Friday, July 18, 2008

Bungy & Skydiving

Of course, I already knew we were going to do bungy because bungy originated from New Zealand & my dad said it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, but obviously I didn’t expect skydiving.

Skydiving! Omg, it was so cool, doing the kind of thing that you only see in movies. If you don’t really know what is skydiving (which I wasn’t sure about either until I saw the pictures & video), it’s basically jumping of a plane & experiencing freefall before parachuting. Bungy also has freefall, but obviously much shorter, I mean, come on, when you jump of a plane, you’ve to be really high up. The only thing was that in skydiving, you’ve to do it tandem, because obviously you can’t be expected to know how to parachute & all that, so the person stuck to your back will be doing pretty much everything for you.

Thinking about it gets me all excited, but I doubt ppl would wanna hear my experiences about it, since I’m long-winded & all, but truly, it was a wonderful feeling… well, although I say wonderful, but other ppl would probably think otherwise, since there’s a chance of dying & all that, & I wouldn’t exactly say that falling down is a wonderful thing, it’s juz that it was super exciting. & I’d love to do it again. XD

Unfortunately, none of my family members seem to share my feelings, but I didn’t expect them to anyway, because the only one was excited at the thought of bungy jumping was me, & at that time, I didn’t know we were going to do skydiving.

Anyway, we did the bungy at 43 m & the skydiving at 9000 feet (around 2727 m). Can you even imagine the difference?!?!?!? You see, when we did the skydiving, it was at a mountainside area, & that mountain was around 6000 feet, so that’s how high it was. & that was the lowest height!!! As in, there was also at 12000 & 15000 feet, which was $50 extra respectively, but my dad said 9000 just for the experience. Personally, I would’ve liked to have done the highest, but that’s too greedy already, when I didn’t even expect to do this. ^^; & the bungy had another higher choice also, & it was at the edge of a cliff! XD now that sounds scary, but I thought it sounded really cool~ ^__^ the reason why we didn’t do it was cos the bungy would take whole day because we would have to drive to the cliff, & it didn’t seem worth it…

So those 2 activities took up the whole day, even though the actual thing was quite fast… for the bungy, there was only 5 seconds of freefall, but it took around 30 mins there & back, & the bungy were done in groups of around 10 ppl, so everyone doing it took around 1 hr.

We did the bungy first, then skydiving. Whether it was bungy or skydiving, both scared me a little bit, but not in the oh-I’m-gonna-die kinda way, more like the I’m-gonna-make a-fool-of-myself kinda way. Actually, that feeling was for bungy, because when you do it, your feet is tied up, so much that you can’t walk properly, rather, you have to shuffle your feet bit by bit to move (there went my dream to run & bungy jump)… ^^;

What happened was, we were made to shuffle to the edge of the ledge & jump from there. So, when shuffling my feet there, I couldn’t help feeling a little nervous. I mean, how often it is that you go so close to an edge that you could fall, & see how far you are fromn the ground, but knowing you’d be safe & that you won’t die? Even now, I’m not sure why I was nervous, but it’s just feelings, & you can’t really stop that. I think the biggest thing that made me nervous (although there were probably other reasons) was that when I was shuffling to the ledge, the guy who tied my feet together & all that was behind me, & he was the one who asked me to go forward. So I’d inch my feet bit by bit, & he’d ask me to go further. I got to the part where the tip of my big, bulky shoes touched the edge, & when he was pushing me to go a bit more, I must’ve seemed quite reluctant cos then he said, “Don’t worry, don’t be scared, I’m holding you.” & I couldn’t help thinking, what good does that do?!? I mean, after he said that, I couldn’t help imagining what’d happen if the clumsy, old me resurfaced & while shuffling, or even when standing still, I trip over my own feet, or overbalance, & fall?

I don’t like to admit this, but I’m VERY heavy. Heavier than an average girl, & heavier than a lotta guys. >_>; & I’m not gonna say how heavy I am, so you will NEVER find out lol ;-P anyway, back to my point. No matter how strong he was, it wouldn’t be easy to pull me back if I fell, & I sorta vividly imagined me falling, & managing to grab on to the ledge, & he struggling to pull me up while I struggled to climb up & fall again, or me falling, & him falling as well HAHAHAHAHAHA XP

Anyway, I didn’t fall (hahaha thank goodness, I hate embarrassing myself ^^; ), & while imagining that, I shuffled my feet a little bit more, & my toes peeked past the edge (gosh, so scary) & it felt like half of my shoe wasn’t on the ledge anymore, & that part of my weight seemed to be at the tip of my toes, so I resolutely didn’t budge anymore. XD Thankfully, the guy didn’t push me any further (he might as well just push me down then), & another thing I didn’t like (cos it panicked me) was that he COUNTED. Yes, the “Ok, jump when I count to 1” & the “5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 – JUMP!!!” T_T & he counted quite fast (although that may have been my imagination, but comparing that guy’s counting to my parents, it was definitely faster) =/

Later on, when I was telling my bro about it, he said I shouldn’t have listened to him, & that I should have jumped in my own timing, which reminded me of the many times my father scolded & reprimanded me for rushing into things like sports (eg. for tennis & table tennis, he keeps on telling me to take my time when serving). Of course, I felt stupid about that, but given the circumstances, I think it was quite excusable for me to do what I did. I mean, he seemed to have been more nervous than me, judging by what he did. ;-P

This is his vid HAHAHAHA:

I won’t go into details into how it felt like doing it, but all I can say is… it just didn’t feel the way I imagined it’d feel. Probably I glorified it a lot, & my imaginations were more about how it’d feel like to fall, whereas for the bungy, I dived (because that was what they asked us to do, & I didn’t think of doing what I wanted to do, because my mind was blank at that time T_T), so it felt like how a dive feels, but from 43m up, that’s all. ;-P

