Tokyo Traveler

How to Have a Forest Adventure Near Tokyo

This is Tarzania. An “outdoor adventure sport park ” located in Chiba prefecture. Yesterday i went here hoping i would be hundreds of meters up in the trees, constantly in danger of a morbid fall to the ground.

 A free bus to the park picked us up outside Honda station in Chiba, and 20 minutes later we arrived. I signed away my legal right to sue in the event they break my neck or crack my jiblets and payed the 3500 yen fee.

We then took a short relaxing walk to the outdoor challenge courses where we strapped on our harnesses and prepared to swing and tight rope walk between the young cedar trees supporting the course.

 My small group and several other people waited for a course instructor to teach us how to use the devices dangling from our harness. So our instructor walks up to us and asks me “nihongo daijobu desu ka?” ( is Japanese okay ‘white boy’?)   “daijobu,” i reply with slight smirk. “shusshin ha doko desu ka?” she again interrogates me, asking where the hell i come from. I tell her, but then I felt extremely insulted when she responded with “nihongo umai desu ne” (your Japanese is Excellent.) So she didn’t care where I came from? The question was only a laughable test of simple Japanese? 

So I of course replied “demo futakoto shika ittenai!” (But i only said 2 words! )  And it really embarrassed her because it exposed her feigned politeness and inability to effectively interact with other human beings.  That made me smile even more, this was going to be a fun day.

And so after defeating that first challenge of the day, the second was learning how to use the course and our magical harnesses. Each harness is equipped with a carabiner and a pulley, which the lady whom i earlier shamed into silence pronounced pooly. I laughed on the inside. I just find transliterations of English words into Japanese entertaining. I once heard a definition of the Japanese language as basically being English pronounced incorrectly. That’s obviously an over-exagerated attempt  at humor, and sometimes accurate transliterations of English words into japanese are difficult because English has more vowels. But I am confused as to why some English words are transliterated into Japanese without consideration for the most appropriate vowel sounds.

Anyway, I was jarred from my linguistic contemplations when I realized that rude lady was interrogating this small child in yellow on the proper method of some technique and made him cry.  Shame on you rude lady.  Perhaps she was just still in a bad mood by being beat down by my superior logic earlier.  

And then it was time for the test. Each of us needed to show we could handle the complex movements neccessary to hook and unhook our carabiners and poolies. She pointed at me to go first. “Dammit.”  But anyway, i guess i passed, to her regret.

I must admit, a lot of the activities here were a little too….. child friendly. I was hoping for something more challenging and terrifying. Though untimately i wasn’t completely dissapointed.

The pooly (pully) slides were in fact very fun, while feeling the nice breeze, and speeding down to a pit of cedar bark and dirt to stop my fall.

I think it would have been more fun if the pullies were at a slightly (even much) higher angle to make the descent reasonably faster, then i would have deemed this experience truly awesome.

Maybe i am just used to a very challenging course i once tried in USA. I felt the nervous sting in my chest just thinking of climbing up a tree, at least, oh i ‘d say really really high, much higher than anything tanzania had to offer,  to tight rope walk from one giant pine tree to another with no help except several short ropes above my head. I was looking for a feeling like that. But Tanzania has too much protective netting under the trees in case of falls, and on each activity, such as a tight rope between 2 trees, there will be 2 green cords on either side of you to ensure you never fall down. To make it more of a challenge for myself, i avoided using my hands as much as i could, but still, I never felt like i was in any danger. I just felt too protected and didn’t get as much of a psychological thrill as i was expecting and hoping for. I want to overcome a challenge I am initially fearful and nervous of. Maybe i need a good bungee jump or something like that. Can anyone recommend a good adrenaline pumping adventure like that  in or near Tokyo? 

There were however several spots on Tarzania’s courses that made my stomach drop. I had just been hoping for more of them.

This one was my favorite. You start standing in a treehouse like structure and then jump forward into the air, dropping into an exhilerating though brief free fall before swinging into a vertical net.

This one was impossible to cross without using the wussy green safety ropes.

Forest Adventure  also has ropes courses such as Tarzania  in Nara, Okinawa, Tochigi, Yamanashi near Mt. Fuji, and just last month one opened in Gunma Prefecture.

http://www.tarzania.jp/

Other Forest Adventure Locations