Saturday, March 02, 2013

Hong Kong Standard Chartered Event

Last week at this time, the boyfriend and I just arrived in Hong Kong, ready for our respective Standard Chartered runs.

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On the way at Singapore Changi Airport!

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On the plane.

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Babymeh went along too!

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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.

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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.

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After settling down, we met the others and Jacky brought us around to try awesome street food!

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The Ji Dan Zai was FREAKING AWESOMEEEE!

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After walking around a fair bit, we settled dinner at a random Cha Chan Teng.

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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.

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HK Standard Chartered, LET'S GO!

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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!

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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!!!

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People mountain, people sea!

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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.

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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!

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Official results.

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Official finishing picture!

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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!

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Outfit of the day.

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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!

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So much love for this girl!

We had a lot of time to ourselves, so we walked and ate and walk and ate.

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Yum yum in my tum tum!

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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.

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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!

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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.

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Look who I found! Juniortwinmeh!

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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.

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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!!!

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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.

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The bf's power way of packing part of his loot!

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Emo girlfriend.

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The last bit of the awesome Ji Dan Zai.

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Dope!

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Like a shiok, but actually not shiok at all.

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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!

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Goodbye Hong Kong.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

My Running Milestone

I've always been challenging myself with my runs. To be faster and to have more endurance for distance.

After running consistently for nearly 2 years now, I've finally outdone myself.


On 25 Jan, I did a leisure 5km run which included pretty steep slopes at my estate. When I stopped to check the timing at my 5km mark, I surprised myself with a timing of 28:51. That was by far my fastest timing for 5km I've ever done! After that day, I was unable to achieve a timing that was as good as that, but mostly around 29mins to 32mins.


On 17 Feb, I pushed myself to do a 10km run as I haven't done a non-stop 10km run in a long long time and HK's Standard Chartered run was around the corner. Again, my run included slopes, and this time round, I did 2 small slopes and 3 steep long slopes. And once again, the timing surprised me! My previous personal best for 10km was about 1 hour 3 mins, so when I saw 1:00:55, I couldn't believe it, but yes I did it!


On 19 Feb, just 2 days after I broke my 10km PB, I did it again. In this run, not only did I beat my 5km PB and 10km PB, but I also met my personal goal and challenge of completing a 10km run in under an hour! This was definitely a crazy milestone for me as I never really believed that I could achieve this goal for I've had 3 occurrences of Pneumothorax and even had a lung operation for it in 2009.

I've come a long way. From struggling and being medically diagnosed with an eating disorder since 18, to having 3 Pneumothorax attacks, to a lung operation. I've always been a little round when I was younger, so I started a harmless diet but it slowly spiraled into an ED unknowingly which eventually led me to the depths of an ED. I now know that health is more important, and with proper exercise, eating whatever I want is possible. I can say that although I still watch what I eat (most of the time), I'm very much free from the clutches of the devil. Running has taken its place, and challenging myself to greater heights is something I truly love.

I'm so happy that I managed to do a 10km run in under an hour. This has got to be my greatest running achievement so far. =) I'm so looking forward to Hong Kong this weekend for I'll be bringing running to a whole new level and an entirely different experience! And of course, not forgetting all the Dim Sum I'm going to happily stuff my face after that... =p

Friday, February 15, 2013

Valentine's Day 2013

At the stroke of midnight, the boyfriend sent me a text together with a picture, and those were the first thing I woke up to, which made my day.


The morning went by as usual at work, and an hour before lunch, I received a call from a lady who told me that she was a florist and had a bouquet for me. I happily collected my bouquet from her at the lobby, and it was a really pretty bouquet of 12 red roses!



I tried my luck to juice the boyfriend for some information about our dinner location, but he kept his little secret under key and lock. So all I could do was to patiently wait for time to pass by until we got off work. Finally... We met at Raffles Place MRT station and after we walked for quite a fair bit, we arrived at...



Dinner was a 3-course meal. Other than the starter which the boyfriend and I had the same dish, we both ordered different dishes for the main course and desserts. The more differences, the more for us to try. =p



Deco on every table, and the cookie was meant for us to take back



Not too long later, our first course arrived.


CANARD - we both had the same starter


SAUMON - mine


BOEUF - boyfriend's

I never knew that beef cheek was so so so so so soft and tender and easy to chew. This dish was fantastic and I wished I ordered this instead of the salmon. Not to say that the salmon was not good, it was, but the beef cheek was better!


LE 'ISPAHAN' - mine

The marshmellow strip was infused with rose flavour, and it was superb!


This dessert was faultless! The blueberry cheesecake had an awesome crunchy biscuit base and the flavour of the entire mixture (cheesecake + muffin + ice cream) felt like a party in my mouth. Yummmmm.


Thank you, Love, for celebrating Valentine's Day with me and making it special for me. =)

Monday, February 11, 2013

In less than 2 weeks' time, I'll be jetting off to HK with my boyfriend and friends to participate in the HK Standard Chartered run event. Seriously, this has got to be the most exciting run I'll be doing so far. And to add on, it's Winter season in HK, which means we'd be running in freaking cold weather.

My 10km event starts at 6.30am which means that my girlfriend, Dil and I will surely have a crazy fun time freezing our limbs and asses off as we run the entire 10km route. I cannot wait!


call me tiger