Taking a hiatus
Yes, i need to think through some stuff.. maybe i will write again soon...

Krabi Trip



















Heres short trip report from my vacation in krabi. How short very short i guess
Day one
Took a trip via tigerairway budget airline to krabi with jon, daniel and j, had to queue up right in front before boarding to get the best seats. 1 thing about budget airline is they try to cram in as many passenger as they possibly can. Every space available is taken up by seats. I wonder where do the air crew strap themselves up when on takeoff and landing. In the toliet ? or strap standing in the kitchen area? or in the landing gear compartment?




















Anyway the unexpected happened on a supposely sunny resort.. It rain..well not really rain but drizzle..Not wanting to lose out precious time, we rush out to do our shopping. Had a go time bargaining like what the farangs (foreigner) do, slashing price by half of what they quoted.

and everyday in the evening we have treated with a relaxing massage at an incredible low price of 250 bath (not baht, $10 bucks) . Sometime i would even fall asleep during the session

Krabi was separated into 2 area.. ao nang beach which is a resort visited by mostly europeans like swedes and german etc.. while krabi town a place for backpackers and the locals.
We had a try on the local low price food at the open air hawker stalls. food are like 4 times cheaper then those resturant found in ao nang beach.



























We also visited the local hotest pub called mixer (no foriegner in sight!) The band of the night is SPICY and boy are they good. The whole fun thai atmosphere was great. We had a great time.




















During our 5 island tout ( not really 5 island stopover but really just 2 island), we got to feed the fishes with bread crumb.. its up close and personal a really theraputic experience i must say.
At hong island our tour guide told us that the forest inside is haunted by ghost of those who died in the 2004 tsunamis. He warn us not to go inside, for you might hear the dead people crying.




















On the last day we hop ove to pranang beach for some tanning, although not much sun. And finally we tried to find the hidden lake on top of the hill of pranang..illusive i must say ..after 1 hour we still could not find it. Instead we got bruises and mosquito bite as a reminder of our failed mission! "i'll be back the next time!"

Post vacation run
First long run after my thailand vacation, Started 7.30pm after work. Ran up to sembawang-Andrew Ave- Sungei Kiri park connector (approx 9.5km). Seems to be more energized today, did not rest for the entire run.
I believe it maybe contributed by 2 things:
-My q-link necklace.
-Daily thai massage during my vacation.

An interesting thing to take note of is.. when your nose is itchy, do not pick on it while running. Else you most likely get a nose bleed and have to endure the entire journey with a bloodddyy nose!























Things to take note of :
Andrew Ave lamps are up !
Had a powergel at Sungei kiri park connector.

Timing : 56mins
HR : 178

Away message
I will be going away on my annual vacation, will be back on tuesday. Any important message you can leave it on my in-tray. Will get back to you again (depending on who you are) .... or not

Creative Christmas Card
Got this CCC from an Ad firm, Ermm its kinda strange looking. Don't believe just take a look





















The plastic bag , looks innocently like something you got from the mamak shop.






















Slowly i took out the content





















Revealing a styrofoam packaging of a "Honey Roast Ham" and a receipt.








































And i almost.. chewed it ...

Turns out the Honey Roast Ham is really a CD made with macromedia flash. Too bad i can't show it to you but it sure is hilarious piece of work!

Incident in a shop
Spotted these two love birds in a shop. Not only they were screaming/squelling loudly at each other. There were also lotsa of physical whacking. Gosh as you can see from the picture below they looked in to my face. Not sure if he wanted to beat me up taking picture of them...


































Stop taking my picture!

Correct way of eating sushi

or should i say a very methodical way of eating :P
Anyway heres a very "serious" view on how to eat sushi...or not.

Experiment
Looks interesting.. So wheres the banner for the rest?
Mr Brown? Mr Miyagi?

A night at zouk
Ok you can call me swuah ku or mountain turtle, haven't been going party and drinking for sometime due to the fact i have running training every sat and that means i have to sacrifies my drinking session on fridays.

This is my official visit to zouk since it reopened ( althou i been to winebar recently).
Had about 4 bottles of e-33 so kinda tipsy when these photos are shot.






















