Category Archives: Adventures

Changdeokgung Palace and magic

Adventures, Seoul,

There are many people in the world who travel to far away lands and then proceed to do nothing but sit by pools in 5-star hotels and party in Western-style bars. There are others who visit a new place and immediately seek out the museums and true historical sites. I fit somewhere in between but definitely closer to the museums and monuments people than the hotels and hot-spots types. I like to discover a place by walking around and looking at things. Sometimes those things turn out to be monuments or historical places. In Seoul, for example, I saw an historically important palace.

Changdeokgung Palace complex is particularly important because it is apparently the best preserved in Seoul, as well as being a UNESCO world heritage site.  The complex was apparently completed in 1412 and home to Korean royalty as recently as 1910. It was the principle palace for many of the Joseon Kings who ruled the area for 300 years. The palace was burnt down during the Japanese invasion in 1592 and the story goes that either during that invasion or one of the others the Japanese actually took parts of the palace with them. It was all subsequently restored, however, and now stands empty but in perfect condition in it’s beautiful garden grounds. One site describes this as the ‘most truly Korean’ of all the palaces in it’s architecture, the choice to build the palace up and down the many terraces in the gardens and the integration of the buildings into the natural settings. This could all be fanciful but it definitely felt as though the palaces belonged in their surroundings.

We took the bus to the palace – the gate of which is clearly visible from the road, making it super-easy to find from the bus, paid our 3000 won entry fee and joined the crowds at the gate. It turns out  (which we didn’t realise at the time) that it is not permissible to see the palace without being part of a guided tour, and as we had missed the English tour, we joined up with the next large group – we think they were speaking Korean. Tours are offered in Korean, English, Chinese and possibly Japanese. It turns out, on further investigation, that tours are obligatory every day except Thursdays, when there are no guided tours, the entry fee increases to 15000 won and you are allowed to wander around by yourself, perhaps indicating the advantages of researching before venturing out on adventures.

This being a Saturday afternoon, we trailed along behind a group. It didn’t really matter, though. There were occasional English signs explaining what one part or another of the palace was used for or when it was built. To be honest, because this palace was used for so long and Korean political history during that period seems to be rather convoluted and involve an awful lot of alliances with, attempts to prevent invasion by and eventual invasions by foreign powers, plus the standard palace intrigue and occasional citizen unhappiness, it would be really difficult to make sense of it all and establish any sort of mental chronology without a lot more information and context than could be provided by information boards and an 80-minute tour. I want to learn more about the palace and have started to read bits and pieces  since, but all that is something that can happen any time with a book and/or the internet. It has little, apart from providing context, to do with actually being in the place and walking around a real-life palace.

Perhaps some context of my own at this point: Africa doesn’t really go in for palaces much. At least Southern Africa doesn’t. This doesn’t mean we don’t have royals and court intrigue, but there are fewer buildings. Because I also haven’t travelled to Europe and not really to many other places, I don’t think I’ve ever been into a palace before. I suppose it’s one of those moments when you realise history is real. It’s also a realisation that as much as my skin may be pale, my context is thoroughly African. In my mind, the system of tribal leadership and rulers like Shaka and Moshoeshoe are real monarchies. They are the ones that I have grown up learning about and which have therefore become tangible and real in my mind. I know, intellectually, that Europe and other areas had many royals and still has some floating around but they have always been as ephemeral to me as characters in story books or pop stars on TV. Before this weekend, I didn’t know I felt this way. I realise that that is an odd thing to say, but it seems to be true. Walking around that palace in the pouring rain, the idea of royalty, of kings and queens and princes and queen mothers actually living in these rooms and sitting in these halls and walking between the buildings, on a day just like that day – a rainy, chilly autumn afternoon – suddenly seemed, for the first time, so interesting and real.

At the palace, beyond the magnificent gate, called Tonhwamun and the oldest wooden gate in Seoul, we wandered across little stone bridges, past strategically-placed trees in magnificent autumn colours. The next entrance led us to a large rectangular courtyard, with corridors of wooden shutters or doors on the two longer sides and an entrance at either short end. These entrances are what arches would be in some other architectural styles – open spaces leading from one area to another – except that here they are shaped more like large rectangular open doorways, each with a tradition Korean roof over the top. By somewhat strange coincidence, in the taxi home last night (it was too cold for the bus), I found myself inadvertently watching a Korean period drama on the the mini, in-car TV and I could just picture those soldiers lining up in that courtyard. Of course, I have no idea if the period was right but I found it so easy to imagine real soldiers and servants actually being and doing in that space.

