'No boat, no life'

Spent a fun day with the Hosei University Rowing Club. It's certainly a far cry from rowing in Cambridge - the 22 (male and female) members of the squad all live in the boathouse (3 or 4 to a dorm-style room) and seem to be attended to by a bunch of other students, who cook them their meals etc... This is because the main campus is about 45 minutes away on the train, and it's the only way they can fit in the training.

The rowing itself was quite interesting - as you'd probably expect from Japanese people, they weren't very tall, but they clearly knew what they were doing! Instead of rowing on the Toda rowing course, just outside the boathouse, we carried our boat to the Ara River. Especially interesting at the steps over the flood defence bank beside the river, which must be a good 20 metres high.

Some parts of the calls were definitely in English, but the rest was a bit of a mystery... I have to get someone to write me down a list of technical terms so I can learn them - what a useful set of vocabulary to know!

Also, I definitely need to get some Hosei rowing stash - the best one I saw had 'No boat, no life' on the back, along with some interesting 'English' stuff about pain and effort, and then ended with something like 'We train!! We fight!! We win!!' There aren't any races till the Summer, but the Head Coach seemed keen for me to train with them as a goal... Gives me a reason to get my lazy backside in gear.

Oh, and sadly their colours are blue and orange, not red.