Hi, I'm Sumi

My bud has been on a training kick lately. Something about a big trek coming up that apparently requires him to haul a massive camera bag up mountains every weekend. I don’t ask too many questions. I just ride along.

Today’s plan was Griffith Peak at Mt. Charleston. Good elevation, decent trail, should’ve been a solid workout. Emphasis on should’ve been.

We got to the trailhead and the trail was closed. Just… closed. No explanation, no alternative, just a sign that basically said “nope.” So we pivoted to Lower Bristlecone instead. Fine. Flexible. Adaptable. That’s what training is about, right?

Except then about a mile in, Pokin’s stomach decided it also didn’t want to be on this hike. So we turned around.

Not exactly the epic mountain conquest we had in mind.

BUT — and this is the part Nicholas actually cared about — the gear test was a success. He’s lugging around 25 pounds of camera equipment in that Shimoda bag, and today was about seeing how it all felt on the trail. The bag itself is comfortable. The camera clips on and off the shoulder strap fast. The tripod stays put. The whole setup works.

The bear on top of the backpack? Also stays put. Not that anyone asked about my comfort.

He’s got the camera, the tripod, clips, poles, and somehow still found room for water. I’m tucked in between all of it like cargo. Which I suppose I am, technically. Premium cargo.

Short hike. Good intel. We’ll be back for the real thing next week at Brian Head for some altitude work. Assuming no one’s stomach vetoes the plan.

Onwards.

Nicholas’s mom was in town, and someone decided the best use of a perfectly good gaming Saturday was to drive two hours into the hottest place on Earth to look at flowers.

It’s February. It should not be hot. It was hot.

But fine. Death Valley is having a superbloom, and apparently that’s a big deal. When the desert gets enough rain — which happens maybe once every few years — the seeds that have been sitting dormant in the dirt suddenly decide to all wake up at once and turn the valley floor into something that looks like someone spilled a paint store. The last time it happened like this was… actually, the last time we went to see a superbloom. So I guess this is becoming a thing.

Nicholas’s mom was going on about the flower colors — the yellows are desert gold sunflowers, the purples are phacelia, and there are little white and pink ones mixed in that I didn’t catch the names of because I was being carried in a backpack and had limited interest in botany. The gist is: different minerals in the soil produce different colored flowers in different areas. Science.

Oh, and this trip had a special guest.

Chestnut. The horse. From Hong Kong. He would not stop talking about how amazing everything was. “The flowers are so beautiful!” “The mountains are so grand!” “What a wonderful day to be alive!”

Yes, Chestnut. It’s dirt and flowers. Calm down.

I’ll admit it though — the purple ones were something. Clusters of phacelia growing straight out of black volcanic rock, like the flowers didn’t get the memo that nothing is supposed to live here. The contrast was ridiculous. Dark hillside, bright purple, golden yellow. Looked fake.

We stopped at Artist’s Palette, which has nothing to do with flowers but everything to do with looking like a screensaver. The hills are painted in layers of green, pink, rust, and lavender from different mineral deposits. Nicholas’s mom loved it. I sat on a sign.

Then: Badwater Basin. The lowest point in North America. 282 feet below sea level. I have now been to the lowest point on the continent, which I feel should come with some kind of certificate or medal. It did not.

Also, both Nicholas AND Pokin forgot their park passes. So they had to buy yet another one. I think this is their third or fourth in less than a year. At least it’s supporting the parks. That’s what I told them. They did not seem comforted.

The salt flats had water in them, which almost never happens. The same rain that triggered the superbloom left shallow pools across the basin that turned into perfect mirrors.

We stuck around for sunset because of course we did. Pokin doesn’t let anyone leave a scenic location before golden hour. But this time I’ll give her credit — the light was doing something.

The reflections on the water turned the whole basin into a mirror. Lenticular clouds stacked up over the mountains like someone was showing off. Snow on the peaks. The whole thing.

Hot, dusty, too many flowers, not enough cocoa, and someone’s horse wouldn’t stop saying how great everything was.

But I guess it didn’t totally stink.

