorite moment though was when the boat carrying the other half of our group got stuck in one of the rapids! I'm sure they didn't find it has funny as I did but the whole scene was just hilarious to watch. Basically instead of going down the side of the rapid where there was a nice flow of water they ended up going straight ahead and got stuck on two rocks. Their guide kept making them move all to one side of the boat while he furiously tried to rock the poor raft back into the water. They were probably stuck there for 10 minutes at least! Luckily, they managed to get it going again and everyone was fine, but it was amusing to watch from afar!
And if you made it this far, here are a few more pics from the trip!
The river
Adam and some other members of our group during our break. The guy on the right in the black is one of the river guides. We were a little concerned when we first arrived and they all had on wetsuits, but the water was actually a perfect temperature.
Our trusty steed aka the raft
Adam testing out his helmet
The lovely Korean countryside. The rafting site was about 2.5 hours outside of Seoul, so we saw a lot of this on the way. I had wanted to take more pictures but the battery was exhausted, poor battery! hehe
That's all for now!
On our tour there were about 30 people or so with one English-speaking guide. When we got to the rafting place we had to divide into two boats - Adam and I ended up in the boat that didn't have the English guide. One girl in our boat did speak Korean but she was pretty slow in translating it to English. So to say I was a little concerned when we started off would be an understatement! Especially since I'd never been rafting like this before. While on the bus, our tour guide had gone over some key Korean words that we should know: left, right, stop, go, that kind of thing. But the problem is he said them all slow and let's face it, in real life, people don't talk that way! So of course it was near impossible to understand our river guide once we were in the boat.
So the trip starts off with us all trying ot paddle together. OMG, it was hilarious. You would have thought that no one had tried to paddle a boat before! lol. It's not that hard, after the guide says row, you row! Eventually our guide decided we were ready for the river (or more likely figured it was as good as it gets) and we headed toward the first rapids.
OMG, this first rapid was huge! People were flying all over the boat like crazy. I seriously thought I was going to die. And of course it didn't help that we'd started into it sideways, since we weren't capable of paddling all together. Plus to top it off, I ended up being at the very back of the boat which is slightly higher than the rest of it so I was bouncing around like crazy!
Luckily we all survived the first rapid and it went to large calm area where all these boats were gathered to do "teambuilding" exercises. I personally think that the reason we had to go through the crazy rapid first was to scare us all to the point that we'd appreciate the fact that the river is dangerous and would then pay attention to the teambuilding. Basically the exercises involved us rocking the boats like crazy and standing up and balancing on the edge of the raft. We were all also required to get into the water and swim around, probably to check everyone's life vests. I think this might have been my favorite part of the whole trip simply because we got to swim around - it's been so long since I've gotten to swim, I miss it!
I must say that the exercises did make me feel more comfortable with the boat since we'd been able to see just how much it could rock around with out tipping over. Always a good thing to know! The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, just beautiful scenery, lots of splashing between boats, and the occasional rapid along the way. There was definitely more calm parts than rapids but that's to be expected since we're not exactly looking for a Class 5 trip, LOL. Adam didn't like this though since you had to row all through the calm parts.
My favorite moment though was when the boat carrying the other half of our group got stuck in one of the rapids! I'm sure they didn't find it has funny as I did but the whole scene was just hilarious to watch. Basically instead of going down the side of the rapid where there was a nice flow of water they ended up going straight ahead and got stuck on two rocks. Their guide kept making them move all to one side of the boat while he furiously tried to rock the poor raft back into the water. They were probably stuck there for 10 minutes at least! Luckily, they managed to get it going again and everyone was fine, but it was amusing to watch from afar!
And if you made it this far, here are a few more pics from the trip!
The river
Adam and some other members of our group during our break. The guy on the right in the black is one of the river guides. We were a little concerned when we first arrived and they all had on wetsuits, but the water was actually a perfect temperature.
Our trusty steed aka the raft
Adam testing out his helmet
The lovely Korean countryside. The rafting site was about 2.5 hours outside of Seoul, so we saw a lot of this on the way. I had wanted to take more pictures but the battery was exhausted, poor battery! hehe
That's all for now!
posted by Lynnette at 11:54 AM
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