Done, Done, and Done!: Retroactive Post

So, in case you didn't know, this last weekend (yesterday to be specific), I went PARA-GLIDING!

It was honestly one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I think I liked it better than sky-diving because, while you get more of a rush from the latter, the former really allows you the time to appreciate that you are in the air.

I have been wanting to go out on Asagiri Kogen, this plain on Mt. Fuji for a while, but it would've been too difficult for my friends from Hama to get there, so instead I went over to their side and stayed at a new friend's for the weekend. The place we went to was super-small, so we had to break up our group of 6 girls into 3 one day, and 3 the next. Of the girls that went the first day, only one of them managed to get airborne, since the wind was so weak, and one of them chickened out.

My friend and I opted to go together on Sunday, and our third also ended up not being able to go, so it was just the two of us. We were worried that the wind wouldn't be any good and that we had just wasted our time, but after waiting for a sole paraglider to arrive, we were on our bumpy way up the mountain.We climb up the last 30 feet to the launch area and two of them start getting into their jumpsuits and setting out a parachute.

One of the guys comes up to us and asks us who's going first. My friend offers me the first go. I decide even though I'm starting to freak out, I'm going to suck it up and do it, so I consent. He plops a harness and helmet on me, and then proceeds to tell me that we're going to strap in, run down the mountain, and then get airborne at a certain spot. That was when it started to sink in that I was going to do it. My heart started racing.

The guy who was going it alone went first. He strapped in, faced upwards toward the mountain, ran backwards a bit and then quickly flipped around and then all of a sudden, was in the air. It surprised me how easily it happened. I also wondered how we were going to do the same maneuver with two people, since just running down the mountain strapped to someone else seemed complicated enough, much less having to turn around quickly.

However, they started to lay out our parachute (much bigger for a tandem flight) and then we were soon buckled in and facing down the mountain. The other guy stood in front of us, face to face with me, and he was the one that ran down the mountain backwards, making sure that the parachute caught the wind, and then got out of the way while we continued to run down the yama for a few more feet. And as easily as it looked watching the other guy, the solid ground fell away from our feet to be replaced by nothing other than air.

It was breath-taking and all I could do was stare in wonder all around me. I don't think it hit me until I saw birds flying past and I realized that I have never, ever experienced anything like it in the world. We were up at apparently 800 meters, and in the air for 20 or 30 minutes. We landed down at the landing site, but as I was trying to un-strap myself, we were suddenly pulled backward and rolling on the ground. I didn't know what happened, until we stopped getting pulled back and I realized that the wind had caught the parachute and dragged us backward. Still, I didn't get too roughed up.

I'm really glad that I went first. I'm proud of the fact that I didn't get too scared about doing it. My only hesitation about doing it again is that I got really motion-sick after a while in the air. But I am still thinking about going up on Fuji-san later this spring.

Even if I don't, it's still another thing to cross off of my list of crazy things to do and try before I die. I've been doing a pretty good job of racking things up in recent years: sky-diving for my 21st, white-water rafting twice, eating tons of unusual food, including horse sashimi and blow-fish. I'm hopefully going to add some food-related things like eating fried grasshoppers and raw baby octopus with the tentacles still functioning while I'm in Korea next week. And now I know what I'm doing for my 30th birthday: HALO jumping (ie High-Altitude Sky-diving). I know sounds crazy, but what the hell right? I've only got one life, so I might as well make it worth it.