Some of the areas of the palace were a little sad. We came across one signboard explaining that what we were looking at was Daejojeon, the king and queen’s residence, but that this was also the place where the Joseon dynasty held its last cabinet meeting to deliberate on the annexation of Korea by Japan. My imagination conjured up images of royal banquets and dinners and lives of joys and complications, all overlayed with the imagined picture that last desperate meeting and the sense of impending loss because the Japanese are coming.

At another point, we stopped at a slightly separate building, built later and in a slightly different style, from what we could gather, to accommodate the king taking a second wife. This area includes a beautiful round, tower-balcony that reminded me a lot of the widow’s walks I saw in Key West, Florida. I can picture the ousted, forgotten first wife, whose crime was her inability to give the king a son, standing on that tower for hours looking out over the palace grounds that used to be hers. Of course, I could have misunderstood the history completely, but that is what I pictured at the time.

There are areas of the palace that still contain some furniture, such as tables and chairs, writing desks and something that could be a throne or a very impressive bed, all of which is fascinatingly ornate and appears even more so in the otherwise empty rooms. All over there are heavy wooden doors and thin paper screens, green and red and blue and white paint, painted flowers and designs and incredibly detailed, busy decorations on the underside of roofs. Walking around, it felt like all the rooms and corridors and courtyards were inter-leading and connected – the place must be something of a maze to find your way around without a map. There was also a sense of regularity; because almost all walls and windows and buildings use the same colour scheme, the variations in design like the lattice-windows installed by one of the kings (apparently indicating his taste for foreign ideas)  provide texture rather than disrupting the whole.

We did not see the lotus pond or a couple of other interesting parts of the palace complex but after 45 minutes we were fairly thoroughly soaked and so decided to leave that for another day and get out of the rain. I really enjoyed seeing the palace. The friend I was with has seen one or two of the others and says that this is the most spectacular, if somewhat annoyingly controlled (in that you can’t explore alone). I’d like to see some others and return to this one on another visit to Seoul. Of course, I’d also like to see Changdoekgung in the sunshine but there was something magical about seeing it on a rainy autumn day; somehow the rain and the season made it so much more authentic, so much easier to imagine not just the feasts and royal occasions but kings and queens and emperors really living there and just going about their day.

Jump on a high-speed train

Adventures, Seoul, trains and train stations, , , ,

This weekend, for the first time, I experienced the phenomenon of the high-speed train. In the past 6 or 7 years, I’ve spent plenty of time in South African airports and on planes but other distance public transport systems in SA are not very well-developed and there are certainly no high-speed trains. I’ve caught a train here in Korea once before, when we went to hang-gliding in Changwon but then I was with people who had already figured out the train system. This time I was alone, nervous and determined – I really needed to get out of town and a weekend with an old friend was calling. So, on Saturday morning, I got up early and headed off on a new adventure.

Early is a relative terms when one works hours as odd mine (3pm to 11pm). It was after 8:30am by the time I left home. Daegu was waking up on a crisp, overcast autumn morning. I was quite glad of my coat. The morning was also little misty and as I walked down to the main road to catch a taxi I passed children on their way to school and people starting to move through the hazy misty morning . I caught the first taxi I could find and headed to Dongdaegu station.

At the station, I headed straight for the automatic ticket issuing machine. The train stations in Korea also have the option of buying tickets from actual people at ticket counters but the machines have English and it’s easier to use a machine with English than to battle through the inevitability of miscommunication with a ticket salesperson, particularly when one is impatient to get going. After one or two tries, I managed to work the machine (which isn’t complicated – I just entered the wrong information or pressed the wrong things once or twice) and reached the confirmation screen where they showed the ticket they could offer me. There were no tickets in economy facing in the ‘forward’ direction. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant but they did have one available facing in the ‘opposite’ direction. I decided to buy it. The ticket cost 38 600 won. I fed in my four 10 000 won notes and got my change and ticket.

