row row row your boat...

okay, i know, not really the most original title, but i can't think of anything else other than "rafting." which, i guess, would be direct and succinct. but boring. anyway, i'm bored, so here's a recap of the weekend.

on friday, we all (me, deb, david, steven, mike, ha) met up at jacq's house as the l.a. people (chi, jacq, bobby) were home for rafting. we presented jacq with her bday gift which consisted of a tote, a towel, and a bikini (notice a theme?). we then made jacq try on the bikini which got a big thumbs up from bobby. ;D personally, i think it makes her butt look good. but that's what boy shorts do. anyway, then we went off to karaoke. had tons o' fun as usual. i sang a lot. more than usual. i don't know why. excess energy, i suppose. afterwards, we went to the next plaza over for some korean food for dinner. food was okay, but the company and conversation were the best. reminded me of old times in high school when all the girls would congregate and have silly, stupid conversations and laugh our heads off at things that really aren't that funny but for some strange reason we find uber hilarious. i can't even remember what was so funny. just that i liked laughing a lot. anyway, after dinner, we all headed back home to get to bed early (or at least try to).

on saturday, we all (me, deb, san, chi, jacq, bobby, david, mike, steven, kuan, paggy, l.a. mike) met up at deb's house at the oh-so-pleasant time of 530 am. i think we left around 6 and made it to camp lotus around 8. it only took us two hours to get there even though we gave ourselves three. waited around for an hour for the rafting people to meet up with us. got our wetsuits and had a jolly good laugh at how stupid everyone looked. actually, jacq, bobby, paggy, and the other mike all had the exact same wetsuit so they all looked like an impressive rafting team while everyone else just looked weird. i will definitely post up pictures after this entry.

so after getting into our wetsuits, we boarded a school bus and took a long drive to the river. i dozed off a bit on the ride there. was also mildly annoyed at the group of asian fobs sitting in front of us where a couple of the boys had their hair gelled and (as deb later pointed out to me) some of the girls were wearing makeup. also, almost all of them were wearing flip flops and they were speaking to each other in cantonese even though it was quite obvious that they knew how to speak english (quite well too). so. annoying. more about them later.

so, yay, we finally make it to the river, go over some basic safety rules (what to do when you fall out - heh. more about that later), etc etc and finally board the damn rafts. deb, david, san, kuan, chi, and steven are in one boat while me, mike, jacq, bobby, paggy, and the other mike are in another boat. unfortunately, the guides assume that because we're all asian, the fob group must also be part of our group. so they were with us THE ENTIRE TIME. EVEN DURING LUNCH. ohmygod. so. annoying. especially since they clearly sucked at rafting (really, how hard is it to row at the same time as the person in front of you?) and the girls screamed a lot. i was slightly offended at the assumption that just because we're all asian, we must all know each other, but at the same time, i know the guides didn't mean anything bad by it and were just trying to be nice and had good intentions. i think i was just more annoyed and offended by how stupid the fob group was. plus, i was a bit embarrassed by how they were acting. both of our boats pointed out to our guides that they weren't with us. it's really a shame that none of them fell out and lost all their flip flops and had gel and makeup running down their faces. i would've pointed and laughed. okay, maybe silently in my head, but still.

anyway, rafting was awesome. our boat was awesome. (i know, i know, i need a new word other than awesome.) our guide, zach, said that we were the best group he's had all season. i know, i know, he could just be saying that to be nice, but he sounded really genuinely impressed and, well, we really were pretty awesome (okay, you guys can stop rolling your eyes at me now). i, of course, would be the weak link, but still. i think i held my own well enough with the group. zach was a great guide too. very chill and relaxed. and had funny stories to tell us about a crazy toothless woman who chased him in a bar and threw her purse at him. for some reason, this reminds me of jen. hahaha, sorry jen, i don't know why i thought that all of a sudden. you are neither crazy nor toothless, jen (although, who knows what japan has done to you lately. kidding!). anyway, the only problem we had was the other mike paddling so hard on one of the rapids that he paddled himself straight out of the raft. he was sitting right in front of me so i saw him slip out of the raft in slow motion. the guide had to swing him around the other side so that he wouldn't get smooshed between us and a huge rock. ouch. bobby, jacq, and paggy eventually hauled him back up. this, as opposed to...

...the other boat that lost half their occupants. deb, david, and steven all got launched out of their raft on the troublemaker rapid. i'll let deb, chi, and whoever else tell this story. all i remember is that our raft passed theirs, and then zach said, "hey some of your friends fell out" and i turned around and saw a little yellow deb floating down the river away from her raft. the fob raft picked her up (eew) and all was well. they lost all three paddles as well. but our raft - being so very awesome - picked up two of them.

after the whole trip, we went to hotshots - a company that takes pictures of rafters going through the rapids - to take a look at those pictures and their raft has some really funny and crazy pictures of them going through troublemaker. you've gotta see it to see how insane it was. and it's cool because you can clearly see how david, steven, and deb fell out of the raft and how kuan (the hero!) held back chi and san so they wouldn't fall in. plus, kuan also pulled david and steven back in (steven with the help of david, but still). i think the funniest part (although, i'm sure, not that funny at the time) is seeing deb with her pink visor in one shot and then seeing her float away in the next shot. plus, the pictures of david and steven falling out with their legs straight up in the air are pretty good as well. as for our boat, the pictures came out nicely. we all looked like hardcore rafters, all in sync with one another. funny pictures include the vicious, angry look on bobby's face as he paddles and paggy posing in not one, not two, but three photos. she looks straight at the camera and smiles. it's so cute. anyway, we wound up getting the picture cds of both boats and i'm sure they will go up online once we get them.

the drive home was excruciatingly tiring and kuan had to take over driving for mike. got back home around 5, i think, and just lounged at deb's house. had takeout from the hawaiian bbq place at pacific common (ohana's, i think) for dinner. well, everyone else did, i had jack in the box because i was craving fast food. i wasn't very sore (i rowed with my body instead of just my arms) but i was pretty damn exhausted. slept quite well that night even though i had a really bad nightmare about aliens taking over the world (very war of the worlds). it's a recurring nightmare that i haven't had in a while. yuck.

so anyway, that was our little rafting trip. i enjoyed it immensely. and it makes me want to go camping now. who knew that i'd actually WANT to go camping? what's happening to me?! okay okay, blog over. pictures now.