Day 19- June 19: Putting My Life In The Hands Of Others

Today was the day… it was finally time to go bungee jumping. I had been looking forward to this ever since Ben Booker showed me the video of himself doing it last summer. Was I nervous? Obviously. But, more than that I was excited and a little antsy to get there. We were headed to Long Qing Gorge. Seriously, Google this place, it is awesome. Our entire group had decided to go on the trip and even Yuan came along (after a bit of convincing) to act as our translator. We all had put our money together and rented a bus to act as our chauffer for the day. Our first stop was McDonalds for a marginally good breakfast. Next, we were off and rolling into the Beijing countryside. As everyone else put their headphones on and hit play on their iPods, I sat silently, once again mentally kicking myself for leaving my own iPod at home. Alas, the countryside was really beautiful and there were sections of the road that ran right beside the Great Wall. Once we finally arrived it was a twenty minute walk (all up hill) to the ticket office. Yuan insisted that we could not pay the 10 RMB to have a golf cart or horse take us to the top, he said it was too expensive…stingy bastard. Finally we bought our tickets and entered the park. The next phase of the journey was to ride what they described as “the world’s longest elevator” to the top of a dam. To enter the elevator you literally walked into a dragon’s mouth, which was pretty crazy. The elevator consisted of six normal sized elevators with small landings in between each of them. I consider this to be cheating, thus it is not “the world’s longest elevator” in my book. Finally we boarded a boat that took us down a long river that was surrounded on both sides by beautiful cliffs, some of which had Chinese engravings. Then it happened, we went around a corner and saw what appeared to be the horizontal section of a crane protruding from the side of the mountain…it was the bungee jump. From the boat we were able to see a couple of people take their turn jumping…it looked absolutely exhilarating. When the boat landed at the dock we all quickly hiked up the mountain and parted with the 135 RMB that it cost to partake in the adventures. As I handed the man at the ticket counter (small broken desk) my money something funny (terrifying) occurred to me, I had just paid $20 USD to jump off the side of a cliff. There are certain purchases where it is all right to buy the cheaper version…bungee jumping is not one of them. Even with that thought, there was no way I was backing out of this. I climbed up the narrow, steep, rusty steps and got into line. I was the fifth in line out of our group of nine who had decided to take the plunge and there were seven Chinese men and women (who did not speak a word of English) in front of us. The wait was terrifying. It seemed to go on forever, but in reality it probably was about an hour and a half. I watched as one by one everyone in front of me jumped off the platform. Everyone in our group was a bit nervous and we all joked about the possibility of the cord breaking or of our feet slipping out...the normal things to help everyone relax. Finally, it was my turn. I walked down the rusty plank and sat down on a small wooden bench. Three Chinese men started talking in Chinese (they spoke no English). After what I am guessing was my pep talk, two of them wrapped Velcro around my ankles. Let me repeat, Velcro! Seriously, it was a Velcro band that would be holding my ankles (and life). Then they attached the ankle harness to the bungee line with an old (rusty) carabineer. The carabineer that I used to hold my keys in high school was of better quality. Then, they walked me out on the ledge and let the bungee cord fall down. The weight of the cord hanging above the water was almost enough in itself to pull anyone down. I held the railing behind me, put my toes just over the edge of the platform and tried to catch my breath. The Chinese man tapped my shoulder said something and before I knew what I was doing I took a swan dive over the edge. It was exhilarating! The further I fell, the faster I went. I could feel the gravity pulling me towards the water and just as I approached the surface, the line caught and shot me back up into the air. I bounced up more times than I could count (two really good ones at least) and I wore a huge smile on my face the whole time (there are great pictures and even a video). Once the line settled and all the blood had rushed to my head I was lowered into a boat that took me over to the docks. As soon as I got off I saw Russell (who went right before me) and neither of us could seem to put into words what had just happened. All we knew was that our adrenaline was going through the roof and we proceeded to sprint up the mountain in order to watch everyone who was still in line. After watching everyone else jump our group went and checked out a small Buddhist temple and started heading down the mountain. To get down the final section of the mountain you had two choices: you could hike or pay and ride a small luge down a track. Of course we all paid and raced down the track at very unsafe speeds (I almost flipped mine twice). This would have been extremely exhilarating on any other day, but I had just jumped off a mountain, so it did not quite measure up. We eventually made it back to the bus and on the way home stopped and ate some Chinese food. When I arrived back at the Global Village it was time to Skype with Dad (Mom was there, too) for Father’s Day. That night John Nash and I stayed in and watched a bootleg DVD copy of Kung Fu Panda 2. I cannot think of any words to describe just how exhilarating an experience that was. Happy Father’s Day, Dad, I am glad I am still here to say that to you.