Simple Weekend

Captures from my digital harinezumi, some Lo-fi shots to wrap up the last weekend at the F1 pit. Wanted to feast at the global food street at the F1 pit but ended up walking about the shopping areas to look for white berms.

White berms for Benny's big day... 'Cause i'm once again mobilized to be the brothers for yet another wedding.

Happening weekend ahead :)

 

Running Routes

Ever since I tried 'upgrading' the distance I am doing every Monday, the below two routes have been running on. Each is about 12km, though the second is slightly longer as I will still need to make my way home after I do my cool down & stretching.

Distance markers (km) as shown on the route

The above is just plain running along the Punggol Waterway track, which is surrounded by BTO projects on both sides of the man-made river. Quite a monotonous run but will usually be joined by random joggers along the way as they huff and puff their way through.

Below is a slightly more interesting route, well, at least for me. Somewhere in the midpoint of 3 & 4 marks the start of the Nature Walk, which is a 2.4km stretch of laterite soil (brick red texture, according to nparks website) that allows your feet to undergo some foot reflexology as the rocks 'massage' the soles. Especially sensitive when I'm in my Vibrams.

That adds to the experience and made the run a lot more enjoyable than the boring safe tarmac path. The route also brings me about the reservoir and still offers a water point somewhere in the 7km mark for me to replenish the fluids at the water cooler.

Hope I can keep this up and continue to discover new routes to mix into the routine so that it will not be too repetitive and erm... routine-like.

 

Tze Liang & Aijia's Big Day

Once again, the season of wedding is beginning and will probably last all the way till the Lunar New Year. But like all festivities, wedding is full of joy and excitement. Especially for the bride and groom.

Dolling up the bride

In this case, it was especially exciting for her as it was the second time being a 'sister' for her good friend. As usual, all the crazy activities took place in the morning and I was there to join them for the more restrained portion of the wedding - the banquet.

The view from the suite

Pretty Her, Handsome Me

 

Plenty of things to prepare before the final moments of the solemnization which took place an hour before the banquet, but they looked very happy and excited as they burst through the door and marched into the little cosy room to greet us all.

 

Exchanging their vows

After the solemnization, the wedding banquet went into full swing, with the receptionists busy ticking away the attendance and the guests mingling amongst themselves.

While all the hustling were happening outside the banquet doors, someone was quietly getting some alone time on the stage to rehearse for her emcee role later in the evening. First time being an emcee for a wedding... The mandarin-speaking one no less. Thankfully I was the one who wrote the script for her.

Meanwhile, the bride and groom were out socializing with the guests and having their shots taken at the photo booth. Everyone was trying to get their moment with the main leads for the night... Not an easy thing.

With Lifang

The rest of the evening was much like most other weddings I had attended recently, though their childhood montage was pretty interesting as they did a short skit on how they met and left the guests thoroughly entertained.

*clapz*

Second march-in

After all the fanfare at the dinner has concluded, we went up to their suite to toast them and chat a little more before we called it a day though some of them carried on the drinking. Must have been a really tiring day for them and all the days leading up to it.

Have a blissful marriage and many kids to come!

 

Some Thai Food @ Dhoby Exchange

The original plan was to have Just Acia at the Exchange, however when we got there and saw the ridiculous queue, we switched our dinner choice to the Thai food place (forgot the name) which was just beside Just Acia. We had our doubts on how the fare will turn out considering that it was the less popular choice... And Singaporeans always seems to know where to queue for good food...

We ordered fried rice, Tom yam soup, the tofu below.... Usual stuff that should give us a benchmark on the quality of food.

The verdict as illustrated below...

"meh"

So-so nia... And not that cheap.

So there you have it, my lousy review of a forgettable place, just to liven up my blog. Which has been so inactive lately thanks to my very packed reservist in the mid of May and left me feeling lazy and tired to blog. Need to slowly regain the momentum...

 

Hokkien Rhymes

One of her favorites

 

Running In VFFs

After a good 2weeks of walking in them, we finally progressed to jogging in them. Putting approximately 8km a week in the initial week or so to let my feet warm up to the idea of running in the Vibrams Five Fingers.

I was never much of a jogging person, despite being in the Track and Field team for the majority part of my teenage years as the events I participated in were always below 400m. The shoes I used to run in were always thin soled and light weight and running on the ball of my feet seemed natural. That is, until I served my 2yrs odd in army where we had issued cross trainers which had thicker soles.

