Good day Ladies and Gents around the world for anyone and everyone who is reading this. I have done many amazing things on this adventure of mine and there are many more adventures that I am yet to have but so far this is the most extreme thing I have done in South Korea.
The date was November 6th – and as such I dedicate this post to my tall great friend - Tristan, whose birthday it was on this day.
Every adventure must have a beginning and this adventure begun in early October when Ashli sent out a Facebook post about namely: “Who wants to go paragliding?”. She works with a teacher whose niece went and showed her the pictures form the day. This started a chain of events that led to 8 individuals, 6 from around The States, and 2 travellers from SA going Paragliding in the Hills about 1 hours drive away from Gumi.
Ashli and I trained through to Deagu (where I saw this shop front sign)...
...on the Friday night after school (to allow us to catch an early train to Gumi the next morning – thus allowing us to sleep in a bit on the Saturday as we don’t have to travel as far). We met up with the lovely Soekie (from Pretoria) and Brain (from The States) and spent the night going between pubs as Ashli showed us the sights. 1st stop was to find the famed – PIZZA IN A CUP!
I think that this was over hyped by Ashli as I was expecting cheese and meat and herbs and stuff with no dough base to speak of OR for the dough to be shaped to a cup and I was sadly left underwhelmed (that seems to be happening a lot lately :-P).
We went to the following pubs: Who’s Bob...
...Organ...
...and Vineroo (a little hole in the wall where you get Mini-“Pap Sak”). I was desperate to play a game of pool and found a table only to have this overly intense American tell me that he will play me for the right to keep the table. This was not the kind of game I was looking for but played him anyway. It got down to the 8 ball and I missed out but was never more relieved as that was the least fun game of pool I have ever played. Eventually the table cleared and Ashli and I played a couple of games which was fun. The highlight of the night was listening to Brian tell us his stories. He is undoubtedly the funniest person I have met here. Organ also had undoubtedly the coolest set of posters displayed, like this one...
The next morning we caught our train to Gumi and met up with Sam, Courtney, Alana, and Lindsey, who were joining us in this expedition. We were picked up by our guide from Gumi train station and drove for about 1hr to get to the mountain area that ended up jumping off. The drive to the top of the mountain was perilous with the twisty turny roads going up in this Toyota Quantum type vehicle.
Sam was not at all happy as we were going around the corners up this mountain, in some cases at quite a speed. We made it up the mountain alive...
...and then found out that it would be a long afternoon as we were going to go down one at a time. Ashli was the 1st to go and we were all very apprehensive watching her prep and waiting for her to get off the ground. Suddenly she has a false start and falls. But it was not bad at all – there was not enough up draft in the chute so they just dropped about 30cm and went into a bush. Brushing herself off, Ashli and her instructor get back up and do the run down the hill again. This time...
...on the Friday night after school (to allow us to catch an early train to Gumi the next morning – thus allowing us to sleep in a bit on the Saturday as we don’t have to travel as far). We met up with the lovely Soekie (from Pretoria) and Brain (from The States) and spent the night going between pubs as Ashli showed us the sights. 1st stop was to find the famed – PIZZA IN A CUP!
I think that this was over hyped by Ashli as I was expecting cheese and meat and herbs and stuff with no dough base to speak of OR for the dough to be shaped to a cup and I was sadly left underwhelmed (that seems to be happening a lot lately :-P).
We went to the following pubs: Who’s Bob...
...Organ...
...and Vineroo (a little hole in the wall where you get Mini-“Pap Sak”). I was desperate to play a game of pool and found a table only to have this overly intense American tell me that he will play me for the right to keep the table. This was not the kind of game I was looking for but played him anyway. It got down to the 8 ball and I missed out but was never more relieved as that was the least fun game of pool I have ever played. Eventually the table cleared and Ashli and I played a couple of games which was fun. The highlight of the night was listening to Brian tell us his stories. He is undoubtedly the funniest person I have met here. Organ also had undoubtedly the coolest set of posters displayed, like this one...
The next morning we caught our train to Gumi and met up with Sam, Courtney, Alana, and Lindsey, who were joining us in this expedition. We were picked up by our guide from Gumi train station and drove for about 1hr to get to the mountain area that ended up jumping off. The drive to the top of the mountain was perilous with the twisty turny roads going up in this Toyota Quantum type vehicle.
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| From Back Left: Brian, Courtney, Sam, Directly up from Sam was Alana, Up from her was Ashli, then me, behind me was Lindsey and behind the camera was Soekie |
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| Here is Soekie :) |
Sam was not at all happy as we were going around the corners up this mountain, in some cases at quite a speed. We made it up the mountain alive...
...and then found out that it would be a long afternoon as we were going to go down one at a time. Ashli was the 1st to go and we were all very apprehensive watching her prep and waiting for her to get off the ground. Suddenly she has a false start and falls. But it was not bad at all – there was not enough up draft in the chute so they just dropped about 30cm and went into a bush. Brushing herself off, Ashli and her instructor get back up and do the run down the hill again. This time...
