An X-Extreme Fourth of July

This weekend was one of firsts for me. I went, along with several other Yeongtong and Dongtan teachers and a handful of other English-speaking foreigners here in Korea, to Inje. There, at an “Xtreme Sports Resort”,  I:

1. Got shot in the head
2. Drove into a hill
3. Crossed a river in the air
4. Was thrown off a boat
5. Plunged 63 feet to certain death
6. Was flung unexpectedly into the air
7. Celebrated the Fourth of July, foreigner-style in a soccer field, which was all the more appropriate considering it was sandwiched between watching Germany CRUSH Argentina and move on to the Semi-Finals in the World Cup.

What I first! I got shot in the head (front and back), and multiple times in the leg and a few times in the arm! But I also shot back, and hit quite a few. Of course, we were shooting paint balls. But still!

Following paint ball, some of us went to ride ATVs through a watery (because we’re in the rainy season) track. I had… some issues, shall we say, with the breaks. Hence my driving into a hill. And Rayna (a Dongtan teacher). Multiple times… But it was a lot of fun. Great entertainment if you’re a speed freak.

After paint ball we did a little ziplining, including one of my co-workers who is afraid of heights. Good for him! Facing his fears! Ziplining was pretty fun. Towards the end, we actually zip across a semi-wide river which we later…

Rafted down! Which I wasn’t really planning on doing, but everyone else was doing it so I gave into pier pressure (hahaha, oh puns). Our guide was a little sadistic though. He pushed all of us out of the boat at one point or another and kept baptizing the people who sat in the back of the raft. The trip was nice, but the water was low (despite all the rain) so all the rafts kept getting stuck on rocks.

Then we rested. Sort of. Dinner started around 8 and bled into partying which eventually ended (for me) in letting of fireworks in the soccerfield by the (I think) youth hostel (What was that building?!) we were staying in. I wish I could figure out how to post videos on there because I managed to get some cool ones of the fire works. As one teacher pointed out, it looked like we were in a scene from Harry Potter.

Then, after watching the Germany versus Argentina soccer game (which I’ll go into in another post), of course, I hit the sack, because the 4th of July brought one other thing…

Bungee Jumping! Glorious bungee jumping. Which, despite not really wanting to do it, I had to do. And I was going to do it properly, which meant using the ankle harness and not that whimpy full-body harness. I ended up jumping sixth, which was a good number because even though I had to watch a bunch of other people jumping I didn’t have enough time to really dwell on what I was seeing.

Once I got up to the top platform (63 feet in the air- the highest bungee jumping point in South Korea!), I started to feel the weight of what I was doing. But I only had a few second to think about it and take in the view (which was lovely) before I JUMPED OFF! Or, as I later found out from the video taken, fell off… I really thought I jumped off but… jumping from 63 feet in the air with only a tether keeping you safe can skew your perception of things.

Bungee jumping was definitely an experience but I don’t think it’s something that I’ll do again. It happens so fast and although you do enjoy the initial descent (or at least appreciate it for the odd sensation you get), the recoils just mess with your mind. Or at least they messed up my mind. After I recoiled the first time, I couldn’t tell what was going on, if I was going up or down. I started getting tunnel vision to. It was bizarre.

After bungee jumping, I calmed my nerves by going on the slingshot, which is basically a ball you sit in with a partner. Then that ball is flung into the air as sort of an anti-bungee. But they don’t tell you when it’s going to be launched so there’s a lot of nerve-shattering anticipation. That was a lot of fun (although it made me motion sick). I did not, however, like watching it. Waiting for it to launch when I was sitting in it wasn’t that bad but it was a little upsetting having it surprise me like a jack-in-the-box while I was watching it.

And then… we went home. It was a glorious weekend.