23.5K

Tonight's Namsan hike pushed my step total up to 23,486 steps. I made 20K by midnight and did the remaining 3,500 steps while walking back to my place. Weighed myself after all that sweating and was disappointed to see 119.1 kilograms. I still haven't broken through the 119 mark yet. Part of the problem, I think, is that I hadn't had a decent poop all day: my vegetarian lunch simply refused to leave the confines of my intestines, thus adding a fraction of a kilogram of weight to my results. Maybe I need more fiber. (Which is on the way: I ordered a mess of fiber capsules from iHerb.com, which had a good deal on them.)

One of my students texted me while I was on my way back to my yeogwan. It was after midnight, and the import of her text was that she hadn't bothered to do the homework because she wanted to know how to begin the writing assignment. Silly lass. But she's one of my best students, and she lived in northern Virginia, so I have to forgive her. She's a homegirl.

Perhaps because there was a light rain that fell for most of the daylight hours on Monday, the evening was cool and a bit misty—cool enough, in fact, for me to be able to see my breath for the first time since spring. The rain also brought down plenty of leaves from the trees lining the hiking path: a reminder that fall is here.

I doubled-summited Namsan, as promised, but instead of taking the descending bus road back up to the top, I took the stairs for the second time since mid-August. Once again, I succeeded at climbing the stairs without stopping, although the route seemed much more tiring this time.

I don't know whether I'll hit Namsan tonight (Tuesday). I might just walk to Jongno and back to get my 10K steps in. My September daily step average is guaranteed to be well over 13K steps, even if I do nothing. Perhaps I'll average out at 15K in October. You never know.


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