I had about 10 minutes to find the track and get on the train. For those who have travelled with me before, the idea of me cutting it this fine will seem improbable. I am one of those people who tends to arrive at the airport at least an hour before the flight ‘just in case’. This time I recklessly took a chance. I’m quite familiar with the subway stations in Korea which all have English signs (along with the Korean and pictures) directing travellers to the platforms (‘tracks’ the signs say). The train stations do too. I went through the doors to the area where the platforms are, crossing the sign painted on the floor indicating that I was entering the ‘paid area’ and followed signs that informed me that the 9:05 KTX train to Seoul was leaving from platform 9.

I got to the platform with two minutes to spare, just as the loudspeaker crackled into action and announced that the train I was taking would be 3 minutes late. They really do measure time in minutes here – imagine a world where you know when the train will arrive to the last minute? I studied my ticket. All the writing on the ticket is in Korean. Although I can read some of this now – or at least figure out what the word sounds like – it didn’t help me figure out which carriage and seat I was looking for. I knew from the last time that the tickets usually show the coach and seat numbers, just as airline boarding passes do. I found something that looked like a ticket number (1D) but the only other number I could find was 9, which I assumed was the platform number. In the absence of any other information, I decided that this must actually be the carriage number, too, and the platform number wasn’t shown.

Just then the train arrived. I rushed to carriage 9 and got on. I always feel a little out of my depth when travelling on a new kind of public transport or a new kind of train or plane, especially when everyone around me knows exactly where they’re going and I’m just getting in the way trying to figure it all out. This time I was lucky: my seat was just in front of the door where I entered. I had a window seat tucked in the corner, which was perfect for me. I quickly stowed my backpack, coat and scarf and settled down.

As I watched Daegu station slide away, I was filled with excitement. I love travelling and trains make me particularly happy. My seat was facing in the ‘opposite’ direction, which, it turned out, meant that my seat faced the back of the train. I was a little worried that this might be a bad thing given that I am prone to motion-sickness, but it was fine. The person in the seat next to me was an American – I suspected when I saw him and then he got a phone-call and I heard his accent – but thankfully not someone who felt the need to engage in conversation. So I was able to enjoy the trip in uninterrupted wonder as I watched the scenery pass by and to be peaceful for a bit. I think that is really the joy of travel for me – the quiet moments of uninterrupted peace while watching the world pass by.

I tried to take pictures, too, but it turns out it is really difficult to take good pictures through the window of a train when travelling at 300km/h, especially when facing backwards. The KTX trip to Seoul is remarkably brief. Until the KTX was built, the ‘express’ train used to take four hours. The KTX takes around 1 hour 45 minutes. I suppose that is a little like taking just under 2 hours by train from Johannesburg to Durban. Both flights (Joburg-Durban and Seoul-Daegu) take about an hour but thinking about the waiting time and the need to be there early, it’s pretty much equivalent. I’d say the KTX and flying are equivalent for comfort – the seats could be airline seats, with perhaps a little more legroom (I find the legroom on planes sufficient so don’t notice it much) and there are bathrooms and the like. The KTX also has the option of buying snacks from the snack and drink carts that come rattling down the aisles, just like (at least budget) airlines. The sense of speed and distance is similar, as is the time taken. The view makes me happy on both, although they are slightly different – on a plane, I adore watching the world pass below me but am occasionally frustrated by cloud cover and the that flying so high makes it difficult to see contours and definition; on the train, I loved the close-up views but was sometimes frustrated by tunnels and barriers next to the rails, particularly on bridges. Perhaps the greatest difference between the two is that the KTX is cheaper and there are none of the delays and irritations of the extensive security checks of modern airports. Also, perhaps because of the KTX and because Korea is a small country, flights are few and far between whereas the trains run extremely regularly.

Arriving in Seoul station, I disembarked and joined the crowds walking up just one set of stairs to the arrivals area. Seoul station is spacious and feels a lot like my favourite airports, so I felt immediately at home and went off with a smile to find my friend.

The return trip was just as easy. We got to the station at about 12:55 and found the auto-ticketing machines. I bought a ticket, this time costing 38 000 won and facing forward. My friend was a little shocked to realise that I’d bought a ticket leaving at 13:15 (it was now 13:05). I would normally have been shocked, too. In fact, in the past I’d have been in a panic. But somehow it seemed normal this time.

A quick goodbye and I headed for the platform (ridiculously easy to find) and boarded my train. This time I was seated right in the middle of the carriage. This carriage – perhaps all of them, I didn’t look before – had half the seats facing in one direction and half facing in the other, with the middle two sets of seats facing each other over a little fold-out table. I was in one of these middle seats, which was lovely and spacious. I was in the aisle seat but there was no-one in the seat next to me or the two facing me, so I felt a little as if I had four seats to myself.

