Just spent a few days playing at The Pinnacles, which is a place I absolutely love. It's so close to San Francisco, but still feels worlds away. It's nice for me to have a refuge like that since I'm not much of a city girl.

Highlights included a tasty dinner of S'mores and beer and a 13 mile hike that included dark, scary caves, a sucky hill, warnings about being eaten by wild pigs, fence climbings, rain, and tons of gorgeousness. We hiked the Chalone trail to the highest peak on the North side of the park - only about 3,500 feet, but it was pretty tough. This trip also proved my theory that penis-shaped rocks are always funny.

We stopped at the climbing gym on our way home despite the fact that we smelled a little like alcoholic bums who had been set on fire (it was below freezing at night, so we spent a lot of time by the campfire).

As for today, looks like some more climbing, and then I'll head out for a nice long run while Ant goes kiting or surfing.

It's a good life. Just wish some of my friends were on this section of the globe so I could share it with them.

The other day we rented some kayaks and paddled around to some of the neighboring islands. When we got to one we met a couple schoolgirls, and it took them about 0.003 seconds to fall madly in love with Ant. Totally understandable, in my opinion. :-) They followed him everywhere he went, giggling hysterically the whole time, and slowly working up the nerve to inch their way closer to him. Occasionally, one of them would shove one of the other girls in his general direction, and she would scream and run back to the protection of her girlfriends. It was quite funny and endearing, especially when they started offering commentary to each other, "Look! He's drinking the water!" "Now he is sitting down!" I could have stayed and enjoyed the entertainment all afternoon, but soon it was time to leave and make the journey back to Cloud 9. As we were getting ready to shove off, they finally worked up the nerve to ask him his name, and he snapped a pic (well, he says pic, I say total crotch shot - you guys be the judge) of them.









Other than that, it's been a whole lotta nothing, day in and day out. There's 2 decent surf sessions a day, and in between those we sit around, read, play cards, go for a swim, and just pretty much pass the time by doing whatever. It's been awesome. I've been running, which has turned out to be a great way to meet the locals. Some of the kids come out and run with me for a few minutes when I pass their house - they think it's hysterical - and most of the adults cheer me by name. Even some of the other tourists are like, "Dude, you're the girl we saw running down the street. You're nuts!"

One more week until I head back to Seoul, where brutal reality and air pollution will no doubt slap me in the face. At least I have Shells' visit to look forward to!

LOOK!!!! I DID IT!!! WOO HOO!!! Dudes, I am so stoked. :) Think Einstein can carry a long board?

Just got back from a 3 day trip to Songnisan National Park. It was an awesome trip, and if you're in Korea and you enjoy hiking you should really make it a priority to get there. If you're in Seoul you can take a direct bus from Nambu bus terminal, but the schedule is a bit inconvenient so we took a bus from EBT to Cheongu, then a different bus from Cheongu to the park entrance. Took a little over 3 hours, cost about 12,500 won each way. We left a little later than we had planned, so Saturday was pretty much a bust in terms of hiking. We tried, but there were a ton of park employees at the gate telling us it was closed. Instead, we walked around the town, found a place to sleep, dumped our bags, and went back out to explore the town a bit. Had some Dong Dong Ju and seafood pajean for a snack, then walked around some more until stopping for dinner. A few pics of the town, as well as the truck that was driving around selling all sorts of goodies, including dog meat: We found a cute, cheap minbak to stay in. No beds, so we slept on padded mats (called yohs, and quite common in Korea) that the minbak provided. The place seemed to be run by one lady, and she was super friendly and the whole place was spotless.

After being denied access to the park, we wandered around town some more and spent some time making fun of the sculptures in the sculpture garden outside of the campground. Dinner the first night was awesome! I unfortunately can't remember the name of the dish we had, but it was some sort of mushroom stew with all sorts of mountain vegetables, and of course the usual side dishes, rice, and beer. It was a family run place, and the Korean ajumma who runs the place actually goes into the mountains herself and gathers the mushrooms and veggies. We ate soooo much!

After dinner we wandered a bit more, then headed back to the minbak to see if there was anything in English on the TV. We found The Bourne Ultimatum. Total score!!!

Know one of the many things I love about Korea?