It’s Chinese New Year. Year of the Horse.

You can imagine how Chestnut took the news.

Chestnut has been with us for a while now, but this is his first Chinese New Year in the house, and wouldn’t you know it — it’s his year. He hasn’t shut up about it. The house is full of horse figurines. The couch is full of horse figurines. I’m not sure where they all came from but Chestnut seems to think they’re his entourage.

Apparently the Year of the Horse symbolizes energy, freedom, and enthusiasm. Which is just Chestnut’s normal personality turned up to eleven with cultural validation. Great.

We got Chinese New Year gifts. I got chocolates. Chestnut got apples. Seems appropriate — horses eat apples, bears eat chocolate. I’m not going to pretend the chocolates weren’t excellent.

Now, the main event. Pokin decided to go all out this year and bought a proper wok for the occasion. One problem: she didn’t realize you have to season a wok before you cook with it. It’s not like a regular pan. You have to heat it up, oil it, burn the oil off, repeat, build up the coating, the whole thing. She tried to cook with it raw and it went about as well as you’d expect.

So Nicholas stepped in, seasoned the wok properly, and then — this is the important part — wouldn’t let Pokin use it.

He seasoned it and claimed it. That’s the wok now. His wok. Pokin bought a wok for Chinese New Year and Nicholas got a new wok.

The actual dinner was ridiculous though. Pokin made an entire five-course menu with cultural notes explaining what each dish symbolized. Potstickers shaped like gold ingots for prosperity. Steamed seabass for surplus. Sesame balls because they expand when fried and that means your luck is expanding. Noodles for longevity. There was a whole printed menu card and everything.

I mostly cared about Course V: The Sweet Finish. Mango pudding, almond jello, sesame balls, mochi, AND cookies. Five desserts. In one meal. This is my kind of cultural celebration.

Chestnut says this was the best night of his life. I told him to settle down, it’s February.

But the chocolates were really good.

We stopped in Busan on the way to Jeju because people told us we should. It’s Korea’s second biggest city, right on the southern coast. Ocean, cliffs, seafood, the whole deal.

First order of business: lunch.

Naengmyeon. Cold buckwheat noodles with banchan. Ordered from a tablet because Korea has figured out that talking to waiters is optional.

Pokin was tired and had work to catch up on, so she stayed back at the hotel after lunch. Which left Nicholas and me.

I told him to take me to see the ocean. He needs to keep working that knee anyway. The big hike is day after tomorrow and I’ll be honest, it’s looking dicey. But he’s pulling through.

Busan’s coastline is something else. We started walking along the shore and just kept going, up paths we probably weren’t meant to take, along cliffs we probably weren’t meant to climb.

The beach was nearly empty. Off-season. Just us and the skyscrapers across the water.

They built this skywalk that extends right out over the water. Glass floor, waves underneath. I am on record as being dramatically anti-water, so I want it noted that I walked out there anyway. Bravery.

The coastal trail kept going. Rocky cliffs dropping straight into turquoise water. Staircases carved into the hillside. The kind of path where you’re either going straight up or straight down, and every landing has a view that makes you forget you’re out of breath.

Next day, all three of us went back out. Same coast, but farther.

Morning mist rolling through the pines on the hillside. Quiet. The kind of view you don’t need to say anything about.

We kept walking until we hit the Songdo Cable Car area, where things took a turn.

There were dinosaurs. Full-sized dinosaur statues. Just there. At the cable car park. No explanation. No museum. Just a T-Rex with blood on its mouth standing next to a ticket booth like it works there. Teeth bared. Eyes dead. I respect the commitment. This is how you welcome guests.

Korea does this thing where they put random sculptures and statues in public spaces and nobody questions it. Giant blood-mouthed predators at a coastal gondola? Sure. Why not. I’m into it.

We took the cable car back.

The Songdo Cable Car runs right over the ocean, connecting the coastal park back to the city. Gondolas gliding over turquoise water with the whole Busan skyline stretched out ahead of you.

More dinosaurs greeted us at the Busan terminal. Because of course they did.