On the trip up to Seoul, the day had been quite misty and overcast but Monday was crisp and clear so I could see for ages and ages and had a perfect view of farmlands and towns and wooded hills and mountains, with the usual temple complexes dotted in between. It was another opportunity to confirm that train travel is a lovely way to enjoy the view and get to know a country. I arrived back in Daegu at 15:02 (exactly on time), with just enough time to pop home and drop my luggage before heading off to work. I’ve always been a fan of train travel but I’m now particularly enamoured with the quick, comfortable and plane-like experience of the KTX and am already planning my next quick trip on a high-speed train.

Learning to fly

Adventures, , ,

Ever since I was a child, I’ve dreamt of flying. Not in the sense of someone determined to be an astronaut or a pilot but in the childlike sense of imagining how amazing it would be to be able to spread my arms and take to the skies. I vaguely considered sky-diving when I was at Varsity but somehow I never got around to it. Yesterday, I realised a dream.

It was also the first time in my life that I’ve done anything adventure/extreme-sports-ish, so I think quite a bit of the stiffness and exhaustion, now, is related to nerves and tension rather than the actual paragliding itself.

A lot of people plan this sort of adventure for weeks in advance. In this case, it was rather spontaneous. A couple of friends were supposed to be going to the Philippines for Chusoek (a major national holiday – harvest festival – when all Koreans return to their ancestral homes, which is accompanied by a long weekend). Unfortunately, a typhoon hit the Philippines, leaving over 200 people dead and causing major flooding. They cancelled their trip and decided to replace it with activities right here that would be fun and exciting. One of these – for which I joined them – was the paragliding. So instead of weeks to prepare, this all happened in the last 5 days.

We met at Dongdaegu station at 08:30 on Thursday morning. I struggled to get to sleep the night before with last-minute waves of concern that I may have spontaneously agreed to something completely crazy. My mother’s reaction when I told her (completely justifiably) was, “Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?” I was also excited – especially after chatting to one of the people I was going with who had also never done this before. I still woke up in plenty of time, had a shower and some breakfast and headed off. I could have taken the bus but I hadn’t done much planning (to figure out which bus to take) and I wasn’t even sure how often the buses would be running on the Chusoek weekend, so I settled on the more expensive option of a cab.

I arrived early and wandered around the station looking at things and waiting for my fellow travellers. It’s the first time I’ve been to the train station in Daegu and the first time I’ve taken a train (apart from the subway) in Korea. In fact, it’s the first time I’ve left Daegu since I arrived, which made it all doubly exciting. Dongdaegu the station is modern and well-equipped and feels a little like an airport – which probably makes sense given that regular, high-quality train travel is the most effective to get around in Korea because the country is too small to make regular flights viable. We bought three tickets from the automatic ticketing machine (which it turns out functions in English as well as Korean) and, after grabbing something to wake us up, headed to the platform to await our train. None of us was entirely sure whether we were in the right place and on the right platform. To be honest, I’ve very glad I was there with the other two, who have travelled before; I’m sure I would have missed the train otherwise. When it did arrive (on time at 09:06), we rushed to get on (we were almost in the right place) and found our comfortable, padded, spacious seats. We were on the slow train (Mugunghwa) – the slowest and least luxurious of the three main Korean train-types. It was still pretty luxurious and we settled in to watch the scenery and doze for the short 1hour 40 minute ride to Changwon.

Because it’s the first time I’ve left Daegu, I was glued to the window, in spite of my tiredness. We passed towns and small settlements (which would be huge compared to what I know as small towns) and agricultural lands stretching across the valleys to the foot of the mountains in every direction. Sometimes we’d pass a temple complex on a mountainside, with ornately-decorated buildings in traditional style. I wondered how they could be peaceful with the railway line running so close. There were many tunnels, short and long, passing right through the hearts of the mountains. Our ears all got blocked every time we entered a major tunnels as if the pressure had changed as it does when you’re flying or driving and you suddenly change altitude. Most of all though, I was struck by the way that the countryside, at least of the area we were passing through, could be easily characterised by the three picturesque dominant features – mountains, rivers and bridges.

