Kayaking Tokyo
This past spring, I got the opportunity to travel to Japan to run the Tokyo Marathon. While I was there, I took the opportunity to kayak! I found a kayak guide via AirBNB experiences. He had a couple of different tours, and I opted to sign up for the tower at night trip. We would paddle 5 miles on 2 rivers: the Kyu-Nakagawa and the Kitajukken. This route would take us up to Tokyo Skytree, a telecommunications tower, which is one of two tall towers in the city.
The section we paddled on was a collection of smaller urban rivers. The Kitajukken is a man made river. We didn’t see any other boat traffic. There was one construction boat working on a bridge, and that was it. We launched around 5pm, the sun set around 7, and then we wrapped around 8pm. It was spring in Tokyo, just a few weeks shy of full blown cherry blossom season. But we did get to see some of them!
My guide was a local named Takashi, who had been leading kayaking trips for decades. While there was a high chance of rain, he had all the gear needed to stay warm and dry. The trip wound up just being the two of us, an as experienced kayakers, we got to travel further than usual. He set us up in 14′ fiberglass boats.
English is essentially the second language of Tokyo, and we were able to converse quite a bit. He shared a bit about the seawalls protecting the rivers, past floods, and the local weather and wildlife. When we saw a blue Heron, he paused and exclaimed that it was a rare bird. I was then able to impress him by telling him that they were all over my local Chicagoland.
It was a simple out and back paddle. Outside of the park of cherry blossoms, there wasn’t much nature. It was a different paddle than I was used to, but unlike downtown Chicago river, it was very quiet and calm. When we reached Skytree, the top half was obscured by fog. We then paddled back in the dark (but Takashi was prepared with boat lights).
Being able to paddle in now 3 continents has been a special experience. I’m very fortunate that I’ve gotten to experience other cultures. Kayaking is truly an international sport!