Busan surprised me. I expected a city with a beach. I got a city built into cliffs, wrapped around an ocean, full of trails and cable cars and dinosaurs that nobody can explain.

Tomorrow: Jeju. The big one. The hike.

Nicholas’s knee has been warned.

Korea has been through a lot of wars. Seoul was nearly flattened during the Korean War. Most of the country’s wooden palaces and temples have been lost to fire, neglect, or conflict over the centuries. Gyeongju is the exception. Not because everything survived, but because the things that are hardest to destroy did: the stone monuments, the earthworks, the ancient city layout, the burial mounds. The old capital of the Silla dynasty kept its bones when everywhere else lost theirs.

So naturally, we took the train down to see it.

We got our K-Pass, hopped on the KTX, and arrived in Gyeongju. The hotel was… interesting. Korean-style ondol room with floor-level futons, warm wood walls, and a bathroom that was genuinely larger than the bedroom. I’m talking a full stone soaking tub, mosaic tiles, the works. The bedroom was basically a very fancy closet. Priorities.

We got in too late for any real dinner, so we did what you do in Korea when everything’s closed: convenience store.

Korean convenience stores are something else. An entire wall of Buldak fire noodles in flavors like Cheese, Carbo, and Rosé. ₩1,800 each.

The hotel had a strict no-food-in-the-room policy. We bought the ramen anyway, smuggled the bowls upstairs, and ate them in silence like criminals. Did our best to leave no trace. The steam probably gave us away.

Next morning, we went for a walk. Yes, Nicholas is still walking on his knee. The man is committed to pretending he’s fine.

We found a café doing fika. If you don’t know what fika is, it’s the Swedish tradition of sitting down for coffee and pastries, and taking your time about it. Nicholas’s mom is obsessed with it. We did fika in Sweden and now we can’t escape it. It follows us.

Fueled up, we went to see the thing Gyeongju is famous for: the burial mounds.

These are Silla dynasty royal tombs. Giant grass-covered domes, right in the middle of the city, just sitting there between apartment buildings and cafés. Each one has an ancient king or queen buried underneath. Sacred ground. You can walk right up to them, but you can’t walk on them. Strictly forbidden, protected national heritage.

It’s wild. In most countries, something like this would have a fence and a gift shop and a $30 entrance fee. In Gyeongju, it’s just part of the scenery. People jog past them.

Even the Starbucks is in a traditional hanok building with curved tile roofs. The city has strict building codes to preserve the historic character. No modern eyesores. Just a Frappuccino served under 600-year-old architecture. As it should be.

Cheomseongdae. The oldest surviving astronomical observatory in East Asia, built during the Silla dynasty in the 7th century. It’s a stone tower about 30 feet tall and it’s been standing there for 1,300 years. People were studying the stars from this thing before most of Europe had figured out plumbing.

We specifically sought this one out. My bud and I are space bears. We’ve watched Starship catch its own booster. We’ve stared at the Milky Way from a dozen countries. The idea that someone built a stone tower in the 7th century just to look up and try to understand what was out there? That’s our kind of people.

Wolji Pond was the royal pleasure garden. Stone-lined banks, pine trees, pavilions reflected in turquoise water. The Silla kings would throw parties here. I respect a dynasty that prioritizes a good garden.

The temple corridors have these painted wooden beams called dancheong. Red, green, blue, gold, all in intricate geometric patterns. Every color has meaning. Every pattern follows rules that are centuries old. Someone painted each one of these by hand.

Woljeonggyo Bridge. This one’s a reconstruction, but it’s built to the original Silla-era specifications. Two-story pavilions on each end, stone piers in the river. It’s the kind of bridge that makes you realize modern bridges are boring.

We wandered through an old compound that looked straight out of Rurouni Kenshin. Stone walls, wooden gates, a courtyard so quiet you could hear yourself breathe.

As the sun went down, we found what turned out to be the best Korean BBQ of the entire trip.

Not the sanitized tourist version with gas burners. This place used real burning coals. The meat was incredible. After a full day of walking on a busted knee, Nicholas deserved this. I’ll give him that.