To be honest, I felt a bit like a meteorite, shooting downwards, & when I told my family, they all started laughing at me *sulks* So I didn’t want to blog about what I felt at first, but then, I changed my mind, cos at least I could sort of describe how I felt, whereas my bro said he couldn’t explain it (which is also normal, but he shouldn’t have made so much fun of me ;-P), & besides, even if you’ll laugh, I wouldn’t know, so it doesn’t bother me. Ignorance is bliss ;-)

Since I put the video there, I don’t really need to say what happens after you jump & all that, you can see it for yourself. At that time, I didn’t really know what would happen after I jumped though lol. Anyway, just to laugh about my bro, he said that he stopped the guy from counting, & did it in his own timing. I liked the way he put up his hand in the “stop” sign, cos it’s one of his characteristics, & because none of us did something like that hahahaha. Also, the part where he kept his hand stuck on the wood while inching forward was amusing ;-P Needless to say, I didn’t do that, neither did my sister. ^__^

Here’s another video XD of my parents doing tandem (oh, the power of love ;-P)

Did you notice my mum’s hand? Hahahaha like mother, like son XD & the special reason why I posted their vid is cos I found theirs the funnies bungy compared to the rest of us, & I <3>st place, poor thing, forced by my dad hahaha sorry if that sounded evil ^^;

Although I liked skydiving more than bungy, there aren’t any videos or pictures of it, sorry ;-( you see, the videos that I posted were what we bought, & they record it 1st when you jump & after that sell it to you (you have the option of declining, of course). But for skydiving, you have to decide before you go there, whether you want a video or not, & while they videotape you, they’ll take pics of you at the same time. It was quite expensive, & just imagining a video of me made me feel a bit gross. I’m not sure what the rest of my family felt, but nobody wanted a video, so that’s that.

Skydiving was much more scary than bungy, & the plane was small, so it felt a bit cramped to sit inside (they only let 3 ppl do at a time, because the plane can have a maximum of 9 ppl, & each person would have a tandem instructor, & optional would be a cameraman for each person). So I was doing it with my siblings, & even though there was space for a few more ppl, it seemed as though we filled up all the space there was T_T

The plane went up very high in a short while, & it seemed no time at all when the plane sort of slowed down, & it was time to jump down. At that moment, I felt a bit in shock, & my bro went first, followed by me, then my sis. The tandem instructor seemed to be leading in everything, because I could hardly move much, she strapped me so tightly (the tandem instructors for my bro & sis were guys). You see, we’re supposed to go to the plane door, which was open already, & stick our feet out, & position ourselves like a banana with out knees bent & our head leaning backwards on the tandem instructor’s shoulder, & they’ll rock us back & forth a few times before getting off the plane. So what happened was, she rocked me back & forth a bit, & my head was pointing upwards, so when she got off the plane, my head slowly went back to its original position & I FELL. LOL ^__^;

You know that feeling you get when you sit on a roller coaster & it plunges straight down? I felt that, although my bro disagreed with me & said he felt different. The only difference it that the feeling lasted a longer time, & I couldn’t help realising that even though I didn’t like the feeling, I can’t stop it, I’m still falling ^^;

& although it was supposed to last much longer than bungy, it also felt very short T_T Then she parachuted, & when I felt the parachute come out, we slowed down, & sorta went upwards a bit, & the stupid straps were strangling me. I felt that I was quite unlucky about that, because it didn’t seem to happen with anyone else, & it proved after all, that she strapped me too tightly. But it’s better to be safe than sorry, I guess. Anyway, after the parachute, we were floating slowly downwards, & she started talking, so I replied a bit in a choked voice, & when she asked me how I was feeling, I said, “OK… I feel strangled though.” It took her a while to realise, but then she loosened the straps somehow, & I felt much better ;-)

While floating downwards, you’re supposed to enjoy the view & have a nice chat with your tandem instructor. I won’t talk about my experiences of that, but the view was very nice. Not that I didn’t have a nice chat with my tandem instructor haha XP no comment. Anyway, they spin you around while you’re in the parachute, & when I first heard about it, I got all excited cos it sounded very fun, but when she was spinning me, I didn’t realise it was the spinning that they were talking about until I landed already ^^; because they turn you 90 degrees to the left, so you’ll be looking at another direction, & she did that a few times. Some ppl get dizzy doing that, including my family, but I was fine yay XD

So that was about it, & I wrote A LOT today ^^; nvm, it can sort of make up for me not posting previously & in case I don’t post so fast in the near future.

If there’s anything you’re interested in, like a certain random topic about abstract stuff (you know, like ego, being sociable, stuff like that), tell me, & I’ll blog about it XD well, at least I hope I can, with whatever opinion I have (& if you value it in the first place). Cos I’d like to blog about random abstract topics (the reason why I made a blog actually).

Hopefully, if I don’t forget (again), the next post will be a tag that I didn’t do yet, but I still have to find the damn pics first, how tedious >_>

Btw, I forgot to mention that my birthday passed, so I’m not 18! XD actually, I wanted to drink alcohol & smoke, but I didn’t get to do that yet, & I’m not planning to smoke anyway, it’s too dangerous ;-P

Last thing about NZ I forgot to mention before: did you know that it’s nice to be a pedestrian there? XD well, sort of, I don’t know how many countries are like this, but in Malaysia, it’s not, so those who have that benefit should be grateful. You see, when crossing a zebra crossing there, the cars will really stop for you! & if it looks as though you wanna cross, they’ll also stop & wait for you to cross ^__^ whereas in Malaysia, if you do that, it’s the same as committing suicide lol ^^; so hopefully New Zealanders won’t do such a thing in Malaysia

It’s late at night, so I shall go now. Besides, I’ve written too much already lol ^^;

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