Spring Joy Overload: Watch Newbies Become River Ninjas for whitewater kayaking

This batch of newbies? Absolute legends. We've got a couple from Beijing and a little dude from Yiwu. Day one? Let's just say… coordination was optional. Lots of wobbles, paddles going everywhere, the usual chaos. But day two? They casually crushed a 10+ km run. Turns out, Huyuan Creek is at its most beginner-friendly time of the year—enough water for a good long float, but not so much that you panic. Plenty of time to figure out which end of the paddle is which. The day before, my younger daughter Sara took the American crew down this same stretch, and they loved it. So we were like, "Why not do it again?" And we did. Pure whitewater stoke. Every single frame of this video screams spring joy. I couldn't bring myself to delete a single second… so yeah, it's a long one. Sorry not sorry. May Day plans: We're heading to Jingning Creek and Taishun Shoutai Creek—two of the top whitewater runs in Zhejiang and Fujian. We'll start with the basics, then hit the real deal. Wanna join? Come get some!