Looking at this world from the window of a train was a joy. I took some pictures but I’d like to go back and stop in the small towns and spend time walking around and exploring the rivers and mountains and bridges. On the front wall of the our railway carriage were some pictures which appeared mostly to be adverts for the KTX (the super-high-speed Korean trains). One of them, for some reason, seemed to show the KTX following the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Sitting on a train, looking at the amazing view and thinking about the Trans-Siberian Railroad was a wonderful reminder of the Trans-Siberian adventure I have planned for sometime in the future.

Today’s adventure, however, was drawing ever nearer. When we reached roughly the time we were supposed to arrive, we gathered our belongings and waited for a station to appear. It soon did and we hopped off and headed across the pedestrian covered bridge to Changwon station and a day good day to fly. We were a bit early so we found a seat to wait the short while until our instructor  arrived. The guy we were going paragliding with is an experienced instructor who, along with many paragliding-specific achievements, has apparently climbed Mount Everest twice. He is also the instructor that other friends of ours went with a few weeks back, so we knew a little of what to expect and had the reassurance of knowing that they’d made it back in one piece. We left the station and he took us to his ‘office’ (a long room full of paragliding equipment and awards) and offered us coffee and tea – which we gratefully accepted. We wondered if we were there to get to know him a little and perhaps watch a safety video (there was a VCR and TV) but it turned out we were waiting for the other instructor, who may or may not have been his brother. I should perhaps mention at this point that what we were doing wasn’t ‘real’ (solo) paragliding. That takes a whole series of lessons, a licence and far more money. What we were there for was a tandem jump with an instructor – who would do all the work while we simply enjoyed the experience.

As soon as we finished our coffee, we (by which I mean they) loaded up the mini-bus and we headed out of town. The site we were heading to for the jump was about 30 minutes out of the town in a rural-ish area. We drove to the bottom in the mini-bus, at which point the instructor got out,  planted a wind-sock in the ground and suggested we leave our bags behind. We were a little reluctant to do so (and not sure we understood), so we took them along and all climbed into the cab of a truck to go up the mountain on one of the most winding, hair-pin-bending, half-tar, half-dirt roads I’ve seen in a while. At some point I really thought the driver was going to go off the edge, but by now the anticipation was really building and we were pretty much exclusively focussed on the fact that we were about to jump off a mountain. Not focussed in the sense of sitting quietly and preparing for the event, partly because we didn’t know what to expect. We chatted all the way up and laughed quite a lot but it was all about the experience that we were about to encounter together. Exploring alone has it’s advantages but you forget the joy of anticipation and excitement mediated and amplified through sharing and conversation. I’m glad I had people to share this rather spectacular experience with.

By the time we reached the top, everyone was pretty psyched to jump/run off a mountain. The instructor informed us that only two people could jump at a time (I assume because they only had two tandem canopies), so I waited while Stephanie and Christina got ready to jump first. Actually, the way it turned out to work is that you run as fast as you can straight down a very steep slope towards the trees below you and at some point before you reach them, if all goes according to plan, you take off. The preparation involves standing there feeling a little useless while the instructor straps on knee-pads and elbow-pads and helmet and then puts on the harness and straps you in firmly – or at least supposedly firmly, one of our number had a particular flight that could have ended a little less pleasantly because the instructor didn’t tighten the straps enough. Once your harness is attached and you’re all padded up, you move into position and the instructor attaches himself to you and the canopy to both harnesses.

Then it’s time to run. Christina went first and, at the signal from the instructor, which almost seemed to take her by surprise, rushed down the mountain and looked like she was going to hit a trees or fall down the hill, when, all of a sudden, she and the instructor miraculously took off and floated through the air. We watched them until they drifted out of sight around the mountain. No time to contemplate as the team hustled Stephanie into position and the other instructor hooked her up. For each take-off, a group of several other men, none of whom were introduced but who all seemed to be paragliders or at least to know an awful lot about it, helped to get everything ready, untangling lines, checking straps and then lifting the canopy into the air as the jumping pair started to run.  Stephanie and her instructor started running down the hill but the canopy must not have inflated evenly (we surmised) because the team stopped them and they went back for a second try. On the second run, they got it right and headed off into the air. I felt a thrill as I watched them fly away.

And then I had nothing to do but wait for them all to return so that I could take my turn at flying. In the meantime, I wandered around taking some pictures and watched a few solo paragliders take to the air, with far less fuss and difficulty than our group had experienced, and head off into the distance. It was amazing to watch them lift off and fly away. Watching the experienced paragliders, I could see how carefully they steered their canopies and used the air currents to choose a direction and to go up and down and it made me just how much control they have and that their flying is not at all random. I also walked around a bit and stood looking down the hill you have to run down in order to take off. In retrospect, this might have been a mistake.

