Ali's Blog: Richard Simmons Eat Your Heart Out!

Thanks to the movie distractions on the flight over, I did not get a wink of sleep on the plane so I quickly adjusted to the time zone in Korea. As soon as I arrived at my parents place I devoured the lovely meal my mom prepared and went straight to bed. It was still relatively early when I fell asleep so after about 11 hours of sound slumber, I woke up in time to accompany my mom on her morning hike. While their place is pretty tiny, a wonderful consolation is that they have a small mountain in their 'backyard'. It makes for a great little hike which my parents take full advantage of every morning. My dad of course runs up the hill before the sun rises and my mom goes at the more decent hour of 6:30am. I was quite alarmed on my first jaunt up the hill to see many people wearing masks to protect themselves from the air pollution. I immediately wanted to go and buy one as well simply so that I could take a picture and post it on my blog. But it is actually quite handy as I use it to cover the 'lovely' smells that greet us along the way. Here is me giggling in my mask:

For those of you who are familiar with the Korean culture know that Koreans are health fanatics. While I found this terribly amusing, I was also not at all surprised to find that at the top of this mountain, there is an outdoor exercise area awaiting those industrious hikers ready for more sweat. The have all sorts of equipment bolted into the ground, mirrors duct-taped to trees and my favorite: giant hula hoops to work those hips! I was quite intimidated by the giant hoops so I am practicing on a much smaller one first. Here are some pics of me and my mom working out: