I’ve started debating whether or not it’s worth bringing my jacket with me to school recently. It starting to get hot, and the summer is barrelling towards us. Ahh, it’s my favorite time of year despite the sweat and cicadas keeping me up at night. Actually, the only thing I dislike about summer is how little I want to move, but how much sweat I generate sitting with a fan pointed at my face. Sometimes you’ll catch me out swimming, but that’s probably the only exercise that’s worth doing in the southern Japanese heat.

However, the Saga ALTs got lucky last weekend and were rewarded with a cool morning and some extreme fun.

Enter: Itoshima Forest Adventure. Despite being over the border into Fukuoka prefecture, Itoshima Forest adventure park is something worth doing once, and certainly before it gets unbearably hot outside. Formerly known as one of the old Ninja villages, Forest Adventure is a deep woods, high altitude agility course that takes you high into the trees and challenges your upper body strength, fear of heights, and volume control. Hey, not all of us can make a ten-foot drop into a huge net and keep quiet about it.

Courtesy of Ashlyn Moors

There are two courses at this specific park, one for absolute beginners, and the Adventure Course, which ramps up the difficulty and the thrills very steadily. We all handled the adventure course with varying degrees of grace, but all of us had a blast. I, for one, can’t wait to go back and climb some more trees.

Photo courtesy of Robin Clark

Written by Ashlyn Moors