Thailand

On 8 January 2010 I departed on what would be one of the greatest journeys of my life, but surely not the last. The original plan was supposed to be my Korean friends and I traveling together but things didn’t work out at the last minute so I ended up going by myself. That was ok though because I already had some friends there that I met at the 2009 Deajeon balloon festival and powered paragliding comp. I was to meet Jerome in Pattaya along with some of his friends, Mathieu, Emilia, George, and Dream. I have been to Thailand before on a couple of occasions but this was by far the most anticipated trip that I have taken. The only place that I had flown paramotor before was in Korea, so you can imagine my excitement to be afforded the opportunity to fly in another place, let alone an exotic tropical country such as Thailand. After arriving in Bangkok I found a taxi for about 1500 bot and started on my way to Pattaya. After finding a nice place to settle down I packed it in for the night anticipating a very exciting day the next day. After speaking with Jerome and through the help of George who speaks Thai I finally made my way to his airfield. George is an awesome guy. He owns his own shop at the airfield and takes tourists for rides everyday on his trikes. The amazing thing is about George is that even though he didn’t know me from adam, we were immediately friends because of our love of flying. He hooked me up with and engine and set me on my way. Of course the first engine he gave me decided to quit about 8 minutes into the flight and I had to execute an emergency landing, but I cant say that he didn’t warn me that that might happen before I took off!! Mathieu, there is only one word to describe the way he flies, amazing. I know I haven’t been in the sport that long, but wow, I have never seen anyone master the wing and motor and create such a beautiful dance in the air. Watch my Thailand paramotor video and you will see what I mean. Just amazing… For next four days we flew and flew, to the beach, flying up and down waving at all the onlookers, I wonder how many people that saw us would go home and google paramotor and eventually learn to fly? The beach was awesome, the water and air were clear, the smell of the thai ocean was amazing. Palm trees lined the coast with tall resort buildings in the background. Jet skis towing hot dog shaped floats packed full of tourists… Mathieu and Emelia dipped in low to get a closer look, flying back and forth right over top, I stayed up high within glide distance of the beach, I didn’t think the risk was worth it with a borrowed engine should it go out putting it in the ocean, so I just filmed from above. The flights back to the airfield were awesome, just relaxing and enjoying the view. Once I found an elephant farm for tourist rides, I didn’t get too close but it was amazing to see these huge gentle giants strolling around. One flight back Mathieu decided to get in close apparently to mess with me because his wing went right under mine about a quarter of the way… it kind of scared the crap out of me but it was still awesome!! It was a great trip for paramotor, we all had a great time. I must give a huge thanks out to Dream who let me borrow his own personal engine and would absolutely not accept anything in return. I hope one day very soon to fly again with the whole crew. It was great to party with Jerome and Dream and Lenny and his Irish crew….If any of you have ever been to Pattaya you know what im talking about… After flying for a few days I felt like it was time to go and experience something new, I felt as though those four days of flying were as good as it gets, and I didn’t want to take a chance of messing it up so I got on a bus and traveled to Cambodia. Crossing the border from Thailand into Cambodia you could definitely see a difference in the culture and the people. I would travel to Siem Riep and to Angkor Wat to see the great ancient temples that the Kram people built over a thousand years ago. Here is a short video of that AWESOME ADVENTURE!!

