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, January 06, 2013

Energy to Spare but No Takers... Sunday, January 6

I’m going rather stir crazy here.

Everyday work starts with a meeting at 8:30am and then ends with dinner at 5:30pm but then from 6pm till whenever I go to sleep, I’m free to do whatever.  But what do you do when you’re on the edge of what feels like civilization and there’s nothing really within walking distance?  I exercise.  I’ve been doing split workout circuits and a lot of running here.  I love running but every time I head out I pick another direction.  I really don’t know what’s around us but I’ve been told there’s basically nothing.

I beg to differ. 

Last night I took a right at the main entrance and had no real goal in mind for my run besides running until I get to a subway entrance.  Mission completed but on the way, wow, the things I found!!!
  • The Korean Military Academy
  • a Wedding Hall (that’s more like a resort – has long winding entrance road)
  • a Temple
  • a Shooting Range
  • Korea’s Olympic Training Facility
The Olympic training facility is massive! It’s 17 acres of wooded land where they house and train the Korean Olympia athletes. It has a skating rink, indoor swimming pool, shooting range and gymnasiums for wrestling, boxing and weightlifting. And it’s definitely my coolest find here!

All these four places were places I passed on my run last night from Sahmyook University to the subway stop -- a 8km round route. I’ll have to run a little bit further next time because I only brought a little bit of cash on me and I’ll need more spinach in a couple of days. I’ll have to plan a run to a grocery store – there and back – with all my groceries. 

Today I hosted a three hour soccer races for all 200 students. I definitely fed off of all the kids’ great energy but I was most definitely rejuvenated when my homeroom won the whole tournament. My kids all scored backpacks, extra stickers and then they got to head off to dinner first. After dinner I was free to do whatever I pleased but what I wanted to do was go venturing up the mountain – night hiking. There was a trail I had somewhat explored the other day but I wanted to explore more. Despite me trying to encourage them to join me, no one wanted to join me. So I went alone. And when I headed out, just shortly after 9pm, I ran into some of them brushing their teeth and getting ready for bed. 

The plan was to simply go hiking up the mountain, that’s what I had asked the others to join me in doing, but when I proved to be the only adventurous one, I slipped into my running shoes and decided to run up it. I definitely wouldn’t recommend what I did – running up a mountain in the late night with nothing but the white reflection of the snow giving any kind of light – but then again this is something Snickers would certainly do! The other day I had only explore part of the path but I wanted to take a different path, so that’s exactly what I did. I headed up the mountain on a trail that was totally foreign to me with nothing but the white snow giving me any kind of light and it was only because of the feeling of the snow under my shoes that I even knew I was on the path or not. Whenever I felt my feet kicking up snow, I knew I had gone off the main path. I had anticipated it being hard to run back down the packed path, because of the ice, so I had stuffed a plastic bag in my pocket. 

Rode my plastic bag down many parts of the mountain -- it was awesome!!!

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