Leilani Labong

Okay fine, it's not in Malaysia, it's in Berkeley. But you'll still feel like this.

Lululemon at Flickr

Let's be clear: I'm not dedicating my first official post as the new travel/outdoors/any-pursuits-of-the-active-kind blogger to yoga because I'm some kind of self-proclaimed guru who finds enlightenment through sun salutations. Oh, no. I trudge to class three days a week and subject my body to all manner of torturous twists, bends and inversions only because I'm chasing the flexibility I attained in the summer of 1985 when I took gymnastics classes in a misguided attempt to become Mary Lou Retton.

Crafters get the space (and tools) they need at NoPa newcomer Workshop.

Keeney + Law Photography

In 2007 Kelly Malone had an enviable job as a stylist for Victoria’s Secret and was in New York City when she received a fateful phone call from her San Francisco doctor. “He told me I had ovarian cancer,” says the Philly native, who moved to SF in 2005 to work as a visual merchandiser for Gap, Inc. The then-33-year-old promptly quit VS and underwent chemotherapy. “I didn’t want to sit at home and feel sorry for myself, so I threw a party in my backyard for all my friends to sell their handmade crafts.”

The fact that Gravel & Gold’s URL could be read, rather morosely, as “Graveland Gold,” produces satisfied grins on the faces of Cassie McGettigan, Nile Nash and Lisa Foti-Straus, the twenty-something friends who co-own the new Mission District boutique that specializes in home accessories and vintage clothing. “It’s a little dark, but it seems to be an awesome name for a vintage store,” says McGettigan, a Virginia native.

Gabriela Hasbun

There is a mutiny afoot in the world of Bay Area floral design. It’s brewing—or blooming, rather—inside an old garage space in South San Francisco, headquarters of newcomer Studio Choo.

Douglas McGray, editor in chief of Pop Up Magazine

A recent Friday night in the Mission yielded an intriguing tapestry of events: a spirited introduction to Pee Wee’s Playhouse set designer Wayne White, a demonstration of a super-high-intensity laser pointer from China, an amusing customer-service comparison of UPS and FedEx drivers according to a particular monk population in rural Colorado. The soundtrack of electro-pop samples and gleeful noises of Cambodian children playing in the ponds at Angkor Wat added a charming ingredient to the mix. Too eclectic, you say, even for the Mission?