This past weekend, a group of friends and I signed up for a paragliding trip through an organization that takes the planning and craziness and deals with everything... all you have to do is give them money and show up! There are actually quite a few organizations like this in Korea... I think that people realize that there are a ton of waygooks that don't have any idea what to do or where to go or how to do anything (ie booking train tickets, bus tickets, hotels etc)... so they capitalize on our ignorance (but hey, I'll take it)...
So my friends and I packed onto the bus and headed about 3 hours away from Daegu to the paragliding site on Saturday morning.... there were about 100 people total which were split onto 2 buses. Bus 1 (my bus) would go paragliding first, while the other group went to a castle nearby, then we would switch before making our way to a pension about an hour away.
However, once we arrived at the paragliding site, there was a little confusion as to what we were supposed to be doing. Some people didn't realize that they shouldn't take the little vans up the mountain to the jump site, and most of us were instructed to take our lunches with us. Well, that just caused chaos. Also, we were given numbered tickets, so we assumed we would go by number. Me having #41 made me think I had time to get used to the idea of jumping off a mountain, but when we got up to the top and had finished the safety talk, a man walked over, asked for my ticket, and started handing me equipment. When I tried to tell him that I wasn't supposed to be going yet, he said it didn't matter and kept going. Welp, guess I'll be jumping off the mountain in the first wave... God help me please.
Before jumping...
So there I was, being strapped and clipped in... I was trying my best to watch the few people that were going before me to help me figure out what the hell I was supposed to be doing... So it was my turn... OK are you ready for this.... RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN! It actually wasn't that hard... the wind caught our parachute just right and off we went... it was amazing feeling... so calm and quiet... however there was this beeping sound that made me nervous from time to time... It would've made things a lot better if my pilot had talked to me, but he was all jerky and grabbing the camera out of my hand all the time... I felt like I was always doing something wrong and that I was going to make us crash... but we didn't, and I lived...
Beautiful sites
Fun times!
Adrienne was right after me, so she got an amazing shot for me
We spend the next few hours watching people land in mud and water and dirt... it was actually quite comical and I'm glad that my landing went well (and that I got out dirt/mud/water free).... we did spend quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to get our lunches back down the mountain (we were misinformed about what to do with them in the beginning), but finally got our stuff and were able to eat...
After the first group was finished, we got back on the bus and went to the castle... only it wasn't a castle at all... it was a wall... and a boring one at that... seeing as we had 3 hours to spend at a wall, me and 8 other people decided to head out to find a restaurant to grab some food and drinks... We stumbled upon this little place and ordered chicken and beer and just hung out... It was really nice getting to chit chat with everyone, especially since we were the only ones in the restaurant (it was so small, there wouldn't have been room for anyone else)... so we wasted away a few hours then packed up and headed back to the bus....
But imagine our surprise when we arrived, and the bus was gone. Nowhere in sight. And no other waygooks around... so we were stranded... with half of our cellphones dead, and half of our wallets on the bus, completely stranded... so after using a friends phone to log into my Facebook page and message a friend asking for another friends phone number who was on the bus, we finally got a hold of someone and brought to their attention that they had left 9 of us behind... literally 20% of the people that were supposed to be on the bus...
We were finally picked up by the director in a small van (we were a little cramped) but we were having such a good time singing and having fun to care (or realize that he was going literally 90 mph around crazy curves on the side of a mountain)... We finally made it to the pension and unloaded our things in our room.
That night we had a bonfire and enjoyed the nice weather, but had a little too much fun because the next morning most of us weren't feeling up for the days festivities, so we opted to skip the Korean Folk Village we were meant to explore and grab an early train home.
Even though we did get left behind, and we weren't feeling 100% on Sunday, we had a really great weekend. It was an awesome feeling, jumping off a mountain, and only made me crave more adrenalin filled adventures....
For more pictures of Paragliding, click here.
Chicken and Beer
But imagine our surprise when we arrived, and the bus was gone. Nowhere in sight. And no other waygooks around... so we were stranded... with half of our cellphones dead, and half of our wallets on the bus, completely stranded... so after using a friends phone to log into my Facebook page and message a friend asking for another friends phone number who was on the bus, we finally got a hold of someone and brought to their attention that they had left 9 of us behind... literally 20% of the people that were supposed to be on the bus...
We were finally picked up by the director in a small van (we were a little cramped) but we were having such a good time singing and having fun to care (or realize that he was going literally 90 mph around crazy curves on the side of a mountain)... We finally made it to the pension and unloaded our things in our room.
That night we had a bonfire and enjoyed the nice weather, but had a little too much fun because the next morning most of us weren't feeling up for the days festivities, so we opted to skip the Korean Folk Village we were meant to explore and grab an early train home.
Even though we did get left behind, and we weren't feeling 100% on Sunday, we had a really great weekend. It was an awesome feeling, jumping off a mountain, and only made me crave more adrenalin filled adventures....
For more pictures of Paragliding, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment