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Well! Mountain biking was a blast!

I was met at the train station by someone from Uncle Bear, the adventure tour operator who runs the mountain biking, rafting and kayakking parts of this trip. He was an adorable and charming Tokyo-born mountain biker who piled me and my stuff into the van and zipped me down to Uncle Bear's office, where I signed a liability waiver that indemnified them of all responsibility for whatever stupid shit I might do to myself. At the office I met up with Louise, Jon and David: two Brits and an Aussie who were joining me on the tour. They're a charming and funny gang who all worked together at an international law firm that had moved them to Tokyo for a few years. Louise had me cracking up within minutes when she told me about losing a shoe and a blender on the Tokyo subway, following that story rapidly with how she wore grossly mismatched shoes to work.

The mountain biking gang

Now, everybody knows that I am a big fan of cycling. Though I do have a mountain bike, I've never done real, live, actual mountain biking: my idea of extreme sports is to ride through Toronto's financial district at rush hour, which is every bit as challenging (though significantly less vertical) as downhill. These bikes had no gears and giant knobbly, under-inflated tires specifically designed to let you zip down trails. Our guide explained--in Japanese, mind you--all of the things we were and were not supposed to do while mountain biking. Luckily, his body language was deliberately expressive, and I managed to get most of what he was saying. From what I understand, the idea is to stay upright, to use the brakes, and to not eat the bike.

I figured out quickly that the front and rear brakes were reversed on these bikes--the one I'm used to having on the right was on the left, and vice versa--which is an important bit of information to have when you're zipping down a 35 degree incline and trying to avoid going ass over head. Some other parts of the lecture were translated for me by Louise and Jon, but really, most of it was intuitive if you have any cycling experience...and common sense. I put my bionic woman knee brace on, snapped my helmet into place, pulled on my gloves, and was ready to go.

The gang climbed onto our bikes and started downhill. Every once in a while we would stop and learn a new skill: riding down steep inclines, riding UP steep inclines, turning, even riding down stairs. I have to say, it's pretty freaking cool. We got to use our newly acquired techniques several times, careening down trails that were obviously created by other mountain bikers. The whole experience probably lasted two hours and I am desperate for more. I'm even considering skipping kayakking and trying to schedule mountain biking instead.

My tatami room at La Neige

"First, get naked", she said.

I paused. "It's not at all awkward to get completely naked in front of total strangers."

She laughed and told me about what the baths were like in Korea, where they blow snot on the floor and scrub you with a brush. Okay, I have to agree, the Japanese approach is much better.

"Just wait until you try a real onsen", she said. "Everybody will stare at you because you're white."

Great. I need more strangers staring critically at my naked body.

Anyway, the process is that you have to bathe before you, well, bathe. After you disrobe, you step into the area that offers this pre-bathing. You grab a stool and a pan and scrub yourself for a good ten minutes with soap and water. La Neige has hand-held shower nozzles that you can use, but from what I understand the more traditional baths expect you to fill a pan with water and dump it over you to rinse. I tried that, too. We sat there, scrubbing and talking, for a good ten minutes. (Apparently, the longer you scrub, the better.) Then we stepped into the onsen, which is FUCKING HOT by gaijin standards. The Japanese style expects you to blend the indoors and the outdoors, so we slid open the window right above the bath. It gave us a view of La Neige's back yard, a lawn with a fish pool that made for a lovely background to the bathing experience. I'm not sure how long we sat there, but it was long enough for me to get totally itchy because the water is so hot. We talked about a variety of things, including the iBook, which Louise had considered buying. Eventually we dried off and left the onsen, heading back to our rooms to prepare for dinner. I spent a good ten minutes applying lotion and scratching. Jesus, that bath was hot.

Dinner was at 6:30, so we all met up in the dining room and were served the most amazing French-inspired multi-course meal. I discovered that, based on our conversation, Louise had actually ordered an iBook before dinner. She puts Brad to shame.

