I cried before takeoff...

So I actually did it! I voluntarily ran off a cliff! Paragliding was tons of fun. I went with Annie and a group of about 20 of her friends. One of her friends set it up long before I was even in Daejeon, but since someone dropped out, she offered my name so that I wouldn't be sad and alone on my birthday, sweet! Let's start with the beginning of the weekend, or as I like to call it, "that thing that makes Monday-Thursday at all bearable."

Turning 22 in a foreign country turned out not to suck as much as I thought... in fact, people are way nice when they are alone in a foreign country!

Friday night, which was not my actual birthday, but might as well have been, I went to a party in honor of myself? I think. Apparently I met the host the week before and told her that the coming week was my birthday, but silly me, I was too drunk to remember. So when my new acquaintance reminded me of the birthday party in my honor, I was more than excited/shocked! There was a cake, and lots of foreigners that I got to mingle with. It was lots of fun! Then I went to my favorite bar, Sponge, (expect a sick vlog about that later) and celebrated in style!

The only hitch to the entire night was that I had to wake up the next day at 5 AM, the latest, so that I could catch the bus that would take me on my wonderful paragliding adventure! By 3 AM, I decided not to even bother going to sleep (which proved to be a bad idea). When I got on the bus the next day, I was exhausted! I slept for the entire 3 hour bus ride. Also, I was starting to feel a little sick from all the smoke I inhaled, drinking I did, and lack of sleep. So obviously paragliding was the next logical step!

We went to Pyeongchang. A relatively small town three .hours northeast of Daejeon

You may have heard about it. It was in the running to hold the 2010 Olympics, but lost to Vancouver, sad. Anyway, I was siked the entire time.. until I actually got up there, and they told m I had to run off the cliff to get good my parachute going. Something about running off the cliff just did not sit well with me. So much, in fact, that I started freaking out/crying like a baby right before take off (I was the first one in my group to go, BTW). I think I scared the Koreans. Anyway, I finally got the courage (did I mention they ran out of elbow and knee pads for me?). The instructor who would be flying with me was kind of strapped to my back. As soon as we took off, it was perfect. I had never thought I could feel so comfortable! Also, I took some killer pictures, which should be in my Webshots album. For those of you lazies, I'll post a condensed Facebook version fairly soon.

Anyway, afterwords, I actually got really, really sick, and spent the rest of the trip asleep in the bus. I would have slept all the way back to Daejeon, but it turned out, our little, nondescript bus was a karaoke bus! Duh! We sang showtoons till our throats hurt.

Moral of the story. Paragliding = WIN. Karaoke Bus = WINWIN

Slideshow of more pictures after the jump!






2009.09 - Pyeongchang Paragliding