I didn’t have all that long to wait before the jumpers returned. They said their flight had been good but we didn’t have much time to chat before the instructor bundled me off to strap on masses of gear. I handed my camera to the other two and did as I was told as I was strapped into harnesses and padding and canopies. My mind by this stage was in a whirl – I was about to jump off a mountain. I was given simple instructions but I’m not sure how much I really took in: “When I say run you run really fast”, “we’re just waiting for the wind to be right”, “when I say ‘sit’ you push down hard on this strap”, “are you ready? No wait!”. My mind was racing and I was trying to breathe deeply. And then we were running down the hill in an unsuccessful attempt to take flight. I think I may actually have mis-stepped as I tried to run-but-not-fall down the very steep mountain slope. We tried again but I still wasn’t running fast enough. I think my brain was reluctant to let me rush down a hillside in what seemed like an inevitable rush into some bushes or possibly down a mountain. On the third try we rushed down and then suddenly someone was pulling me from the front and we were hurtling to the left and into some trees and then suddenly we were above them and my whole body seemed to be a mess of nerves and sensations as I realised I was flying.

The instructor said “sit” and I pushed on the straps and found myself sitting in the air high up above the tall pine forests as we rushed and floated around the mountain. I was taking deep slow breaths and there was a solid knot in my stomach. It’s hard to describe the sensation – I was aware of everything and nothing and it was so much sensation, almost sensory overload. The physical memory is so strong that just describing it I feel like I’m reliving every second. I could see into the distance to what felt like forever, right into the next valley and the next, to the mountains so blue in the distance. At the same time, I fought the thought, looking down, of what would happen if we fell into that forest. At one point we turned a little sharply and I had a momentary passing thought of mortality. We soared around for what felt like ages and just a moment. I was aware of changing scenery below me. We turned back towards the mountain and I could see how far away we were from the take-off point. At some point the instructor held out a camera and took a picture of us in the air. Below me were rows and rows of fruit trees. I felt dizzy as we turned around a few times and vaguely wondered about motion sickness. We turned again and flew out over farmlands. The sensations are like a multi-dimensional sensory recording – like the whole-body sensation version of a movie, the images like frozen stills. The strongest is the picture of a moment when our shadow passed over an old Korean man in a hat tending his vegetable garden far below. We got closer to the ground and I became aware of the power-lines and flowers.

We seemed to be up there for quite a long time. It must have been about 10-15 minutes but it’s hard to sense time when your brain is simultaneously dealing with all senses being magnificently alive,  the views of forever, meta-thoughts about flying, thinking about mortality and trying to avoid thinking about the possibility of dying (which is hard to do at the same time), noticing every moment passing and just relaxing into the experience. After what seemed like forever and not nearly long enough, the instructor simply “we land, you run” and I found we were heading to the open spot where we would finally be landing. It’s strange to think you’re travelling so far and so fast but the wind is quiet enough to talk up there. I had no fear as the ground got closer but I found myself focussing less on the scenery and practising running in the air – perhaps to remind my legs what  that meant. We came down and I think ran one or two steps and then came to a stop sliding and sitting. Somehow in the landing I grazed my knuckles, possibly as we slid and finally stopped. I must have stood up – I don’t remember it – and the instructor untangled the strings of the canopy which had landed in front of us and took a photo of me holding them. He unstrapped me and set about folding it all up and moving us away with efficiency.

I didn’t know whether to scream or to sing or to cry or to sit down and contemplate. Christina and Stephanie were still at the top and there were no other English speakers, so while we waited for other people to land and everyone to organise themselves and pack up their equipment, and while other people arrived and things happened, I stood around and, mostly, looked out at a nearby dam and tried to re-engage my brain and figure out the feelings. I think perhaps the experience left us all a little in shock. I know that the time I spent at the landing area I wasn’t really all there and I didn’t really manage to think anything. At some point I picked up a piece of straw and broke into into equal-sized pieces.

