When I was back in Seoul, a yelp deal came on for tandem skydiving -- when you fly harnessed to an instructor. My friends bought it, but unfortunately, due to medical issues, one of my friends couldn't go, and so I took her place.
We drove to Skydance Skydiving early this morning in Davis, CA. This was of course after a short tour and visit to the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield -- more info on this next time.
After registering, filling a few waiver forms, and a short 45 minute lesson, we were ready. We then waited for about 2 hours before our names were finally called. This is when it hit Laura and she started to freak out.
My instructor was Rob -- he was awesome. He was definitely professional and reassuring, making my first skydiving experience (and potentially not my last) incredible. I opted to pay extra for video and pictures and man, I don't regret it at all. By the way, if you ever want to watch it, just let me know :)
I can't express in words how crazy, wonderful, beautiful, breathtaking, heart-pounding, all in all amazing experience it was. We flew up to 9,000 feet and then jumped out of the plane. The drop itself was heart-stopping. But it was really just 30 seconds in the air.
By the way, right around when the plane started flying up, that's when I freaked out. Right after that, when the tiny plane got pretty shaky and we realized how rickety it was, that was when Xuemin started freaking out.
Here's a picture of us in the plane, right before Laura jumps out. I followed, then Xuemin.
Here's a picture of Laura as she drops.
Here's a photo of me right before I drop. See my face? That's the face of fear. Haha.
Here's an awesome action shot of me, mid-dive. In case you are wondering, I wrote "Hi Me" (Me = mom in Vietnamese) and "Hi Ngoc" (my older sister.
f
Let me explain a little more about the process. Everybody, individual flyers and tandem flyers (us) pack into a tiny plane. It flies up to the desired height, we flew at 9000 ft, but you can also fly at 13000 ft or 18000 ft. You are securely harnessed to your instructor at several locations on your body and then pah, you are pushed/ rocked off the edge of the plane. After the initial drop, in which a large gust of wind hits you and your body leading you to fly backwards, the instructor pulls one mini parachute, to slow your speed of upwards of 200mph. You are instructed to arch your body and lean your chin back -- it's the best way to really experience the view.
Then he pulls the second harness leading to the opening of the bigger parachute. This time, the gust of wind is so great that your body experiences a second drop and sudden pull upwards. And then as you glide slowly down, you are instructed to raise your legs straight in front with your instructor handling the landing. Smoothly and softly.
He also let me man the handles (as in direct the parachute) for a while but I was too scared to do too much with it.
But before you think it's all fun and games, sometimes, things do go wrong.
Just take a look:
See that? On the left hand side, a little above my head?
That's right. That black and white thing? That's my shoe.
More specifically, that's my right shoe. Hilariously, during the second parachute, the force caused my shoe to fly off. Unfortunately, I did not have the foresight to tighten my shoelaces before suiting up. Even more unfortunately, I was not able to wade through the tall grass and soft mud and find my shoe. Now, I have a lonely single left shoe and only the memory of the other.
Oh wells, life happens. Here's the final shot of my instructor and I after landing.
Success! Now I may cross skydiving off my bucket list. And a story to boot.
_
After picking up my pictures and trying to recover my shoe, we went to downtown Davis for food. The four of us did not have any breakfast and so the three of us who had skydived were cranky, tired, and nauseous. Take it from me, you definitely want to eat a meal before you skydive. It was a horrible feeling -- like a bad hangover.
And yes, in case you were curious, I walked around in my socks until I found a shoe store where I bought some flip-flops. Haha.
We then had a nice dinner at Tommy J's -- I had a jalapeno burger with fries and a coke, all of which were delicious but because of my headache, it was hard to enjoy.
[Picture to be posted later].
_
In other news, my spring allergies have hit, hard. Sigh, how can a body produce so much mucus. First thing on my list for tomorrow, purchasing Claritin from CVS.
And now, I'm off to crawl into my bed for a well deserved sleep.