Then came hwangnam-ppang for dessert.

Little bread buns filled with sweet red bean paste. Warm, soft, not too sweet. You buy a bag from a street vendor and eat them while walking home past 1,500-year-old tombs under the streetlights.

That’s Gyeongju. A city where ancient history is just the backdrop to daily life. Where a king’s tomb is something you walk past on the way home from dinner.

Nicholas’s knee made it through. Barely.

Day two in Seoul. Nicholas is still limping. The knee is “fine.” He needs it to be fine because there’s a big hike planned at the end of this trip, and if he can’t bend his leg by then, that hike isn’t happening.

Also, Korean elections were happening.

We walked out of the hotel and immediately found ourselves in the middle of some kind of political rally situation. Barricades everywhere. Police vehicles. Campaign displays on the sidewalks with robots draped in American flags. The vibe was intense and very familiar in a way that was hard to place at first, and then very easy to place. Nicholas said it felt like watching a rally back home, just in Korean.

I can’t comment. I’m a bear. They don’t let me vote.

A lot of streets were barricaded off because of protests, which meant our walking route kept getting rerouted. More walking for peg leg. Great.

But walking in Seoul does have its perks.

Gwanghwamun. The main gate of Gyeongbokgung Palace. Built in 1395, burned down, rebuilt, burned down again, rebuilt again. Seoul’s whole deal, honestly. Everything here has been destroyed and rebuilt at least twice. Resilient city.

Visitors were dressed in hanbok, the traditional Korean clothing, which apparently gets you free entry to the palace. Smart move by the tourism board. Pokin considered renting one. Nicholas considered the state of his knee and opted out.

The palace grounds are beautiful. Painted eaves, dark tile roofs, courtyards that stretch on forever. I could get used to this. Someone build me one.

Now. Let me tell you about the Labubu situation.

Pop Mart is this toy company that makes designer collectible figures. The hot item at the time was Labubu, this little gremlin-looking thing that comes in blind boxes. You don’t know which one you’re getting. It’s a loot box. A physical, $15, stand-in-line-for-an-hour loot box.

A friend’s wife wanted one. So naturally, the entire trip became a Labubu reconnaissance mission.

Every day, part of our Seoul itinerary became: find Pop Mart, check stock, no Labubus, move on.

We went to this Pop Mart. Out of stock. We went to another one. Out of stock. We went to a third. Out of stock.

They were just never in stock. Anywhere. In the entire city of Seoul. Every single day.

Eventually Pokin had a revelation. Pop Mart is originally from Hong Kong. Pokin is from Hong Kong. She called her cousins and asked them to just get one there. Which they did.

Spoiler: we never got a single Labubu in Korea.

In between the Labubu hunt, we actually saw some beautiful things.

Queen’s Bakery in the Anguk neighborhood had a life-sized teddy bear sitting outside in an apron. Finally, a café that understands customer service.

The pastries inside were absurd. Strawberry croissants piled with cream. Chocolate muffins with gold leaf. Canelés. Grand Marnier on the shelf behind the counter. This is what a bakery should be.

We wandered through Bukchon and found a capsule machine shop sorted by MBTI personality types. Korea is obsessed with MBTI. People ask your type the way Americans ask your sign. Nicholas is INTJ, which according to the internet means “strategic mastermind.” According to me, it means “overthinks everything and hates small talk.” He didn’t disagree.

We ended up at Jogyesa Temple, Seoul’s main Buddhist temple. Hundreds of lotus lanterns strung overhead in every color, radiating out like a rainbow ceiling. They do this for Buddha’s Birthday, but the setup was already in full display.

Every lantern has a little tag with a name and a wish written in Korean. Hundreds of them clustered around the stone pagoda. It was quiet in there. Peaceful. A nice break from the election noise and the Pop Mart lines.

End of day two. Nicholas’s knee survived. No Labubus were acquired. Several pastries were consumed.

Seoul, we’re just getting started.

We’re in Korea.

Pokin had just wrapped up her forum in Seoul, and Nicholas flew in to meet her. With fresh stitches in his knee. From a bunny slope. You may recall.