And then I was climbing back into the truck for the trip back up the mountain, surrounded by what seemed like a lot of Koreans chatting loudly and masses of equipment. By this stage bits of my brain were again working sufficiently for me to be a concerned that the truck was overloaded. I was in the cab. It was a double cab. I was very aware of the hair-pin bends and the rather precarious road. I spent most of that nerve-wracking ride back up the mountain wishing for a Nissan Hardbody or a Colt Double-cab or any proper bakkie to replace the somewhat flimsy Korean double-cab-truck substitute. I have no doubt that I wouldn’t have been the least concerned about taking that road in a proper double-cab, even with all the luggage and the people, but Korean vehicles always seem to me a little like tin-cans-on-wheels and this truck was no exception.

We got to the top and I hurried off to find the others but it was somehow not possible to have a real conversation about the experience. I suppose it was all too new. They did say I seemed to have been gone for ages, which was confirmed when the instructor came up and said that I’d been in the air far longer than either of them. There was just enough time left for two people to go again and he suggested, because I’d had a much longer flight, that the other two should have a second go. I could definitely have gone again but I think the longer first flight was part of the reason my experience was so amazing, so I’m not at all unhappy that they got to go again. I wouldn’t have exchanged that for anything.

This time Stephanie took off first time and headed off for her second flying opportunity. Christina had a slightly more bumpy start; while they were running down the hill all around her people were shouting “go, go, go”, but given that they had previously been shouting “no, no, no” when they thought it was a bad attempt, everything was a little confusing. We heard when we all reached the bottom (me in one of the vehicles) that her whole flight was a little terrifying and the landing resulted in the instructor falling on her. But Stephanie’s second flight was better than her first so I suppose perhaps things balanced.

After that, we waited around for what seemed like ages, while the instructors and all the many other paragliding people chatted and packed up and made plans and waited for other people. By this stage all three of us were tired, thirsty and hungry and not really in the mood for waiting. I was glad that I’m so very used to African time and waiting around for people; I think it bothered me less than the other two. We were also aware of the time, though. My jumping-off-the-mountain companions were supposed to get back for a dinner so we needed to get an early enough train and it was by now 15:30, with the town was a good half-hour away.

When we eventually did leave the mountain of paragliding, that still had to wait, but the stop was a good thing that made us all feel better. About 5 minutes away from the place where we’d been, we stopped at a Chinese Restaurant for a late lunch. Of course the language barrier became a problem in ordering and the three of us ended up getting fried rice with vegetables in a garbled attempt at understanding. This started with spicy soup and then a large stack of rice topped with egg and mushrooms. It was fairly yummy, although partly because it was ‘seasoned with hunger’. We were sorry, however, after he let us taste some, that we hadn’t ordered the sweet-and-sour chicken one of the other guys had – it was really amazingly delicious.

After lunch we headed back to town, stopping briefly at the office to pay our money and returned to Changwon station. By the time we got tickets, we had just 20 minutes to wait. We were also, by happy coincidence, on the medium speed train (Saemaul), leaving at 17:06, so we would arrive back in Daegu by 18:30. The train was rather full but we found our seats and watched Korea pass by as we sped on to Dongdaegu station, where we caught cabs and headed home.

The two friends I’d gone with went out last night but I was too exhausted, both physically and emotionally, even to consider doing anything. I’m eternally grateful to them, though, for the amazing opportunity. I don’t think I would ever have considered, never mind actually done, something like this on my own. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever have thought that it might be something which was a) possible and b) not prohibitively expensive. Many of the other vague ideas I’ve had about flying have been dismissed because the cost was exorbitant. This was very reasonable at 70 000 won. In fact, the whole trip was relatively inexpensive: 70 000 won for paragliding, 15 000 won for train tickets (6000 won there, 9000 won back) and 5 000 won for lunch. A total of 90 000 won, which converts to less than R 600. There are some things that weren’t perfect. I would have preferred a little more information about safety procedures before we took off, and perhaps to have had a better idea of exactly what to expect. It might also have been easier if the instructors had had a little more English. And the second instructor was definitely not nearly as competent or friendly as the first and flying with him not as good an experience. Other than that, however, the experience was good, none of us was injured in any way, the equipment was obviously well-maintained and, apart from the trip up the mountain in the tin-can truck, I didn’t feel in any way unsafe. Changwon is just an hour or two from Daegu so it’s also relatively close. So, all in all, the cost was minimal, the inconvenience limited and the disadvantages manageable. And the experience of flying, realising a dream, soaring through the air so incredibly alive? Well, quite simply, priceless.