Shaken, Not Stirred

I went bungee jumping today. It was by far the most harrowing experience I have ever willingly submitted myself to and I'm not sure if I will be able to muster the balls to repeat it. It was however an incredible experience that I won't soon forget.

I'm not sure what it is about the human race that drives us to seek out new and more radical means to scare the shit out of ourselves, but we are really successful at it. In case you yourselves haven't been bungee jumping, I am here to offer to a play by play of my encounter.

Before I would be willing to do the jump I had a number of criteria that needed to be fulfilled. Firstly, I had to see a seasoned veteran go to assure me that there was something fun about this whole escapade. Secondly I had to witness a beginner who was just as scared as I was go before me, this way I would be reassured that I wouldn't have a stroke or a heartattack on the way down. Lastly I had to watch someone bigger than me survive the jump so that I could be confident that the rope would hold me. Having satisfied all of these conditions I started preparing myself by slinking my way to the back of the crowd so as to go with the third and last group of the thirty people doing the jump.

Jennifer and I started discussing how we were going to do this. You see, everyone had a choice to be attached either by the back via a body harness or by the ankles. After some discussion, and some assurance that we wouldn't end up getting dipped in the subarctic river water, we came to the conclusion that being attached by our feet and diving headfirst was the ONLY way to go. If we were going to go through with this bungee experience we were sure as hell going to do it right.

After lots of chattering, due to nerves and the cold, it was finally our turn to get strapped up and make the ascent to the top of the crane. The crane is fifty meters high and sticks out of the North Han river. You get to the top via a creaky lift box that could entice anyone to chicken out, but we were assured that once you reached the top there would be NO REFUNDS.

When it was my turn I walked trepidatiously (to say the least), towards the end of the crane to be hooked up. We were all told not to look down and to keep our eyes on the horizon. I don't exactly know why people tell you that because it's not like your mind and body aren't completely aware of how high you are. Regardless of this logic I took the advice anyway. As I was standing on the brink of stupidity, I tried feverishly to blink the tears from my eyes so that I could face my death with a clear view. It should be mentioned that the tears were from the wind and the cold and not from fear, but at that point it wouldn't have really mattered. Anyway, I was given a countdown of 5-4-3-2-1 BUNGEE and away I went. I dove out just as I would dive off of the short board at the swimming pool but with a very different end result. At first I was headed straight towards the horizon that I had been looking at but the scenery quickly changed. As soon as I changed directions and started plummeting towards the earth I instantly realized what a mistake I made and let it be known. I let loose a scream so real and full of fear that it shocked even me. I mean, I'm a big screamer. I insist on screaming at spiders and on rollercoasters because I think it adds to the drama of the experience, but I had no choice in the matter on this scream. It was a scream that came from deep in my belly and was laced with pure, near tangible fright. When I reached the bottom of my rope, so to speak, I started my assent back up towards my departure point and released a raucous "woo-hoo", because at that point it just started being fun. That was until I had to go back down and unwittingly released another terror-stricken scream. After the second one I managed to calm down a bit and was able to actually appreciate the coolness of the fact that I was bobbing around like a lure on the end of a fishing line.

The whole thing was over with a quickness and when I got to the bottom I danced around with the gusto and energy of someone who just won a 100 meter relay race. Bungee jumping was unbelievably exciting, frightening and stupid all at the same time. I've never been the kind of person who needs to seek out new thrills in order to feel human or whatever and I've never really thought about going bungee jumping before, but I'm glad I did because now...I can brag about it.

Pictures to follow