Well we finally made it rafting...

...and like most things in Korea, it was kinda lame. We all had a good time but it's not something I'd recommend doing nor would I ever do it again.

We had been out till 3:30 on Friday night eating Turkish food and drinking to celebrate Michelle's birthday. So when my alarm rang at 6 am, Sarah and I slept right through it. My coworkers knocked at 6:30 and we jumped out of bed to get ready. Adam opened the door to find me in my underwear groggily trying to wake myself up.

"You ready to go?" he asked.

Pause. "Umm. I'm gonna need a minute."

We threw some things in a bag and hopped on the subway to Busan Station, picking up friends along the way. There were 17 of us, Korean's and foreigners alike. We got on a bus and what we were told was a 90 minute ride turned into a three hour ride due to traffic. This was made worse by the hangover and the old Korean woman who would yell "NO" and hit my seat everytime I tried to recline it.

After a few stops and a break for lunch (Why did you put corn on my hotdog? Why?) we arrived at the river, ready to raft. But is it really a river if you can safely walk across it? At it's deepest points it was maybe 10 feet deep and no portions of the entire stretch could be described as rapid. It was beautiful though if you could look past the parts where the river that wound under a huge concrete overpass... We sat through a safety demonstration where we learned how to put on a lifevest and a helmet both of which were unnecessary considering the river we were about to conquer. We broke off into two teams and carried our raft down to the water. Which turned out to be lukewarm due to the heatwave we've been experiencing. We were given an explanation of how to paddle which was translated by one of my coworkers and we set off down the river.

Again, at no point during the 90 minute ride did we encounter any actual rapids or feel in the least bit frightened. It was rather peaceful, floating along trying to splash other rafters (there were probably 2o rafts on the river at a time). But peaceful was not what we were expecting. Apparently it was much better the year before, the level of the river being so much higher. We had a good time, laughing and enjoying the sun but 6 hours on a bus for two hours at the river was hardly worth it. Oh well.