I learned a lot about where the three of them had come from and what they were doing in Japan. We drank beer and ate entirely too much food, but it was impossible not to because it was so tasty. At around 8pm we adjourned and, still jetlagged, I went immediately to sleep.

I slept for a luxurious ten hours on my futon pile in my tatami room, waking at 6:30am to enjoy another trip to the onsen. La Neige's chef outdid herself with breakfast at 7:45, and we were picked up by the Canyons guide at 8:30 and taken to their "office", which was really more an outdoor complex filled with tattooed, swearing Aussies, Japanese and Kiwis wearing "Hippies Smell" t-shirts and crazy hairdos. If you're going to be jumping off of cliffs, these are exactly the kinds of people you want guiding you. We signed injury waivers and picked out our gear, and then piled into two different vans for the 90 minute drive across the mountains to our canyoning spot.

Now, canyoning is a fairly new adventure sport. Basically, you find a canyon and follow the river down through the length of it. Sometimes you just float downriver. Other times you jump or rappel off of waterfalls, or scramble over rocks along the canyon. It's the most extreme thing I've ever done, and I hoped it would be the most fun.

The weather here is odd. Apparently the weather systems come out of Siberia and across the tumultuous Sea of Japan that separates Russia/China from Japan. The western part of the country gets ass-hammered with snow and rain, while Tokyo and parts east of the mountain are totally sheltered. It's true, too: you can see the line of clouds just hanging west over the mountain range. We drove along a highway for a good hour, going through some tunnels that were as much as 10km long, and when we emerged on the other side of the mountains the sky was overcast and there was a light drizzle.

We drove way up into the mountains, up single lane roads that obviously didn't see much traffic. After what seemed like forever, we stopped and got out of the vans. We stripped to our bathing suits and squeezed into our gear, which consisted of two wetsuits, a harness, a neoprene shirt, neoprene gloves and neoprene-lined boots, and a helmet. Bryan, our Kiwi guide, informed us that we had an hour approach to the start of the canyon, so we were better off to only put our wetsuits halfway on, stopping at the waist. What we ended up with was a giant bundle of neoprene that stopped halfway up our bodies. The guys were naked on top, and we were just in our bathing suits.

I clipped my helmet onto my harness and asked the people around me, "does this bunched-up wetsuit make my ass look fat?" That got a laugh.

We started our approach to a dam, following a trail that had been cut "back in the day", according to Bryan, by Korean workers who built the dam. It was more than a bit treacherous, and would have been a moderately challenging hike even without 30 lbs of wetsuit hanging off of us. Much of it was just like something you'd expect to see in an Indiana Jones movie, a trail that hugs the side of a mountain and has a sheer drop right off to the side. Only Aussies and Kiwis, with their total disregard for safety, would lead something like this. It was awesome.

When I booked the tour, the guide expressed concern about my physical fitness because of the difficulty of the hike. I was indignant, explaining to them that I was in pretty freaking good shape, and if anybody else could do it, I could, too. I decided at that point, several weeks ago, that I would make the approach no matter how difficult it was, even if it meant crawling on my hands and knees and drawing my last breath. Any time somebody says "I don't know if you can do this", that's when my hey-fuck-you response kicks in and my brain sets itself to the task.

I made a point of staying right at the front behind Bryan and David, pushing the hike along as fast as I could, just to show them that I could not only handle it, but that it was easy for me. Honestly, it wasn't THAT tough, but Bryan would occasionally say things to inspire confidence, like:

• "Don't look down."

• "Hey, a snake. See that snake? Oh, it's poisonous. Be careful." (And then he'd kick it off the trail.)

• "Watch your footing here. If you slip, you'll die."

At the end of the hike we saw the dam and climbed down a set of long, narrow enclosed steps. We suited up and stomped through the water, ending up on a ledge that overlooked a big pool of water.

"Jump", said Bryan.

So we did.

