Snowshoeing in Sequoia National Park, Part 2

Mark and me in front of
General Sherman Tree,
The largest tree in the world

The second day at the Parks was dedicated to Sequoias, Sequoias, Sequoias.  Here we were at Sequoia National Park, and we hadn't really seen a Sequoia yet, except briefly during a drive-by.

Like all other tourists, we made our way to the General Sherman tree.  Named after William "Tecumseh" Sherman, the celebrated Civil War general, General Sherman is the largest living tree in the world.  Other trees might be taller, (Coastal Redwoods at 379 feet tall), and other trees might be older (Bristlecone Pines at 4800 years of age), but the Sequoia is the largest by volume.

I'm a pretty weepy person in general, but being reduced to tears by a tree was a  first for me.  It's cheesy to say, but being in the presence of General Sherman, and Giant Sequoias in general, makes you aware that you are in the presence of something larger than oneself, metaphysically, as well as physically .  The atmosphere around General Sherman was hushed.  I got the impression that everyone felt the same way as me.  This is yet another reason why one should visit Sequoia Kings Canyon National Park in winter rather than summer. People seem more worshipful of nature if they are going to go through the trouble of visiting the Sierras in winter.

Being amongst these trees makes you
want to "Preserve and Protect",
much like the National Park Rangers

Right off the manicured trail off General Sherman is a snow-covered 1.5 mile loop called Congress Loop.  Congress Loop has got to be one of my top hikes of all time.   This loop takes you amongst Giant Sequoias named after Congressmen and U.S. states.  In summertime, I can imagine there would be hordes of screaming kids and overweight Americans in shorts lining this path.  However, since it was winter, and the loop was covered with 8 feet of snow, we were left alone a mere 20 feet from the exposed concrete.

As a side note, my other top hikes of all time are: Summiting Mt. Whitney (for it's epic, extreme nature), Discovery Trail in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest (for it's contemplative, desolate landscape), and Lyell Canyon/John Muir Trail in Yosemite National Park (for it's pristine and gentle scenery).  I've also hiked Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, and the Zion Narrows in Zion National Park, to give you an impression of my diverse hiking experience.

Spawn of Sentinel tree,
to be germinated on our patio

Congress Loop Trail takes you among spectacular Giant Sequoias.  I felt filled with protective love for these trees.  The park ranger motto, "Preserve and Protect", really came to life for me while standing beneath these giants. I also felt full of childish glee, tromping through the virgin snow and wasting energy to get nearer to the giant trees.

Mark, contrasting with myself, enjoyed the trees in his own unique way. At the foot of the Sentinel Tree, he absconded with a quartet of little Sequoia pine cones with the intent of germinating them on our patio.

To be continued...

Snowshoeing in Sequoia National Park

Mark putting on snowshoes

We just got back from a 3 day weekend in Sequoia National Park, and I am just brimming with enthusiasm about our trip.  First off, I was really excited to try snowshoeing for the first time.  Secondly, I was really looking forward to staying in my first authentic National Park lodge. And thirdly, I was excited to see my first Giant Sequoia Trees.

On our first night, we encountered a bit of a hiccup. There are two main entrances into Sequoia Kings Canyon National Park, one of which was closed from to snow.  Of course, we ended up at the wrong entrance for the night. Website instructions to the park are a little confusing, so I recommend that you spend more than a cursory 5 minutes understanding them, unlike myself.  Fortunately, the Wuksachi Lodge, where we had reservations for the night, refunded us for the first night.  Cooler heads prevailed and we ended up staying in nearby Visalia that first night, which is just outside entrance we were supposed to enter through.

The thrill of snowshoeing on our way
to Topokah Falls

The horror of the previous night was quickly forgotten as soon as we entered the park the following morning.  A much overlooked aspect of the park is the enjoyment to be had in the winter-time.  The park has few visitors all year, and even fewer visitors in the winter time, which makes it easier to have the park all to oneself. In winter, too, the Giant Sequoia trees glow an unearthly orange, and make a striking contrast against the wintry white snow. Finally, the large snowfall makes it imperative to rent a pair of snowshoes or cross country skis which makes it fun in and of itself.

To attract visitors, Wuksachi Lodge offers an excellent deal in wintertime.  Nights at the lodge cost only $79/night during the workweek, and $87/night on the weekend.  Prices are typically double that in the summer. Wuksachi also offers free snowshoes to all residents, and also offers a special bed and breakfast offer, which offers unlimited breakfast buffet, which Mark and I partook in everyday.

Ice climbers at Topokah Falls

We quickly rented a pair of snowshoes, and went on a short hike to Tokopah Falls.  Tokopah Falls was recommended by a park ranger for to its contrasting scenery with the rest of the park.  It is special because it offers visitors easy access to the high Sierra (7000'-14,500' of elevation) just 1.7 miles walk from the visitor center.  Most of the park is in the mid-Sierra range (5,500'-7,000'). The hike followed along the babbling Kaweah river, and was very idyllic and pretty, even more so because we were alone the entire time.  I did not weary of the thrill of snowshoeing until we got to perhaps mile #3, when I started to feel the exertion in my hip flexors and butt.

At the end of the hike, we encountered the barren landscape I presume is typical of the high Sierras.  We found a couple of ice climbers climbing the Topokah ice fall with crampons and ice axe. It was very exciting for me to see something that is normally portrayed in scary survival movies such as "Touching the Void", so I felt compelled to watch.  But when fist-sized pieces of ice started to tumble down me, I was warned to step far to the side.

To be continued...

Adventures in Thai Massage

I took a much needed day off from work on my birthday.  It was well-timed.  I did not look forward to a scheduled meeting with the entire group that day, one where I suspected one of the directors was going to try to crucify (not literally) my direct manager. Leaving a couple of spies to attend in my absence, I went ahead on my day of hooky.

Thai Massage Stretch

One of the things I've always wanted to try, but never have had a chance to, is Thai Massage.  Thai Massage is well known for its intensity.  It is also well known for stretching one into pretzel-like positions.  This was perfect for me, since I have lingering, deep knots in my shoulders, have a high massage pain threshold, and love stretching.  So, for my birthday, I booked myself a 90 minute appointment at Suchada Thai Massage.

(As a side note, my sister-in-law, who is a professional massage therapist, says that Asians, like myself, tend to prefer more intense massages than Caucasians.  She attributes this to the fact that us Asians seem to have have denser muscle tissue.)

Suchada Thai Massage is probably the highest-rated Thai massage place in the San Francisco Bay area on Yelp.com.  They've staffed the place with authentic massage practitioners from Thailand.  However, unlike in Thailand, where the massage setting is usually clinical, Suchada has a spa-like setting.  Also, upon entry, you are directed to indicate where on a diagram of a body you would like extra attention.  In Thailand, or so I've read, massage proceeds like choreography, without any customization for individual areas. My advice to anyone thinking of visiting is: be careful what you ask for, for you will receive a pounding.  

Psoas Muscles

After taking off my shoes and changing into a loose fitting tank top and pajama bottoms I was directed to my room.  The room wasn't exactly a room, per se, rather it was a space that was divided from the other rooms with curtains.  I could hear the other massages that were going on elsewhere, and at one point heard one lady complaining loudly that she wanted a quieter room.

Right away, I was struck by the enormous pressure Wan (my massage therapist) exerted on my body with her hands, elbows, forearms, knees and feet.  At one point, Wan got on all fours on my back.  Her knees applied pressure to my butt cheeks, particularly along the Iliac crest (the top of the pelvis). This was a delicious feeling.  Later, she walked on my back, taking some of her weight off me by hanging onto a rope hanging from the ceiling.  She put one foot on my sacrum and the other foot on my shoulder, and then pushed her feet apart giving my back an intense diagonal stretch.