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Sweet December Dance

21 DEC 09
On Monday I called up my good friend Sun to see what he was up to and if he was up to flying. As always he was and we soon met at Asan park in Asan City. This is a beautiful place to fly and provides for a great take off area. Asan park lies next to a windy river, beautiful mountains to the north, and a large city to the south. So pretty much in every direction you fly there is something fun to see and look at. Especially so towards the west, as the windy river flows besides hundreds of rice patties and leads into pyeongtaek bay. All the way there are hundreds if not thousands of birds that are more than happy to fly with you anytime you come along. This day we departed from the parking lot as the soccer field was covered in snow. Following the river the scene was absolutely stunning, the snow of a few days past was still on the ground, which provided for stunning contrast between the river and the fields and the blue cloudless sky. Making our way west I could not believe the amount of birds absolutely everywhere, mostly ducks it made for a spectacular sight. I found that I could surprise them in the river and sneak up for a closer look by coming in low over the rice patties and breaking out right above the river. This made for some awesome formation flights. I couldn’t believe I was flying with the birds, I couldn’t believe that feeling, there was nothing like that, I mean who gets to fly like that. Some were faster than others, my wing outran a few of them, some would "duck" underwater to get away from me. We ran into a few high tension wires along the route, Sun, the more experienced pilot decided to go low underneath them close to the pole, so I followed. That was quite the thrill however, as close as it felt, there was plenty of room overhead with no danger of getting into trouble. The wind this day was absolutely perfect, if anything a slight 1 to 2 mph wind from the sea. I would use this to my benefit later in the flight. It was cold this day, I was prepared with my heated gloves; however Sun did not have his this day so after about an hour flight we landed in a rice patty for a break. After warming up it was time to take back to the skies. Flying south, we flew over a few foothills that lead into larger mountains with tall buildings scattered here and there... I noticed a traditional looking Korean structure on top of one of the foothills so flew in a little closer to see what was going on. There were a few hikers that waved, I wondered what they must have thought about me buzzing by their little hut on top of the mountain, I wonder if anyone of them who saw me will look into what they saw and maybe one day take up the sport. We then headed back for the city of Asan, I skimmed down a golf course which no one was playing on, and a good thing or I might have been hit with a golf ball, as we approached the city I noticed Sun hitting the throttle for higher skies. He likes it up there, but not me. I took this no wind situation as a chance to get in close. When I first started this sport i drew my inspiration from a single video trailer I saw on youtube called Kimchi Session. If you haven’t seen it please look it up for it is an exceptional video. These guys who many I have met from the Paramania team at this years 2009 Deajeon competition were doing some really crazy things in this Kimchi Sessin video, skimming rooftops, flying between apartment buildings, under bridges, through the heart of a Korean city. I thought today it was my turn. So I buzzed in low, right above a few room tops, got a little bit more comfortable and started skirting down the sides of some of these 15-20 story buildings. It was phenomenal and my heart was almost bursting through my jacket. The sun was getting low on the horizon which lit the Korean sky up red and orange. I could see my reflection in the windows of the buildings, and flying along I could see people in their offices and homes starring out at me. They must have thought I was crazy, but if we were to have switched places I would have thought whoever that guy was flying by my home was freaking awesome!! The sun was finally setting and it was time to land, we both came back for a nice landing beside our cars, packed up and took off. Sun invited me over, it is always nice to see his two daughters and his wife who is always trying to pick up on some additional English. We went and ate Korean bbq and afterwards took his daughters to their Tae Kwon Doe lessons. This was a great day, the day of the Sweet December Dance...

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Korean Ice Fishing

19 DEC 09

This weekend would prove to be one of the more interesting weekends that I have had in quite a long time... Tonight was the SOSABUL Moto Para Club meeting to determine who the new Captain would be. After arriving at Mr. Park's house we headed downtown Anseong to the beef house. Koreans have a very interesting way of eating dinner. If you have ever been to a traditional Korean restaurant then you will know what i am talking about. Dishes of every size and color are spread out along a table, and in the middle there is usually a round hole that fiery hot charcoal is set into in which a grill is placed over top and slabs of juicy beef are thrown on. Throw in lots and lots of SOJU and you have yourself a party. We sat around discussing our future escapades that will occur when we go to Thailand on Jan 8th. I cant wait for that, Mr. Park kept on and on about how that was all he could think about lately. After eating we went to the parking lot to find it a flurry of a snowstorm. Mandagee, whom i will describe in a minute, thought it would be funny to start a snow ball fight, so there we were, late at night in front of a restaurant, a bunch of grown men throwing snow balls at each other, Then Mandagee, who is always challenging me with various Korean style games thought it necessary to challenge me at a little snow wrestling, in which he was sorely beaten. It was cold and time to head back to Mr. Park's house... After arriving Mr. Park was a little inebriated so he just past out, but the night was still young and we went to the tool room to party a little bit more. Koreans are funny about eating, I don’t understand how they can eat so much and be so skinny... We just finished sitting at a restaurant for the past two hours eating and drinking and guess who shows up with yet more food and more drink (soju), Mr. Lee. Now Mr. Lee is quite a character, he always has a smile on his face and thinks he is a Korean gangster. But when you talk to him you know he just has a kind heart and is always willing to help out in anyway possible. Back to Mandagee, this was the original man that I saw flying over a year ago. His first words to me were, "My name is Mandagee, you are my f. r. i. e. n. d." LOL This guy is one of the funniest persons I have ever met in my life. Every once in a while i will get a random video call from him in which every time he says, "Hello, my name is Mandagee, nice to meet you" After a long night it was time to hit the sack, wait i mean the floor. Mr. Park is a flying fanatic, if you ever went to his house you would know it. He literally lives in a barn where he has constructed two very nice rooms, with the remaining part of his barn dedicated to building and working on our sport of powered paragliding. Its really quite amazing. We all piled into his guest room and went to sleep on a very nicely heated floor. In the morning, the very early morning Mandagee and Mr. Yun thought it would be a good idea to wake up before the sun had a chance to peak over the horizon and go flying. They tried to get all of us to go but realized that they were the only two up for the fun and left. About 20 minutes past and they were back inside and back asleep, the temp outside was a frigid -05!! After a good rest we got up and had some breakfast, I was told that today was going to be a special day because we were going Ice fishing. I had never been ice fishing and thought that this would be a great experience and was ready! We all loaded up in a few trucks and drove off to a nearby pond that sat next to a rice patty. In the back of one of the trucks sat the Korean's tools of choice for such a task, a few buckets, a chainsaw, and a water pump. I wasn’t sure what they intended on doing at first but it soon became very apparent. The plan was simple; cut a hole in the ice to get to the water, pump the water out, search for fish, and that is what we did. If you can just picture a nice clean white pond, so beautiful and serene, and then picture it after a few Koreans have maimed and destroyed it, it was really a sight to see, everyone was full of laughs and muddy, as it became quite messy digging through the mud searching for these mud fish and slipping on the ice. After a few hours of this we had filled up a couple buckets with mudfish, some other kind of fish, and frogs; while destroying two ponds and flooding a couple of rice patties! We gathered our things and our prized ice fishing trophies and ventured back to the house. It was time to see how they were going to clean these fish... I was astonished to see the only cleaning that was going to occur was washing the mud off. Then it was simply heat up some corn oil and throw it in, yes even the frogs. That was where I drew the line, not only did I not eat any of my share of the hunt, my dog Walle wouldn’t even go near the piece that I gave him after smelling it!

