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 30, 2016

A Walk Back into Time... Saturday, July 30

I went out tonight with J-Doll and what was suppose to be a dinner out turned into somewhat of a walking tour of that part of Toronto.  J-Doll always knows the tucked away sweet spots of this city, like the street he took me to tonight where the residents fought the city so they could keep the old school city lamp posts.  The residents won so tonight we took a stroll down their street and enjoyed what felt like a step back in time because of the beautiful lamp posts.  This particular street is located right by Bathurst and College, where my father grew up, so I took control of our little walk at that point and took J-Doll to see the house that for so many years was the glue that kept me and all my relatives together.  When my Baba died I was 13 and that's when my family sold the house.  It has since seen a few owners, been painted, and the front garden shrubs have since been replaced with over sized ones that look a bit ridiculous in my mind, but there's still some of the old pink paint on the front veranda beams.  I stood and looked up at it, the three story house that once housed my father, his 8 siblings and his two parents -- my grandparents.  I told J-Doll of memories I had where we use to go to church and then come here on Sunday.  For the longest time my family also had their own private church, right around the corner from my Baba's house, and we'd come there for the service first.  

My Baba's house is no longer in our family and I regret this because now there is no real meeting place my relatives and I meet at, no glue holding us together.  Cousins I use to hang with have since had kids, started their own families, and others have moved away.  I didn't go to my family's annual family reunion BBQ and I take it that unless I go next year to the next one I won't see most of my family until then, another year.  I think that's pretty brutal.  

Having been in Korea for 11 years and having become a part of someone else's family (Snickers), I can totally vouch for the need of family.  Family is so important.  In Korea I didn't have that but I'm not in Korea any more.  

No sooner did we arrive at my Baba's house to take a long stare at it but one of my sister-in-laws started texting me.  Her text messages are more like scroll-down one sided conversations but I kind of like that because it amuses me.  She really puts a lot into her texts and tonight's texts were no different.  She mentioned how she and her girls (my beautiful nieces) all missed me at the family BBQ and how she wanted to initiate an idea I mentioned a while back -- a girls night in.  I would love to see them all more but they live so far out in the middle of no where, that's true.  I can't even so much as take a Grey Hound bus out there and Grey Hound buses go every where in this country.  So for now the girls night in is just talk but I do really want to make it happen.  I do really want to be more present in the lives of my family.  I want to renew family traditions, give my brother's kids the traditions and family connections I had when I was there age.  This is important, not only for them but for me.  

Family is so important, I learnt this the hard way in Korea.

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