Last week at this time, the boyfriend and I just arrived in Hong Kong, ready for our respective Standard Chartered runs.
On the way at Singapore Changi Airport!
On the plane.
Babymeh went along too!
Finally in HK!
We took the airport express and complimentary shuttle bus to Marco Polo HK Hotel, where Dilys, Jacky, Jason, Joanne and Jayren have already checked in.
Hello girlfriend, we finally meet in HK!
Because the Js went to HK a few days ahead of us, they were kind to help us collect all our race packs.
After settling down, we met the others and Jacky brought us around to try awesome street food!
The Ji Dan Zai was FREAKING AWESOMEEEE!
After walking around a fair bit, we settled dinner at a random Cha Chan Teng.
Seriously cannot find a place where food is not nice in Hong Kong. Everything we ate was good, very good in fact! Headed back to rest right after dinner, for the girls' 10km event, and the guys' full marathon the following morning.
The morning finally arrived, for my first ever overseas race, and also in a weather I've not experienced running before.
HK Standard Chartered, LET'S GO!
The guys prior to the start of their race.
Because the starting point of the 10km and full marathon were at different locations, Dilys and I had to head out earlier than the guys to take the MTR to our destination. The guys were lucky because their starting point was a mere 5 minutes walk from our hotel.
The moment Dilys and I reached our hotel lobby, we could feel the chilling air. It was 17 degrees celcius that morning. Once we stepped out into the open, the both of us silently braved the cold and headed to the MTR station. At the traffic light, we waited for the red man to turn green even though there were no cars at all. Somehow, without speaking, the both of us looked at each other at the exact same moment, and ignoring the traffic light, we unanimously ran across the street all the way to the MTR station!
Once we were out of the cold, I told her that we had to take a picture to see our reactions after braving the cold. Once again, without agreeing on any facial expressions, we made the EXACT SAME FACE!
So much love for this girl and how we can communicate and understand one another even when words are not spoken.
When we reached our destination, the place was swarmed with loads of people!!!
People mountain, people sea!
Before being flagged off.
At 6.30am, Dilys and I were flagged off for our race. It was crazily cold and the wind blew mercilessly. But it eventually got better after a few km when I started to perspire. The cool weather made the run easy despite the multiple slopes we had to run up. Thank goodness I've had some slope training during my usual runs.
According to Dilys' RunKeeper, it clocked 10.3km as well, so it was quite likely that the total distance was about 300m more than 10km. Whatever it was, I have broken my PB for official race events, but if the distance was exactly at 10km, I could have very well broken my unofficial 10km PB of 59:10 which I clocked the week prior to Hong Kong. I totally enjoyed this overseas + cool weather run experience. Something I will never forget!
Official results.
Official finishing picture!
Our first ever overseas run together, completed!
As we had quite a lot of time to kill before the guys completed their race and had enough rest, Dilys and I went out exploring on our own. First stop, AFTER RUN FOOD FUEL!
Outfit of the day.
Once again, our body had some telepathic crazy stuff that went on, which caused the both of us the need to visit the loo after our brunch. And my girlfriend is so so so full of shit. Like metaphorically and literally!
So much love for this girl!
We had a lot of time to ourselves, so we walked and ate and walk and ate.
Yum yum in my tum tum!
The boyfriend finally joined us in the evening and we went for dinner at an eatery which D said the food was food, and was seconded by Jacky.
The menu was ALL in Chinese words!
And after dinner, it was MORE walking. And my best buy for the day was an Adidas reversible thick jacket!
MAD LOVE!
The last day finally came, and we made full use of it by travelling around more than we did the day before, and it was also a day of non-stop eating!
First up was brunch at the same place, DimSumBar. Then we went in search of the Nici store that was located at the MTR near our hotel, and then we had to rush back to the hotel to check out.
Look who I found! Juniortwinmeh!
All these for under SGD 60! So cheap as compared to SG!
After checking out, we had 9 hours to kill before heading to the airport to spend the night there. We took a walk to Avenue of Stars then walked a super long distance to Australia Dairy Co (apparently a famous cafe that serves awesome possum food). Thereafter, we headed to Citygate Outlets before returning to the hotel to get our luggage to head to the airport.
Australia Dairy Co was a very stressful eatery to be in. The staff will hustle you in, rush you with your order, serve the food right up to you within minutes, and hustle you out with their unique way of sending other customers in to wait around your table. We were in and out of the place in 15 minutes flat, probably even lesser! But to be honest, the food was DAMN GOOD! Super crispy yet soft thick toast, damn creamy, soft and yellow scrambled eggs, and crazily yummy pork in the spaghetti dish. YUM!
We then headed to Citygate Outlets and look who I found!!!
Babytwinmeh!
For only SGD 10, I cannot resist myself but just had to get him even though mine is still pretty. Moreover this fella looked soooo cute!
The time came for us to head to the airport, the get ready for our flight the following morning.
The bf's power way of packing part of his loot!
Emo girlfriend.
The last bit of the awesome Ji Dan Zai.
Dope!
Like a shiok, but actually not shiok at all.
Because the boyfriend and I wanted to be economical, we shared baggage space for checking in. We were so afraid that we would exceed 20kg even after carrying as much as we can in our handcarry. To our delight, our check-in luggage was 20kg exactly!
Goodbye Hong Kong.