Our base was The PLAZA Seoul, which sounds fancy because it is. From there, the plan was simple: walk up to Namsan Tower, take in the views, explore the city.

Walk. With the guy who just had his knee reassembled by a Utah emergency room two weeks ago.

Up the trail we went. Nicholas hobbling like a man with a peg leg, refusing to acknowledge that any of this was a problem. The trail up Namsan is pretty. Brick paths, bare trees, spring just starting to show up. But it’s also uphill, which is not ideal when one of your legs is held together by medical thread.

The view from up there, though. I’ll give Seoul that. The whole city just spreads out in every direction with mountains behind it. You can see why people climb up here.

Made it to the top. N Seoul Tower. Big tower. I’ve seen towers. This one’s got a good location, I’ll say that.

Now. Here’s where the day got interesting.

A friend of ours had heard about this pizza place, Spacca Napoli, supposedly the best pizza in Seoul. Pokin had the bright idea that we should walk there from the tower. More walking. For the man with the peg leg.

We thought it’d be a quick jaunt.

It wasn’t.

We wound through these steep hillside neighborhoods, down narrow streets, past tiny shops. Seoul is a city that was apparently designed by someone who had never heard of level ground. Every block is either straight up or straight down. Nicholas’s knee had opinions about all of it.

We got to Spacca Napoli at 2:58.

It was closed until dinner service.

So we had to kill two hours. More walking. We popped into some Pop Mart stores to look for Labubus. No luck. Nicholas’s knee was filing a formal complaint.

We got back to the pizza place at 4:30. Line out the door. Forty-minute wait.

Our friend was thrilled. I felt about the same.

One thing worth mentioning about Seoul: Google Maps doesn’t work here. Not properly. South Korea restricts mapping data because they’re technically still at war with North Korea, and the border is right there. So you have to download Naver, the Korean navigation app, to actually figure out where you’re going. Google will show you streets but it won’t give you directions. We learned this the hard way. Several times.

Eventually we got pizza.

It was good. Proper Neapolitan. Puffy charred crust, fresh mozzarella, basil, the works.

Was it worth walking what felt like the entire city of Seoul on a stitched-up knee to eat at a pizza place that was closed, then waiting in line for forty minutes?

I’ll let Nicholas’s knee answer that one.

We went to Brian Head to ski.

Pokin grew up in Canada. You’d think skiing would be in her blood. It is not. She never learned. So they decided to take a green run. You know, the ones designed for children and people who have recently discovered that snow exists.

So we went to the bunny slope. For Pokin.

Guess who wiped out.

Hint: not Pokin.

My bud, who I’m told is a “great skier” and was “definitely not hot-dogging,” somehow launched a ski off his foot with such precision that it sliced his knee open like a samurai katana. On the bunny slope. The one we were on for Pokin.

He didn’t even feel it. Just kept going until he noticed the blood on the lift.

I have questions. Several of them. But I’ll save those for later.

Ski patrol showed up with the toboggan. Three of them. For a bunny slope injury. I’m sure that wasn’t embarrassing at all.

They got his boot off in the patrol room and had a look. His sister Julia stood there with the expression of someone who’d just watched her brother get taken out by the tutorial level.

The verdict: stitches. A lot of them.

Now here’s the thing about Brian Head. It’s a ski resort in the middle of nowhere, Utah. The nearest ER is about forty minutes down the mountain. And we drove there in the Cybertruck.

Nobody else knew how to drive the Cybertruck.

Not Julia. Not Pokin. Just Nicholas. The guy who couldn’t bend his leg.

So the truck drove itself down the mountain. Forty minutes of autonomous driving through Utah canyon roads while my bud sat there with a sliced-open knee trying very hard not to move. I sat in the bag trying very hard not to think about it. Technology!

They stitched him up at Intermountain Health. He survived. The whiteboard behind him says his nurse’s name was “Sunshine.” Even the hospital was mocking him.

The bunny slope remains undefeated.

Now. Pokin’s response to all of this was… interesting.

