Jumping off a cliff... Sept. 20th '09

Laura and I had our extra adventurous caps on when we decided our first adventure would be paragliding! Unlike bungee jumping, this is something I will only do once in my life and I’ll explain why. Sunday morning came quickly for Laura and I after a night out on the town but meeting at 7:30am was no problem because I was so excited to jump off a cliff. Who are we kidding, we almost missed the bus. The group of us that went was split in half and I went rafting first. Rafting was fun, but nothing special. Sometimes the water would be shallow enough for us to get out and walk the raft over rocks. Anyways, after all was said and done we hopped into a van that would take us up to the top of a mountain that we would soon jump off. The view was absolutely beautiful and I got to take it all in while watching everyone but myself and Seth jump off. It was finally my turn to go. My only instructions were to keeping running no matter what because it is somewhat difficult to go against the pressure of the wind that would catch the parachute (fingers crossed). Here I am, strapped onto an instructor with head to toe gear on and my heart beating a mile a minute while I anticipate running as fast as I can off a cliff. “On the count of three… One! Two! Three! GO GO GO!” Five seconds later and five inches from the edge of the cliff I hear, “STOP STOP STOP!” Up to this point the only thing running through my head is no matter what you do just don’t stop running, don’t stop running, don’t stop running. Well thank god I stopped. Oh and by stop I mean my legs became immobile underneath me as the wind suddenly shifted and the parachute deflated off to the left of us with the strings all tangled. Awesome. Within a minute, the crew had it all set up again and my instructor was asking me if I was okay. Meanwhile, I’m thinking should I be? What the heck just happened? Did I just actually risk my life? I’m out of here, screw this… well, before I know it I’m off running again haha. Despite the incident, paragliding was simply too ladedah for me. I suppose the greater powers knew this would be the case and spruced it up for me.

Do it now, do it now, do it now!

As a wise lululemon poster once said, “Do it now, do it now, do it now!” Well, I’m finally going to stop saying how much I wish my entire life was documented with journals and scrapbooks, and write a blog. For those of you who are reading this, I’m going to assume two things: 1) you are my friend or family member 2) you know me well enough to know that clearly I wish I had the will power to begin blogging from this day forward… but I don’t.

I’ve been in Korea for almost 9 months but better late than never, right?

Since being in Korea I’ve experienced many things that P.E.I, Australia and Halifax simply have not offered. First of all, there are lots of foods that I either feel in love with or learned to like. Dak Galbi (chicken, chili pepper paste, ramen, sliced cabbage and potatoes, all topped with cheese and cooked in a skillet all before your eyes), Galbi (Korean BBQ) and bibimbap (mixed rice: rice with vegetables, an egg and red pepper paste) are among my favorites. Octopus, whole fish in soup, spinach, and snails are not. However, I have probably eaten these on a more regular basis than I would have ever imagined.

There are many other things besides food that throw you for a loop right away. Things that took some adjustment include: feeling like a sardine in a can when commuting on the train or subway, getting shoved everywhere you go, filling up on plain rice at lunch when kimchi, seaweed soup and deep-fried bony fish just don’t cut it, replacing “Hello” with bowing, and feeling like you’re receiving gold when you extend both arms to accept anything… just to name a few.

Up to this point, my highlights of teaching, traveling and random adventures (that I will elaborate on later) include, but are not limited to:

- Trials and tribulations of communicating with Koreans
- Paragliding
- DeokJeokDo
- Seoraksan National Park
- Taekwondo
- Ashley Wry’s visit
- Christmas
- Thailand
- Canadians unite for the Olympics
- Jen and Sheilagh’s visit


Peace and love.