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.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Love To and From My K-Crew... Sunday, March 10

After a week of "decluttering" my thoughts and really focusing in on our boxing club, I'm now being bombarded with lots of friends in a way very different than usual.  I'm not too sure what people thought regarding why I took a week off of Internet use and cell phone use but perhaps they thought differently than what I did it.  They were both things to do off of my 2013 Bucketlist actually and I just really needed to do it to refocus.  Having no Internet though, not cool.  I couldn't exactly work on certain things because of no emailing and no Internet researching.  

But anyways... back to what I initially started off talking about...

Word got out that I was anti-Internet and anti-cell phone for the week among my K-Crew members who obviously couldn't read my English posting online about it.  And one-by-one they started showing up at my house last week for random visits.  Random visits at random hours -- I'm talking about being tapped on my shoulder at 8am by a friend who not only randomly showed up but also let himself in to come say hi, another who tapped on my bathroom door at 2am, and then 4Man-C drove in from out of town yesterday and told me he was sleeping over.  

Last week 9 of my 12 closest K-Crew boys went out of their way to randomly stop by to say hi to me -- one slept over, one weight trained with me, another brought me coffee and chillaxed with me, two walked my pups, one took me to the hospital, one another cleaned my house while I rambled on about my boxing club ideas, and a bunch of took me out for a bite to eat.  With the exception of one pre-planned coffee date, none of my female friends spontaneously showed up and, like a fool, I checked my mailbox and door continuously, hoping they had dropped me a note, something -- nothing.  I was a bit sad over that but I can't really blame them.  I'm not exactly all chummy with the foreign crowd and as much as I try to break down the division of "them" and "us" (Koreans and foreigners), the more I can't help but feel like I'm in the middle of the two, more so leaning towards the Korean side.  Some days more than others I definitely feel like a foreigner to the foreigners.  I even catch myself sometimes pointing them out to Snickers in the street -- "Look a foreigner!".  It's kind of like a joke we've got going now actually.  Sam-Sam joked with me the other day, saying that after me living here for 9 years, I'm kind of an "honorary Korean" now... hahaha.  I thought that was cute.  

Anyways... When a picture of me out last night with 4Man-C started buzzing on Kakao Story, another friend of mine showed up today, for brunch -- King Kong.  He showed up all dressed to impressed and with his newly embroidered names on his spiffy dress shirt sleeves and suit on, I teased him about trying to out dress 4Man-C who is notoriously known for his charming good looks and suits.  Last night I saw 4Man-C in something beyond a suit actually; it was a first time ever.  I've always written him off as a tall skinny dude but when I walked in on him changing into his soccer uniform... wow.  Never underestimate what a dress shirt hides, learned that.  He had changed into his soccer uniform last night because the three of us -- Snickers, 4Man-C and I -- only crashed for about two hours before it was time to get up for 4Man-C's soccer practice.  

Wow, I'm totally sidetracking here, oops...

I've been telling Snickers that I want to start some kind of "couple culture" or weekly routines, like Saturday night date nights and so forth.  Sunday brunch time is something I suggested so King Kong decided to join us for it and he came all dolled up.  

I did the mistake of insisting we go to a Western-style restaurant I've been hearing rave reviews about and I say mistake because well, I'm not a very happy gal if I have to wait an hour for a much-needed morning coffee.  I had a coffee with me at soccer practice but it got shared.  So when I had to wait an hour at the restaurant for a simple cup of coffee, I was almost at the point of spitting fire and ripping my hair out.  The salty sausages didn't help and King Kong had no idea what to do with his over-sized bread -- pancakes?! Waffles?!  I tried to convince them that this was just a "bad day" though I had never been there before to know if it was but Snickers and King Kong made me pinky-swear never to never make them go there again.  I'm pretty sure I lost restaurant-picking privileges for the next place too... boo to that!  Sitting there with two great guys I adore and running into a friend certainly was the basically what saved this brunch from being a total epic fail. 

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