Levator Scapulae

Later on, she used her various limbs to pull me into different stretches.  The strangest posture I experienced was having my leg lifted up while I was on my stomach, and having my leg pulled over to the opposite side of my body (see top picture).  This turned out to be a great Psoas muscle stretch, which is not the most pleasant muscle to stretch on one's own, and not easy to do either, and so ends up being neglected a lot (see above right picture for position of Psoas muscles). My most favorite stretch, however, was when I was seated cross legged, and my head was bent down to one side, and she used her forearm to massage along the side of my neck. This ended up accessing my levator scapulae muscles in a way I've never experienced before. These muscles are so deeply knotted, that I have difficulty finding the strength to massage them on my own.

All in all, I winced quite a few times during the massage, which means that I got as much pressure as I needed, and then some.  Most of the times, therapists are too scared for fear of bruising my muscles.  In the day that followed I had a only a little soreness in my shoulder, and no bruising.  I didn't experience as much relief around my neck and shoulder as I expected after such a pounding, but I believe that such chronic conditions things take more than one session.

When I got home, I was itching to try some Thai massage moves  on my husband, Mark. He is not a big fan of massage, but I enjoy trying it on him, because I enjoy seeing the pain on his face (I know, I'm such a masochist). I pulled him into some of the pretzel stretches I endured, and Mark, quite predictably, did not enjoy them very much.  I also had new found respect for my massage therapist, because after two minutes of stretching my inert and heavy husband, I was sweating and out of breath, and needed a massage myself.

All in all, I think I would definitely repeat the experience, although I think that Thai massage is more therapeutic than relaxing.  If you feel stressed and want to feel pampered, I would recommend the usual deep-tissue massage.  However, if you have deep, chronic knots that nothing has provided relief for, I would recommend Thai Massage.

2011 New Year's Resolutions

It is that time of year again.  Here are my 2011 New Year's Resolutions:

(1) Appreciate happy times.  

(2) Reach milestones with my start-up business.  Create my first products, launch my website. See if it has promise to be a full blown business.

That's it for now.

Life Coach Experience, Part II

This blog post is about my past year's experience working with a life coach and is a continuation of a previous post, here.

This picture has nothing to do with the subject of this blog post, but contains relevant scuba diving information

What immediately struck me upon meeting Vicki was that her style of coaching complemented me well.  First of all, she is a certified "Fearless Living" coach.  This means that she espouses familiarizing ourselves intimately with our deepest fears, encourages being conscious of our reaction to our fear, and provides tools for handling our fears.  She also espouses embracing our fears, and "being uncomfortable with being uncomfortable." I aspire to be a courageous person, so her brave style of coaching appealed to me.  She also mentioned that she used to work at a large company before getting fed up and striking out on her own to launch her own coaching business.  This attitude also appealed to me, since I, certainly don't wish to climb the corporate ladder for the rest of my life, and would someday like to be my own boss.

I was also impressed with her abundant intuition. On many of our meetings, she surprised me by honing in on things I didn't realize about myself, or providing an insight that completely changed the way that I look at my life.  I spoke to her about what I perceived to be weaknesses, and she helped me reframe them into extensions of my strengths.  For example, I perceive one of my worst problems to be an inability to verbalize quickly on my feet.  Vicki reframed this supposed weakness into a result of one of my strengths, my ability to think things through thoroughly and in great detail.  Another weakness of mine that I mentioned was being overly-emotional, which can be dangerous at work. Vicki pointed out that my emotionality showed passion, and a strong sense of truth, and of right and wrong.  The general point to this exercise of turning my weakness into a strength was getting to know myself better and learning how to leverage my own strengths instead of nit-picking on my weaknesses.

Another major insight that I got from working with Vicki was realizing what my trigger was.  Everyone has a main fear, or trigger. A trigger is something that will cause people to overreact and behave irrationally when triggered.  My trigger just so happens to be "loser".  This means that I make great efforts to never be perceived as a loser in front of others.  And often times, I will be paranoid and misinterpret others as perceiving that I am a loser, when in fact that is not the case.  It wasn't until recently that I learned that not everyone is driven by the same "loser" trigger that I am driven by.  Some people, for instance go to great lengths to avoid being perceived as "selfish", "inauthentic", or "weak".  And I have recently met people who admitted that their trigger was "unlovable", which I find to be alien, but I have no doubt is a miserable fear.

