Boy 1 & I were invited to go white water rafting this weekend with some friends. Boy 1 is on the end on the right side as you are looking at this photo. We were very excited to go, boy 1 had never been before and this was a great reason to get out and see more of Korea. We were on a USO tour; we headed north; yes, north, towards North Korea. This was our first time outside of Seoul. It was amazing, rice fields and ginseng fields were plentiful (see pictures). The bus ride was about 2 hours. When we finally got to our destination, we unloaded the bus where we had to dress up in this nice river attire, lifejacket and helmet. Asian’s take water sports very seriously. Everyone had to help carry the raft to the river, through the rocks and down a cliff. I’m starting to see why the helmets were required. We were rafting in an area that was created by a volcano. There was volcanic rock everywhere. Our tour guided called it their Grand Canyon – it was NOTHING compared to the Grand Canyon. The water on the river was VERY LOW. We got in our boats in the FREEZING cold water & set off, only to find ourselves dragging the raft out of the water 5 minutes later because we were stuck. Our guide took the raft a little further down the river while we hiked along the rocks, we got back in the raft to only find ourselves hiking on the rocks again a few minutes later. I think we hiked more of the trip than we did ride. It was great fun even though there was no white water rafting. The area was beautiful & we plan to do it again after monsoon season when the river is high.
