Daring Souls

Yesterday I went to Danyang (a small town about 2.5 hours out of Seoul) with Imee, Erwin, Lee, Jennifer, Tracy, and Meredith...because we're crazy. We each flew in an ultralight aircraft. It was an incredibly long day. The weather was iffy so we did a lot of waiting once we got there. It was really chilly. Our pilot was great. He had a ritual of drinking a cup of coffee and smoking two cigarettes between all of our flights. He spoke no English. He used one of our dictionaries to say to Tracy, "You are very well-built." Ha! Thankfully, Erwin has been studying Korean for quite some time so he was our translator. I'm getting used to the language barrier but it's a bit more disconcerting when there's a barrier between yourself and the person who is flying you over mountains in a tiny aircraft. Everything went smoothly except when an ambulance made an appearance. A man hurt himself when he was hanggliding (he was training so he was just gliding off of a small hill). He's ok. Apparently he broke his collarbone.

Here is the aircraft we flew in:



Here's Erwin all decked-out in his flight suit. Once you step foot on to Korean soil you're required to pose with the peace sign in every picture you're in. :)



Erwin was a little nervous so we decided to be his cheerleaders. Here we are trying to contort our bodies to spell E-R-W-I-N. Meredith, who is supposed to be the N, completely cracks me up.



Imee was the first one to go flying.



I decided against bringing my camera up with me since I don't have a strap on it. I had Meredith take some pics with my camera instead.







Here are some amaaaazing photos Lee posted on Facebook.






(From left to right: Tracy, Erwin, Imee, Pilot, Meredith, Jennifer, Lee, and myself)

It was awesome. I'm not afraid of heights at all so I wasn't very nervous. It was a spectacular view of the mountains and autumn leaves. It was great just getting out of Seoul for the day and actually breathing fresh air. :)

Safe and sound,
Carly