Yujian's Exchange In USA: I am a skydiver!

Hey all,

I'm coming to the end of my weekend and I am proud to say that I have not wasted this weekend! As mentioned to some people, I went skydiving yesterday! The event was held at the Pennridge Airport (an hour's drive from UPENN). The jump cost me US$175 but seriously, its an experience of a lifetime. Now i'm really jealous of Kokpeng, Wenlong, Aaron and a few others who went to Australia for their AFF.

I only had 1 Tandem jump but it was really an experience that is different from anything I've ever experienced. With my trusty sunto watch, i timed the whole course from the time the plane took off to the time i landed. It took only 22mins but the whole experience was exhilarating.
Let me just show you a graph:

As you can see, the plane brought us to about 4100+ meters where we headed for our jump. As it was a tadem jump, i was strapped with my instructor chris (see his picture below) and we slowly waddled to the exit. On a count of 3, he threw both of us out of the plane and did a backflip showing me the bottom of the plane. After about 2 secs, we were flat on our belly enjoying the freefall. I experienced about a minute of freefall. The first half of the minute was just spent looking around and experience the "wind" in your face. Its really impt to tell you guys that there was no G force on me. I was told that in skydiving, you reach terminal velocity very quickly and you would not feel that G force (for those who don't understand the feeling of G force, its the b*lls-shrink feeling). The next half a minute was spent looking at the view below.

The instructor and I constantly looked at the altitude to make sure that we pull our parachute in time. When we reached around 1000 meters (i.e. 3000 ft), he pulled the parachute and we were cruising in the air. He also gave me a chance to manoveure the chute. Pulling the right cord sends you spinning rightwards and the left cord does the same thing on the left side. We spent about 5 minutes looking at the nice view before we finally landed smoothly on the ground. All in all, it was an experience of a lifetime!

Here's some pics of the trip. Unfortunately, getting a video and pictures of me skydiving would cost $109 and I decided not to. Thus, you guys wouldn't be able to see me flying through the sky... haha...

Pennridge Airport

Pics in Skydiving Office

My friends who jumped with me from the same menifest

(Joshua, Shervin & Me)

Leaving for my jump

Just Before our Jump

Some other skydiver

Some other skydiver landing

My Instructor & I

Last but not least, I bought myself a new rice cooker (because the old one was on a wrong voltage and I couldn't cook well with it). The new one had a steamer with it. Thus, i've now started to engage in healthier food.

Cheese Tofu (failure)