I leave you with this gorgeous picture of yours truly, haha, taken by Janice. It's quite artsy and lovely, if I do say so myself.
We drove to Skydance Skydiving early this morning in Davis, CA. This was of course after a short tour and visit to the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield -- more info on this next time.
After registering, filling a few waiver forms, and a short 45 minute lesson, we were ready. We then waited for about 2 hours before our names were finally called. This is when it hit Laura and she started to freak out.
My instructor was Rob -- he was awesome. He was definitely professional and reassuring, making my first skydiving experience (and potentially not my last) incredible. I opted to pay extra for video and pictures and man, I don't regret it at all. By the way, if you ever want to watch it, just let me know :)
I can't express in words how crazy, wonderful, beautiful, breathtaking, heart-pounding, all in all amazing experience it was. We flew up to 9,000 feet and then jumped out of the plane. The drop itself was heart-stopping. But it was really just 30 seconds in the air.
By the way, right around when the plane started flying up, that's when I freaked out. Right after that, when the tiny plane got pretty shaky and we realized how rickety it was, that was when Xuemin started freaking out.
Here's a picture of us in the plane, right before Laura jumps out. I followed, then Xuemin.
Here's a picture of Laura as she drops.
Here's a photo of me right before I drop. See my face? That's the face of fear. Haha.
Here's an awesome action shot of me, mid-dive. In case you are wondering, I wrote "Hi Me" (Me = mom in Vietnamese) and "Hi Ngoc" (my older sister.
f
Let me explain a little more about the process. Everybody, individual flyers and tandem flyers (us) pack into a tiny plane. It flies up to the desired height, we flew at 9000 ft, but you can also fly at 13000 ft or 18000 ft. You are securely harnessed to your instructor at several locations on your body and then pah, you are pushed/ rocked off the edge of the plane. After the initial drop, in which a large gust of wind hits you and your body leading you to fly backwards, the instructor pulls one mini parachute, to slow your speed of upwards of 200mph. You are instructed to arch your body and lean your chin back -- it's the best way to really experience the view.
Then he pulls the second harness leading to the opening of the bigger parachute. This time, the gust of wind is so great that your body experiences a second drop and sudden pull upwards. And then as you glide slowly down, you are instructed to raise your legs straight in front with your instructor handling the landing. Smoothly and softly.
He also let me man the handles (as in direct the parachute) for a while but I was too scared to do too much with it.
But before you think it's all fun and games, sometimes, things do go wrong.
Just take a look:
See that? On the left hand side, a little above my head?
That's right. That black and white thing? That's my shoe.
More specifically, that's my right shoe. Hilariously, during the second parachute, the force caused my shoe to fly off. Unfortunately, I did not have the foresight to tighten my shoelaces before suiting up. Even more unfortunately, I was not able to wade through the tall grass and soft mud and find my shoe. Now, I have a lonely single left shoe and only the memory of the other.
Oh wells, life happens. Here's the final shot of my instructor and I after landing.
Success! Now I may cross skydiving off my bucket list. And a story to boot.
_
After picking up my pictures and trying to recover my shoe, we went to downtown Davis for food. The four of us did not have any breakfast and so the three of us who had skydived were cranky, tired, and nauseous. Take it from me, you definitely want to eat a meal before you skydive. It was a horrible feeling -- like a bad hangover.
And yes, in case you were curious, I walked around in my socks until I found a shoe store where I bought some flip-flops. Haha.
We then had a nice dinner at Tommy J's -- I had a jalapeno burger with fries and a coke, all of which were delicious but because of my headache, it was hard to enjoy.
[Picture to be posted later].
_
In other news, my spring allergies have hit, hard. Sigh, how can a body produce so much mucus. First thing on my list for tomorrow, purchasing Claritin from CVS.
And now, I'm off to crawl into my bed for a well deserved sleep.
I leave you with this gorgeous picture of yours truly, haha, taken by Janice. It's quite artsy and lovely, if I do say so myself.
Comments
Post a Comment