The fact that they've never given up on the hula hoop. The other night Ant and I were at our favorite watering hole downing a few cold ones, and he was like, "Hey, look! There's hula hooping going on over there!" And sure enough, right in the middle of the street at 9:30 at night some ajumma was just giving that hula hoop all she had! It was awesome. Even my gym has a bunch of hula hoops, and the ladies all just get in a circle and hula hoop forever while catching up on the latest gossip.

In other news, it's our last day of work! Tomorrow we head south to Songnisan National Park, and Tuesday we head to the islands!!!

Woo Muthafuckin' Hoo!!!!

Guess who's going to be spending a few weeks at the hottest little surf spot in the Philippines? Yup, yours truly. Guess who doesn't surf at all? Yup, yours truly. I probably wouldn't have spent as much time looking for the perfect right hand breaks as Ant did when planning our summer vaca, since I'm happy going anywhere, but, much like Darryl Hannah in that movie Splash, I'm afraid if we don't get him into some waves soon he's gonna dry up and stop breathing.

So, I'm gonna try to learn to surf, because if I don't do that I'll end up lounging around in the sun all day, reading books, drinking beer, getting all tan...Hey, wait a minute - that doesn't sound too bad!

Actually, last night I finished the first - and probably most important - step in learning how to ride a wave. Wondering what that is? Picking out the bikini, of course. Duh. So, to give a little sumthin' sumthin' to my male readers, here are the suits I picked out, on bodies that they actually look damn good in (I can hold my own, but I'm no Victoria's Secret model!).

Most of these are going to end up being for tanning purposes only, as I'll more than likely end up in shorts and T's when I check out what it's like to nearly drown myself...er, I mean surf.

I wonder if Victoria's Secret advertises for women with freakishly long torsos? Sheesh. No wonder they have to parade around in tiny bikinis and lingerie all the time. How on Earth would they find normal shirts that fit them? Anyway, if you guys need me, I'll be at the gym...

Hey, look at me!! I'm on The Great Wall!!! Do you guys wanna know the best thing about The Great Wall? It really is pretty freaking great!!! Hiking on The Great Wall was just one of the many, many, many items on my bucketlist. I don't know why, but I've always been fascinated by it. Probably all those rumors about being able to see it from space, which NASA says isn't true but the Chinese government still insists it's the only item on Earth that the astronauts can see from way up there. I'm not inclined to think the Chinese government is built on the value of honesty, but I'm also not inclined to think the U.S. government and its' various agencies are any better, so who knows? When I grow up and become an astronaut, I'll let you guys know for sure if you can see it or not.

Anyway, I'll stop rambling and get back to the point: I went hiking on The Great Wall! It's a few hours outside of Beijing, so for much of the ride there I was trying not to get my hopes up so I wouldn't be too disappointed if it sucked. I mean, how great can a wall really be? I'm surrounded by walls everyday, and I spend most of my time counting the seconds until I can get away from them. Well, I should've just taken a nap, because there was no disappointment involved. I had assumed it would be crowded, but once we got past the first tower (about 15 minutes in) there was maybe one or two other people that weren't with our group. I had also thought it might be kind of like hiking in Korea, but it was actually quite challenging and probably the most physical exertion I'd had in a long time. They offered ways to shortcut, like taking a cable car ride to the top and a zip line back down, but I passed on both and completed every step of the hike on my own two feet (sometimes with the assistance of my hands when it got super steep). Yay me! It wasn't really too far - probably only 10K, but man oh man, there were some steep hills with zero footing involved. The whole time I was hiking I had about 3 thoughts running through my head, "How the H E double hockey sticks did they build this freaking thing?!?" "I wonder if I'm walking over the part where they buried all the dead people?" and "HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, PEOPLE ACTUALLY RUN A MARATHON ON THIS FUCKING THING?!?!?" They say that The Great Wall Marathon is the toughest marathon in the world, and I gotta say that they probably aren't joking.

Anyway, here's a gazillion more pics:

And, finally, a well deserved beer at the end of the hike, and me later that evening, after some shopping at the silk market and a yummy dinner of all things involving duck and beer - exhausted in a good way, sunburned, and happy, happy, happy!