As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).

After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.

Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.

Saturday, July 07, 2012

Hitting the Trail with the Ladies of Flipside Fitness... Saturday, July 7


After yet another great boxercise class, I went home and gathered all the gear for tonight’s Flipside Fitness event – Seoraksan Get Fierce, Get Fearless, Get-Away Plan B, which apparently meant literally searching out and chasing down the delivery truck for the tents. 

Originally we were going to jump in my van and head three hours to the notoriously known Seoraksan; one of Korea’s top three famous mountains.  However, with the rain this past week and a phone call to one of the mountain top workers, it was confirmed – the mountain was closed off and our plans were a no-go.  This was an obvious disappointing turn of events but with the girls having changed their plans so they could come, I was determined to make a plan B.

Plan B – Leave Saturday at 6pm for Taedusan -- a local Cheonan mountain that’s no Seoraksan but definitely has the potential to be great hike – camp out for the night and then return Sunday morning. And that’s exactly what went down, with an extra dose of fabulocity and awesomeness of course, thanks to the seven who joined me for the event.

As planned, we met outside of the downtown Coffee Bean and then we headed to my house to load up on all the hiking/camping gear – raincoats, sleeping bags, hiking sticks, tents, and first aid kit.  I had assigned each gal some equipment to carry but we weren’t anticipating using tents for Seoraksan so I carried one and the other ladies took turns carrying the other.  The bulk of our bags’ weight was the water we were carrying.  We all drink water like fish but carrying a two liter bottle of water definitely turned our hike into a kind of weight training session!!!

We took a snack break at the large mountain top gazebo so all the gals broke out their snacks.  Two of them had cooked some special treats for us so that was definitely delish to indulge in.  I’ve yet to see any foreigner in Korea with an oven, most just have toaster ovens if that, so I’m always amazed at the crazy creative things these ladies cook up! 

We the sun went down we took out our headlamps and switched them on.  We searched out a couple of spots on where to set up camp and then finally decided on this one particular clearing in the path where there were various exercise machines set up and a large sitting area.  Up with pop the two tents – Tent G and Tent D -- and camp was established.  I was in Tent D, the down-and-dirty, on the ground tent with two other gals.  We were the rowdy tent, giggling through the night literally to the point of tears… hahaha. 

I wasn’t too sure if we were really allowed to camp out on Taedusan but then again a month ago we pulled off a midnight mountain top BBQ with a full-sized, spark-spitting BBQ.  The way I look at it is if scooters can drive on the sidewalks, people can bring children to bars, and dogs are allowed in stores, then a bunch of cute gals sleeping on a mountain top is harmless.  We kept our trash in our bags, stayed on the trails and no animals were harmed… can’t really comment on our toilet paper throwing though.  I’m sorry Mr. Tree, for accidently having my clump of paper land in your branches and I’m sorry for hysterically laughing at this fact… hahaha, oh gosh here I go again.  

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