Jamaica!

Hey everyone! So as I promised, here is the Jamaica Blog! I highly recommend everyone take a trip to Jamaica. It was such a beautiful place with so much to offer. The theme of life in Jamaica is "No Worries, Mon!". Everyone is just so relaxed and easy going.

We stayed at the Riu Palace located in Negril (on the west side of the island). It was an all inclusive resort which meant everything has already been payed for. This is a HUGE convenience. Not having to pay for things or tip is incredibly underrated. This also included 24 hour room service, all you can eat buffets, all you can drink liquor and even a wet bar in the hotel room that is ALWAYS stocked with 4 bottles and all the Red Stripe you can drink. Yeah, crazy right? Although the best part might have been the buffets that were soooo good. So much to choose from and everything tasted fresh and delicious. I always felt like a was carrying a mini baby around for about an hour after dinner. It was also super sweet that there was like 15 workers all clapping as you walked in to eat. It was a great feeling! We felt like royalty!

(notice how excited Chrissy is for the alcohol)

The primary reason we went there was for our friends wedding, Melissa Peick & Rodney Pierce. I think it was a pretty neat idea to do a destination wedding. There was like 25 of us and it was really close friends and family. They asked me to take some pictures so I figured it would be a good opportunity to do a full shoot. I figured it would be nice for them and a good opportunity to get experience shooting people rather then mostly inanimate objects. It turned out to be a great experience and they seemed very thankful. Some of the pictures are below but I made a website for them at this address:

http://ben.jesseegan.com/

While being in Jamaica we had to take advantage of the activities. One day we rode into the middle of the jungle to do some Ziplines. THIS WAS AWESOME! Absolutely breathtaking. It's such a freeing feeling to be flying above the Jungle Canopy at 45mph attached to nothing but thin cable. It started raining, hard, about 3/4 of the way through. Even though we got completely soaked, it was such an invigorating feeling and almost surreal to be doing this. I didn't get a chance to take much pictures because it was PORING rain. But I did get some video (see below).

We also went Para Sailing (not to be confused with Sarah Palin). It was another great activity that I did not expect to be have as much fun as I did. They take you much higher than you would think they would. From that height you can actually see pretty far across the island.

Our last night there we went on a cruise down the coast with a stop at Rick's Cafe. If you've never heard of Rick's Cafe, take a second to familiarize yourself with what they are famous for:

http://www.rickscafejamaica.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2HUTLlBv6w

Rick's is home to the famous sunsets and cliff divers. These crazy Jamaican hooligans climb up the skinniest trees I have ever seen, hang from them like wild monkeys then proceed to do a triple back flip into the waters below. Tourists have three locations to jump off of. One is about a story high, one is two stories and the third is about 3 - 3.5 stories high. I like heights so I went straight for the top. Although it's not quite as high as the one by the Gorge here in washington (See Memorial Day Weekend Part 1) it was still a really long drop. After my initial jump I figured, what the heck, I'm going to dive off it. Let me tell you, spreading your wings and free falling head first is so exhilarating. It reminds me of skydiving without the safety of a parachute strapped to your back. It was very cool, dude.

Overall it was a great trip and I would definitely go back. Also, on a side note, I GOT A RAISE! Woo-Woo! It definitely makes me feel good when my boss says he wants to keep me happy and wants to keep me around.

P.S.S. Michael Jackson is alive and well, chilling in Jamaica.