cat /proc/claus | java

1. Where did you go Sky Diving?

I went skydiving in Fujioka, Tochigi prefecture, by Advanced Air Sports Inc. At their webpage, you can get all information needed about how to make a reservation, payment, how to get there, testimonials from other clients etc.

2. Is it expensive?

It costed around 25.000 yenes (250 dollars), 38000 yenes with the recording. Seems expensive, but a quick search will show that the prices are pretty much the same worldwide.

3. Weren’t you scared? Isn’t it scary?

Actually, I am quite afraid of heights. I feel kind of funny when standing near windows in tall buildings. In the helicopter, while it was going up in the air I was quite afraid.

That said, the jump itself was surprisingly non-scary. After you jump out of the helicopter, you completely lose the sensation of “fall”. The ground is so far away that it doesn’t move, so you feel you are floating in the air.

So no, it is not scary at all.

4. Isn’t it dangerous?

Not really. In your first time, you have to jump together with an instructor (Tandem jump). You are linked to the instructor in 7 different points in your uniform, so there is no danger of falling from him.

Also the instructors themselves have more than a thousand jumps in experience. So no, not dangerous at all.

5. Was it worth it?

Hell yes!

6. How does it feel?


Like I said before, you don’t actually feel you are falling. It seems like if you were still in the air. You feel a very strong wind current all over your body, similar to what you feel when you stick our arm out a window of a fast moving car.

The most impressive thing is the sound of wind rushing past your ears. It feels great.

7. Are you going to do it again?

I hope so! I don’t want to do just another “experimental” jump, so if/when I do it again, I want to actually go for the 7 jump course which is needed to take the certificate for solo jumps. However, that is too expensive to do right now.

My everyday commute goes something like:
Komagome->Nippori by JR yamanote
Nippori->Kitasenju by JR joban
Kitasenju->Kashiwanoha Campus by Tsukuba Express

This is an inverse commute, in the sense that I leave tokyo to study in the suburbs, while the vast majority of people leave the suburbs to work/study in tokyo. So I almost never get full train.

The “Nippori->kitasenju” leg of the trip, though, is particularly full in the opposit direction. If I happen to exchange trains in Nippori before 9:00 in the morning, I can see what is literally an army of commuters marching in my direction, as they leave the joban line to go to both sides of the platform. You can hear their footsteps ressonate.

Anyway - today I saw an interesting sign at Nippori - “passengers to Akihabara, please change trains at ueno, and not here”. To get to akihabara from Nippori, you can finish riding the joban line until ueno, and then change to the yamanote line, or you can just get off here and change to the yamanote line right away.

So I was a bit puzzled by this - Nippori is a much smaller station than ueno, with much less lines going through. It is much easier and faster to exchange trains here. Until I read today’s newspaper - it seems that the yamanote line in this section has been determined as the most packed train line in all of Japan, with a 211% fill rate of the train wagons.

News (in portuguese)

I’m so glad to do reverse commuting