Ironically, the efforts we make to avoid our fears can misfire.  For example, my "loser" trigger drives me to self-destructively compare myself to others, to over-apologize, and also to work furiously under a dark cloud of negativity.  Since identifying my trigger, I have become more adept at catching myself.  Oftentimes I will be working on a project and the following internal monologue will repeat in my head: "Everyone thinks I'm a loser, and will think my work sucks", "Everyone is going to hate this". I am beginning to learn how to interrupt this vicious circle of negativity. Sometimes I will reach out to a coworker and start a friendly conversation, sometimes I will take a deep breath or go for a walk.  Then, I change my internal monologue with the following playback loop: "How can I do better?  How can I excel? How is this fun?"

There are so many insights that I have gained by working with Vicki, that they are maybe too much to write about in this one blurb.  But I wanted to reiterate that Vicki has been a life coach who has not only provided me communication skills and techniques, all useful in navigating this game of life, but has also challenged myself to look deeply within myself and to become better acquainted with my deepest emotions and fears.  Her brand of coaching and encouragement is not always the most subtle, or gentle.  She herself states on her website: "Because sometimes you need more than a gentle push."  I have definitely appreciated her comment that I should become "comfortable with being uncomfortable" and I definitely appreciated her when, after a long session of complaining and feeling sorry for myself, she encouraged me man up and to "put my big girl pants on".

If you are interested in learning more about Vicki's coaching services, her information can be found on the following website:

http://mykickasscoach.com/

Also, you can find her on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/MyKickAssCoach

Life Coach Experience

One of the most significant things that happened to me this year, was deciding to work with a life coach.   As I revealed in an earlier blog post, I have been working with my life coach, Vicki, for the past 6 months.  I was not the first in my circle of friends to get a life coach. Two of my friends have gotten coaches (career or life coaches) before me.  These coaches helped my friends to varying degrees, but nevertheless, I was impressed by my friends' courage in taking steps in their personal growth, and vowed to eventually make similar steps of my own.  Beginning with my meditation retreat several years back, I have been making my personal growth a priority.  I consider my working with a life coach as continuation of what will be a life-long quest for self-discovery.

The above picture has nothing to do with the subject of this blog post, but who can a resist a cute kitty picture?

From what little I know of the profession of life-coaching, a life coach is similar to a sports coach, except instead of guiding, critiquing and cheering on the players of a sports team, a life coach guides, critiques, and cheers on a person in their life's endeavors. I decided to get a coach because I felt that I was getting myself into difficulties at work time and time again, and at work place after work place.  The only common denominator to these work situations, it seemed, was me.  So I decided to get an outside perspective to aid me to see what I was doing wrong, to help me to have the correct conversations with coworkers, and to present myself in a better way.

By hiring a life coach, I expected to get a toolbox of skills and techniques, and rules of thumb to help me navigate my work perils better. I am getting these things, but in addition, I think I am getting something a little deeper.  (As a side note, not all coaches are created equal.  A friend of mine who hired a life coach was asked to attend karate classes, and to attend Toastmasters to pump up her confidence, and to improve her public speaking skills.  The coach even went clothes shopping with my friend for work clothes. I thought that my friend was very brave to try on a new persona. But I felt I could hardly recognize my friend anymore after her coaching sessions were over.)

Vicki and I speak for an hour on a biweekly basis.  The conversation is conducted over the phone. Coaching sessions are not inexpensive.  For the cost of hiring a coach, I could be buying a couple of expensive pairs of shoes every month.  Before each coaching session, my coach sends me a list of pointed questions to ask myself:

What are the roadblocks I am now experiencing? What is it you are not willing to bring up? What do I want my coach to help me with during this call?

In addition to these questions, I have also been e-mailing Vicki twice before each session.   This can be something that is bothering me, a success, or whatever.  Finally, after each coaching session, Vicki writes her coaching notes, which contain "homework", usually reading assignments, and insights from the coaching session.  I have been using the insights to guide me in how I behave towards myself and others, and revisiting these insights as need be.

To be continued...