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The First Flight

One day last year I was driving back from my Dad's house in Osan and I noticed a man flying a paraglider with an engine strapped to his back flying over the river next to me at about 200 feet. I was astonished at this sight and had to see what the deal was with this flying machine. I followed him along the riverside and through many rice pattie fields until he landed, however there was one problem I was still on the other side of the river from where he landed... I got out of my car and tried looking for the nearest bridge, at this point in time it had been about an hour since I first saw the flying fan man, however I was absolutely determined to go an meet this guy. I had seen these type of things before on TV but had never seen one in person, it was intriguing to me to see such a low flying aircraft flying so slow, with a man hanging by a harness, feet dangling in the wind below him... I drove for another 15 minutes through the maze of rice patty roads and finally found a bridge to cross, made my way as close as I could to the launch site, and started walking towards what would soon be a dramatic change in my life. Walking through the tall yellow brush and pure white snow of the day I approached a group of korean Powered Paragliders. One of them spoke very little English but all seemed very happy to show me exactly what they were doing. They offered me hot coffee and we sat around a small fire they had made to keep warm while they waited for the wind to become just right. The lead character, Mr. Park was the most experienced of the eight men that were out that Sunday afternoon. I expressed to him my desire to go for a test flight and with a smile on his face he told me "NO PROBLEM!! They strapped me in in front of Mr.Park, as this would be a running tandem flight. They instructed me that I must run, run, run, run... So thats what we did, the wing came up over us and we ran... finally the wind catching the wing enough to lift us up off the ground, my feet and body completely exposed to the elements, I lifted off for the very first time in a Powered Paraglider, we flew around for about 15 minutes with the cold air blowing at our faces... the men on the ground constantly asking me over the radio if I was ok, I couldn't help but to scream out with joy, OHHHH MYYY GOOOODNEESSS!! This was the most amazing thing that I had ever done... I have flown in other flying machines before of course, but this was incredible. There was nothing in my mind that could compare to this experience, from that day I was determined to train and become a powered paragliding pilot. That is where this story begins, the draw and the dream to fly brought me to that place that day, however the reason that I am writing this today is to share a story of an invaluable friendship that has been made between myself and these men. When we first met I had no desire to learn korean but now I speak a little more, as do they speak a little more english. Even though every once in a while we have to use a dictionary to understand each other there really is no language barrier between our friendship. For the past year or so we have shared many many laughs and these men have truly become some of the best friends I have ever had and could ever hope to gain. Every weekend we gather together and fly our powered paramotor machines. I have started this blog a little late, and will try as best as possible to recount the times that we have shared with you. Beware, however, at times we get a little crazy and do some crazy things. These guys are way too awesome not to write about them and the things that they do. I hope you enjoy and be on the look out for many many more adventures to come!

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