That first jump was a bit scary. I didn't exactly know what to do, so I plummeted four meters into the pool below and ended up with a nose full of water. I got to the surface, coughing my lungs out, while everybody applauded in their neoprene-gloved hands. Right at that point, I was hooked.

They showed us how to float downriver on our backs. We tried that a few times, scrambled over rocks, and did a couple more jumps. The more I did, the easier they became, and the more I began to enjoy myself. The cool thing about what we were doing was that it is the only possible way we could see the things we did. This canyon was one of the most stunningly beautiful landscapes I've ever seen: moss-coated rock faces rising straight up on either side, the view capped by mountains shrouded in mist.

Eventually we reached a nine to ten meter waterfall and Bryan set up to lower us down into the water below. I went third, tying my harness into his rope and going over the edge.

The first meter or two were fine. Just like in climbing, I sat back into the rope and walked down the wall.

Then I was hit in the face by the water. I wasn't expecting it, so I experienced a brief moment of "oh my god, I'm underwater and can't breathe" panic. This was enough to make me lose my composure, and somehow I managed to swing out from the rock face and back again.

"Pop" went my right knee, the one without an ACL.

SHIT.

Focused on the pain, I hung limply and was smashed into the rocks as Bryan continued to lower me. Being banged around didn't hurt because, well, I was wearing two wetsuits and a helmet. I reached the bottom of the pool and unclipped the rope from my carabiner, than swam with one leg to meet the other guide (I never learned his name; the Canyons people just called him "The Brazilian") and two of the other canyoners. I managed to climb up on the rock on which they were sitting, and explained to them what had happened. I didn't want to make a big deal about it because I didn't want anybody to think I couldn't handle it. When this happens, my knee pops right back in, and it wasn't as bad this time as it had been in the past. The main problem is that it becomes really unstable.

Please note that I managed to finish the whole thing, including two more jumps, one more rope-assisted descent down an 18 meter waterfall, and a 30 minute return hike along the same psycho trail, with a busted knee, driven purely by adrenaline and the unwillingness to say that I couldn't do it. I did manage to somehow injure my shoulder because it hurts this morning, but i don't know what I did or how I did it.

The Brazilian walked with me along the return hike. We chatted about Sao Paolo, about Japan and Spain and France and Canada. I was a bit slower than the rest of the crowd because, due to the instability of my knee, I needed to be very deliberate about where I put my feet. The rest of the group only managed to beat us to the vans by just a few minutes. I was pretty pleased with that.

After peeling ourselves out of our wetsuits, we noshed the sandwiches that the Canyons people had provided for us and started the long drive back. I fell asleep, face down, in the back seat for pretty much the whole duration of the trip. We arrived at the Canyons office around 5:30pm or so. As I got out of the van I could feel my knee stiffening up, and I made the decision right there to cancel my activities for the next two days--kayakking and white water rafting--and head to Kyoto Monday, a day earlier than I had planned.

I'll stop all of the whining now and tell you what an incredible experience the canyoning was. I joke about it, but our guides were fanatical about our welfare and did an excellent job of instructing us in how best to handle ourselves safely. They congratulated me on my successful completion of the trip, and the owner even personally came over to give me the "way to go, girl" speech. The scenery was gorgeous and the whole adventure was completely exhilarating. Even with the freak knee problem slowing me down, I will DEFINITELY do it again. I wish I could have taken pictures to show you.

David, Jon and Louise were headed back to Tokyo, so we said our goodbyes and one of the Canyons guys drove me back to La Neige, where dinner was waiting for me. Jesus, these people can cook. It's almost worth the three hour trip from Tokyo just to eat at this place. I mean, the whole La Neige experience is lovely. The place is beautiful, the woman who runs the place is a delight, but my God, the food is unbelievable. When I explained to her what had happened, she graciously agreed to cancel the kayakking and white water rafting for me and arrange for transport to the train station on Monday morning. At 7:30pm, I set up my futon and collapsed into a dead sleep.

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