2010 New Year Resolutions, and Results

I cannot believe another year has blown by.  After reading over my 2010 New Year's Resolutions, it feels like I had just wrote them yesterday.  Here are my 2010 New Year Resolutions and associated results:

1. Watch less TV, play less video games, surf the internet less. Generally, get my butt off the sofa more.
No, Yes, Yes, Somewhat.  I think I was successful in playing less video games.  When you go home at lunch to play video games, like I did in 2009, it is a very clear indication that you are playing too many video games.  This did not happen this year.  (However, as a side note, I did obtain a wireless headset to communicate with my coworker while playing Call of Duty Black Ops, so I haven't given up games altogether.) I am continuing to watch a lot of TV indirectly due to Mark's excessive TV watching, but overall I think I did better than before. Verdict: Fair.

2. Stretch my lower back and shoulder more. These spots are giving me grief.
I did a very good job in this department.  The tension is not completely gone, and will come back in force in times of stress, but I am constantly stretching these neck and lower back, without even thinking about it. Verdict: Good.

3. Continue to make exercise a habit.
Exercise this year was up and down.  My gym closed down, but I continued to do P90X videos on my own.  I got to the point of being able to do weird feats of strength, like doing 30 push ups in a row, or going from the "crane" position (a yoga balance move) and jumping into plank.  Then, I discovered that simply eating less (1450 calories a day) was a more efficient way to lose weight than exercising a lot, so I began to limit exercise to once a week.  Now I'm trying to renew my exercise habit after my experiment resulted in me getting too flabby.  Verdict: Fair.

4. Begin to think about what it means to grow older and come to terms with it. These are one of the things I fear the most -- getting older, and being perceived as old. Thank goodness I don't look any age at all with my asian face.
Ha ha.  I don't think I made any progress at all in this department. I'm embarassed to say, I still feel like I am in my 20s mentally speaking.  Verdict: Poor.

5. Continue with my spiritual and psychological development.
I am working very hard in this department.  In August, I hired a personal life coach, and I have been working with her biweekly ever since.  This deserves it's own little blog post, but to summarize, I have been making a lot of progress.  Verdict: Good.

6. Take better care of my skin.
I have also been making significant progress with my skin.  I discovered several important skin-care habits: (1) I apply Atralin, a tretinoin-based acne medication, on my face every night.  The tretinoin is great for treating adult acne, but I also receive the side-benefit of having younger looking skin, as tretinoin encourages the turnover of skin.  As a result, my skin looks clearer and more youthful than it has in years. (2) My second habit is to moisturize my face every day (Aveeno facial soy based moisturizer).  The Aveeno moisturizer that I use does not irritate my skin, and it helps keep my oil production down.  It also has the side benefit of evening out my skin tone.  (3) Less significantly, I am appreciating the benefits of blotting.  Rather than washing and drying out my skin, I regularly blot my face with toilet paper, which has the added benefit of leaving my makeup intact, in addition to removing shine. Verdict: Excellent.

7. Do new things. Plan more events with friends.
So this year I wasn't a complete couch potato.  I ended up organizing several events, including a ski trip, a Halloween party, hiking outings, dive outings and dinner parties.  This coming year promises to unveil more creative events.  Verdict: Good.

8. Dare I say it? Travel more? Will it happen with my dwindled finances and few vacation days?
I definitely got to travel a decent amount this year.  I travelled to Indianapolis for work (better than nothing), and I also got to travel to Zion National Park and to Fiji for my honeymoon.  I will try to write more about Zion at a later date, but to read up on my honeymoon, go here. Verdict: Good.

9. Continue to acquire a stylish wardrobe!
This year saw a resurgence in my fascination for fashion.  I love the jeggings, ankle boots and blousy silhouettes that have become trendy this year.  My conclusion is that you don't have to spend a lot to look fashionable.  You just need good taste.  Verdict: Excellent.

10. Survive work in 2010 with my sanity intact, which promises to be the make or break year.
This year was pretty good as far as work is concerned. I wished I had done more, but I shattered a couple of boundaries that I had previously.  My boss getting fired helped a lot! He was holding me back, as well as the rest of the company, which was why he got fired in the first place.  Verdict: Good.

More detail later...