Nogami is a small town in Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo. It takes around 1 hour 40 minutes from Omiya Station to reach this place via Kumagaya.
Came to know about this place via this link and some of my colleagues also told me about this place in Nagatoro region. This link has got all details about pricing, how to reach there and similar.
They asked us to bring with us:
1. Swim suits to wear inside the Wet Suit.
2. Towel
3. Flip Flops (rubber sleepers) to be used while Rafting.
They offer rafting session in morning half and afternoon halves. We opted for a afternoon one to avoid the hush-rush in the morning. So we woke up and started with filling Parathas and Cups of Tea which will keep us going for the day till dinner. We reached Nogami at 1:00 pm where we found our way to the Mont Bell Outdoor Challenge Club were we confirmed our reservations which we were lucky to get one day before the event. We were asked to wait for few minutes. After some time our main event trainer and guide instructed about how to get ready for the rafting. We didn't buy Flip Flops from where we started hence had to buy a pair of them for each one of us. It took 10 min to get ready and then we boarded the bus which would take us to the starting point of rafting.
We were greeted by our guide once again in the bus and he started giving us info about the place, event and river (Arakawa) we were going to start our rafting from which was pretty good i must say. He also shared that he went to India for their "HoneyMoon" and visited Darjelling, Delhi, Kolkota and Nepal during that visit. It took around 10 min to reach at the starting point.
We quickly reached at the banks of the river and seeing the boat and oars we were bit excited. Then our trainer gave us some very good information about this sport where he instructed us about simple tips and tricks about rafting, about the river flow, about rescuing each other among other things. At the end of the instructions we understood how to take our raft ahead, backwards, what to do when the waters are rough or when we are about to collide to a big stone, how to pull your companions in the boat if they fall in the water, how to swim in such shallow waters etc. We didn't take our cameras but our trainer took a quick group snaps before we begun (which we had to buy latter with 300 Yens each :) but was worth). Next time need to have some waterproof camera which is allowed in rafting.
So we started with taking the boat into the waters. When we started we started pretty slow but gradually our excitement got increased with intermittent "Boat Water Fights" with another group on a different boat with the help of our oars/paddles. The flow was not that strong but there were 3-4 places where we got to feel the excitement. We were also allowed to swim in between which we really enjoyed. Then there was something where we stood on the corners of the boat, hold our hands together with back facing the waters. We (all four of us) stood and were said to bloom like a flower leaning our back towards the water and ultimately leaving the hands and a big splash with our backs on the water surface and water gushing into ears and nose. Then we got back in the boats helping each other out and again start paddling the raft. Then the last excitement was that where trainer told to all of that get your legs touching the water sitting on the sides of the boat and relax. When we were relaxing he took us to our surprise and pushed us in the water again adding to the "water masti". Then as promised he took our water splashing group snap taking us at the end of our rafting event of the day.
Some of the pics:
The Route we took was as follows :
After the water sport we got very hungry. After a quick change, buying our snaps from Mont Bell store and quick photographs here and there we started searching a good restaurant.
We were suggested to take our dinner at a restaurant 2 stations away from Nogami which we thought might be a Japanese restaurant. But when we reached that station we found a restaurant inside a very old Warehouse named "Kintaro".
It turned out to be a pretty good Italian food place. A must go for all travelers. The best was the soft Pizza whose base was also prepared after the order. There was one more thing which was a bowl of cheese fried with all purpose flour around it and served attached with a longer toothpick kind of thing. It was yummy too. The restaurant had a Halloween theme. Overall it was a complete fun in that one day trip.