LIFT OFF!!! (Below is a slideshow movie of the weekendof events - Music provided by Zebra and Giraffe - appropriately titled: Long Way Down! WHAT! You expected something that wasn't cheesey? Sorry for you...)
We were all so excited as it looked like so much fun!
We knew we were all going to go through with it when we saw Ashli disappear into the hazy distance.
After Ashli went as the Guinea pig to test the wind strength our guide came back up and said we would be going down 3 at a time as the wind was right to do so.
At this point I must tell you how cold it was up there! MY WORD – the wind chill was shocking – luckily I had a few layers and was given overalls to wear for my jump so I survived fine. Courtney and Sam though were a little under prepared for the cold. I Lent Sam my RMR tracksuit top (which I believe helped, sadly I had nothing to lend Courtney.
Following up Ashli, 1st up was Alana, Lindsey and Brain, while they were suiting up and jumping off mountains the rest of us were freezing so we went and found a wind break and slept until our times came. We were even treated to a lunch of “Gimbap”...
...by the jumpers who were up there to do their thing. While enjoying our rice-ham-radish-cucumber-seaweed roll I was suddenly rushed out the door as it was my turn to jump off the edge of a cliff.
...by the jumpers who were up there to do their thing. While enjoying our rice-ham-radish-cucumber-seaweed roll I was suddenly rushed out the door as it was my turn to jump off the edge of a cliff.
My heart was racing as I was getting into my suit and helmet get-up.
Then I was strapped up and latched into the harness for the parachute and my little turtle shell seat. “Run on the count of 3” – I was told by my tandem partner.
“1”... “2”... ... “3” I started to run. Next thing I knew I was in the air and my legs were dangling about 1200m above the ground.
All that was going through my mind was – “I am wearing slip-on shoes, I REALLY HOPE THEY DON’T become loose and fall off”. I’m pretty sure I would have severely injured someone if that was the case, but luckily it wasn’t :-P I shuffled back into my strapped on seat and enjoyed the thrill of being in the air – feeling the icy chill of the air rush past my face, looking at the hazy afternoon horizon (sadly I couldn’t see much as it was way too hazy). My partner and I chatted and he took some pictures of us in the air – he used a camera that was set on self-timer, screwed into a pole and attached to a spring, which was tied into one of the 25 odd karabiners on the equipment (so that the camera wouldn’t fall to the ground and smash into a million pieces, if he dropped it by accident).
Then I was strapped up and latched into the harness for the parachute and my little turtle shell seat. “Run on the count of 3” – I was told by my tandem partner.
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| That is my tandem partner telling where to run on "3" |
“1”... “2”... ... “3” I started to run. Next thing I knew I was in the air and my legs were dangling about 1200m above the ground.
All that was going through my mind was – “I am wearing slip-on shoes, I REALLY HOPE THEY DON’T become loose and fall off”. I’m pretty sure I would have severely injured someone if that was the case, but luckily it wasn’t :-P I shuffled back into my strapped on seat and enjoyed the thrill of being in the air – feeling the icy chill of the air rush past my face, looking at the hazy afternoon horizon (sadly I couldn’t see much as it was way too hazy). My partner and I chatted and he took some pictures of us in the air – he used a camera that was set on self-timer, screwed into a pole and attached to a spring, which was tied into one of the 25 odd karabiners on the equipment (so that the camera wouldn’t fall to the ground and smash into a million pieces, if he dropped it by accident).
The feeling was remarkable. So much so that we are going back there in the spring to do it again.
We glided for about 10min and then I was asked: “Do I know Spider-dive?” I said “no” and suddenly we were gaining speed, spiralling to the ground – before you wonder how I survived, it was a completely controlled manoeuvre by the pilot. The G-force from the spin had my head pinned into my seat. I was incredible and then I lifted feet and started running as we landed.
In 12min it was all over.
On my trip down the mountain I was joined in the skies by Soekie and Sam and once we all landed we climbed back into the Bus and drove back to the top to wait for Courtney to have her go. We got back to find hot Raman noodles (think “2-minute noodles”) and fish cake broth waiting for us. In the cold and on adrenaline it tasted amazing! Because it was Tristan’s birthday and it was about 9am SA time, I decided to give my dear friend a call to send him my wishes. It was great to speak to him and all my Korea – America friends joined me in singing happy birthday to him – it made my day, and I hope it made his.
Following Courtney’s jump we drove back down the mountain and handed over our fee. There is a lovely photo (see below) of all the money the jump company made from us – but it was well worth it.
After eventually getting back to Deagu Ashli and I went and spent the night with her friend Kristen who took us to ‘COSCO’ the next morning. ‘COSCO’ is the American version of MAKRO but think maybe about 5 times bigger. I bought myself 2kg of normal cheddar cheese, a Kilo of Bacon (which I later found out was Maple Bacon from Canada, so every time I cook with it my place smells like Maple Syrup) and a Kilo of Raisins (which I planned to use to make “Bobotie”).
What a weekend!!! A highlight so far.
The plan is to go snowboarding very very soon, so I hope to have that post for you once I have done it.
Stay tuned to Geoff’s Asian Adventure for more very very soon...
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