On hindsight, I think the thicker sole did changed a little on how I jog, and also because jogging (as opposed to sprinting) changed my running gait, allowing my heel to strike first or at about the same time as the ball of the feet struck. As well as the increased weight that the feet had to bear with each stride. Coupled with the fact that running was a regimental exercise that we had to go through almost every other day made jogging less fun than it should be.

Playing soccer with my court shoes though were more liberating as the running felt more purposeful and fun. Perhaps it was the game.

But soccer could only be a weekly affair and the sedentary work environment means that i needed more means to expend the extra calories. So I decided to embark on a healthy living program to have a more balanced lifestyle before it is too late (and I get too lazy). Jogging never really hit me as my type of exercise, but I decided to give it a try, under the persistence recommendation from my girlfriend. So we started jogging in our VFFs in the recent weeks.

Once a week, I would jog with her for about 5km. And I would supplement another day of slow recovery jog of 5km or so after my weekend soccer game. Bringing my active days in a week to 3, and allowing the legs to rest the alternate days. During which, there will be some light exercises to keep the rest of the body in shape. Will be trying to incorporate some swimming and other exercises to keep overall fitness level up.

Diet wise, I would have an all-fruits breakfast at work (apples, pears, bananas, plum, etc) which previously I had always skipped the first meal of the day or end up with some oily foods. Lunch/dinner I would try to eat in moderation, that is the best I could do... I doubt I would want to do some drastic change to it anyways.

To be honest, these changes in my life felt great... Though it could be largely psychological. But noticeably, I was able to keep up with my soccer games physically and could have a more active role in the game.

Some of my friends asked if running in Vibrams really make me a better/faster runner, to which my answers were almost always the same. It doesn't make you a faster runner if you do not train/run with them, much like any other shoes. But what the VFFs did was to make running fun and interesting again, and it makes you want to go out there and run and feel the difference from regular shoes. And the more you run, you get better...

The next question that would usually follow would be "without the cushioning, won't your feet/ankle/knee get hurt?". Glad to report so far, my feet/ankle/knee are doing well so far. Though in the initial few kilometers, the last toe was feeling a little sore and tender. Perhaps the regular shoes have shielded it from taking any weight when I run and they have finally been liberated. Now they feel fine when I run...

It was fun explaining how barefoot running to my friends, though they appear half skeptical on the benefits brought about by it, and more so by the price of the shoes.

I guess the more important takeaway is that we need to keep up a healthy lifestyle and not to worry so much about what hardware we bought to distract us from the actual exercise. Be it shoes, running attire, MP3s, GPS, fitness apps...

Hope I stay motivated!

 

Weekend Indulgence

There goes all the jogging and soccer sessions in the past week...

On a slightly more positive note, at least we have tried out Kiseki finally. Variety of selection was a little limited though, and I wished for larger and more succulent crabs. Nonetheless, still a hearty meal.

Now to work off the calories gained...

 

Random

Man at work

 

Celebrating Pinhan's B'day

Every year after celebrating his birthday, it is a good reminder that we are turning older as we will slowly hit the big 3 in a short while. So before we turn old and creaky, we are making the best of our time by hanging out and doing all the stuff young people do...

The gang gathered at the corner around Tiong Bahru market, at a unique restaurant called Two Face Pizza where in the day they serve the usual Chinese food fare and transform into the western restaurant with the similar nostalgic layout in the night.

Which is partially the reason why the photos used in this post have all been tweaked to give this old timey feel...

Needless to say, we were the first couple to arrive as we await for the rest to make their grand entrance. It was a very warm night, so waiting wasn't the most pleasant experience... But we managed.

We stuffed ourselves pretty well with pastas and pizza and a generous orders of sides... *feels tummy*

Honestly, I think the food was good for its price and setting... Though the warm humid night made the experience a little discomforting.

One of the pizzas

 

Thankfully the cake from Tiong Bahru Bakery was small, otherwise it might not fit in the bloated tummies.

 

After dinner, we went about the old estate to look for a place for part 2 of the celebration... Somewhere with air con and drinks.

Tiong Bahru housed plenty of interesting eateries which is worth to check out, perhaps will head down again to try out some of them.

More happy that there is air con

 

 

 

Playing King of Opera

Playing iPad... No lack of entertainment. Or just sitting about chatting about all kinds of random stuff... Like politics.

 

Happy (belated) birthday Pinhan!

 

Zushi Bar

Hidden away in the outskirts of Serangoon Central...

Pork curry rice

Teriyaki Chicken

In summary, the taste was disappointing, coupled with the fact that the food was heated up with a microwave...

Nothing much to write home about.