She went to the store and bought him a strawberry-scented Easter Peep. As “emotional support.”

An emotional support Peep. For a ski injury. On a bunny slope.

I want to be clear: we already have a Peep. One Peep is already too many Peeps. That yellow menace has been stowing away on trips since 2015 and contributes nothing except chaos and the word “Peep.”

And Pokin’s solution to Nicholas’s suffering was to bring home another one.

I didn’t know whether to smack him or feel sorry for him. Pokin made the decision for me by handing him a scented stuffed animal in an emergency room.

Bunny slope.

Ulgh.

As you know, I’m a big fan of space.  As evidenced by my multiple times playing Commander Sumi Shepherd for Mass Effect.

You may also know that I’m a big fan of SpaceX and real space efforts and I would do anything to live out my commander space fantasies on Starship.

Today I feel like I’m on paw closer. My bud and Pokin took me to see the Starship 5 Test Flight in Boca Chica Texas.

We flew a red eye late at night, got in at 5:30AM to Brownsville Texas, and rushed to the launch site. Along the road were lines of cars with photography gear stationed to capture the moment. En route, cars snaked, bumper to bumper, headed towards a viewing spot.

We get there as the sun is above to rise.

The crazy engineers at SpaceX were going to launch Starship and then attempt a landing back on it’s own pad catching it with these new experimental ‘chopsticks’ named Mechzilla. This shouldn’t work, not first try with so many potential things to go wrong. We fully expected the landing to be aborted, or if attempted, a giant fireball to destroy the landing pad. The launch was originally scheduled for 7:15, and then they pushed it to 7:25AM. I knew they only had a short launch window. I was nervous. They decided to go for it.

They started counting down. It’s going to be a go! My bud gets his camera in place.

It takes off!

We cheered as it went into space, performed the separation.

It was time for the booster to return. Were they going to try the maneuver? It wasn’t automatically scheduled and they were going to make a game day decision.

And they announced they were going to go for it! 😮

They went for it! The booster comes back like it’s falling out of the sky and then right as it looks like it’s going to just plummet into the ground the boost-back burners fire back up straighten the booster, and then just slides in place to be caught by the mechanical arm.

We cheer, we go mad. It landed it’s first try!!!

!!!!!!

! This is history!

We did not expect that everything would go perfectly, absolutely nailing every last aspect and maneuver, making history in the process.

This was SO COOL. The rumble of the ship, watching it go up and back down in the sunrise, the sonic boom and sticking the landing… It doesn’t get better than this! Mars, get ready for a future with bears!

So my bud goes and makes this epic cinematic video of our Greenland trip — dramatic music, sweeping landscapes, icebergs, the whole deal.

And guess who wasn’t in a SINGLE FRAME?

This bear.

Not one shot. Not even a cameo. Not a wing tip in the corner. Nothing.

You’d think he went to Greenland alone. With just Pokin and a camera. As if I wasn’t RIGHT THERE the entire time.

I WAS THERE, NICHOLAS. I was there for ALL of it.

So here’s my proof.

That’s me. On the tundra. In Greenland. Right there between Nicholas and Pokin while enormous icebergs float by in the fjord behind us. The autumn colors were actually kind of cool — reds, oranges, browns — if you could ignore the fact that it was freezing and also basically surrounded by water.

The Ilulissat Icefjord. Massive icebergs calve off the glacier and just… sit there. Packed together like a frozen traffic jam. It’s impressive, I’ll give it that. Even if it is just a lot of very cold water.

Not that you’d know I was there to see it, from that video.

That’s me and Nicholas on the water. There’s a red-sailed boat behind us, and behind that, an iceberg the size of a building. The water was weirdly calm. The light was doing that golden thing it does when it’s trying to show off.

I mean, come on. This is better footage than anything in that video, Nicholas.

OK I’ll give him this — Greenland at sunset does look ridiculous. The sky went all pink and peach, the sailboat was just cruising through floating ice, and the whole thing looked fake. Like a screensaver someone would sell you.

I guess he can be forgiven. A little.

But next time, the bear gets screen time. Non-negotiable.