Bump into my speeddating friend TK inside with his tipsy friend. And he told me he was drag to zouk after work in his bermudas and sandals by his friend. Lotsa changes done to zouk and phuture. but not much for velvet. The toilet at zouk was most unique..like a fountain..





















Appearently zouk has not lost it luster , still well loved by fans both local and foriegn.

Run Stats for Singapore Marathon 2005
Heres my run stats

PhotoEditing 101 : Removing irritating logo
Okay I know most of you guys want to remove the logo off from your marathon pics. Well heres a step by step guide on how to do that.
First save the picture from the website. Launch your prefered photoediting software( fireworks, photoshop CS) or any software with both "cloning" and "smudging" Tools.

Heres a sample of my marathon pic.























Irritating banner anit it? Arghh time to send it to the washing machine!























Okay using the clone tool i slowly scrub off the wordings.. increase or decrease the brush pixel depending on the tightness of the area.























Okay now that we have that removed , there are some artifects ( mismatch color tones). So how to remove that?























Well using smudge tool i can! ... gingerly rub it over ..

























And wahlah! presto! ...Banner all gone!

Back from the Stan Chart Run




















Turn up at the esplanade way way before the break of dawn, hitching a ride from J. That is about 4am in the morning not a soul in sight ( normally i would have just finished clubbing). Got some snacks at 7-11 before proceeding to the starting point of the run. Everyone Jm, SK, J ,WS and Taz were all nervous yet firedup for this full marathon. As for myself i wasn't really up to the challenge of the full one (taking consideration that i started half marathon only this year) maybe next year.

Flag off time was 6pm for the full marathon , leaving just me and my own devices. Oh well i still have my ipod blasting out some enya song for meditation. This time round i moved towards the front of the pack instead of the back. Want to see how i really fare should i go competitive.

First 5 km i feel alright, using my heart rate monitor. i tried to keep a constant heart rate of 160 -170 was able to sustain that till after 10km mark. The timing at that point was about 50mins, After that point my heart was racing at 180 and i have to slow or walk till it go back down to 160. The blistering morning sun started to pound on my body at the road towards kallang, Shade was almost none in sight. Worst still it looks long and neverending.

Water point was quite ample though out the run with 1 drinkstation every 2 km, every 6km they would provide elite drink (100plus - yah really elite one). Water serving was ice-mountain in a bottle, i kinda feel its a wastage of water as most runner only need a gulp or 2, the rest of the water was thrown away. One surprise is the last 2 km theres a banana stand and yes my stamach was growling , it was a saviour.

Gee one of the gripe i have is at the end of the run, i couldnt use the massage coz its reserved for the marathoners... so unfair.. plus where the heck did pple get the SCSM printed isotonic drinks?

This time round i fared much better then my 4months back AHM run. I completed at 2hr 14mins while AHM i did 2hr 29mins. 15 mins shaved off...

After collecting my medal, did a quick wash up and breakfast. Headed back to the finishing point to wait for the rest to arrive. Tried to find the SGrunners group but it wasn't an easy task with over 10,000 pple akin to needle in a haystack.
Taz and J came in about 4hr 45mins , Sh came in about 5hr 15mins , WS came in about 5hr 30mins and Jm came in about 6hr 01mins (attributing the fact he hasn't been training)

Over all , the result was better then expected and that spurs me on for next years -full marathon.



















All winners!



















Front and back of the finisher medal.. cool glossy pewter

SCM Race pack collection night




















The moment is drawing near, SCM (Standard Charter Marathon). Met up with J , Taz , SK and friend. Collected my pack at about 6.40 pm absolutely no queue. Horror story about queuing up to collect the pack on the afternoon was up to 2hrs i heard from sgrunners forum.

In conjunction with the racepack collection theres also a fitness expo. Saw a cargo container with tamper glass, where a diver was kinda stuck in there haha. Theres also a talk by a marathoner on preparation prior to the run. Also on show was some vendors like adidas and nike apparels. Was looking for socks but unfortunately the price and size are not to my liking. But i did get to purchase some power gel at $2 bucks each.

Some free test are available at the event including feet and back test. Seems like my neck and lower back is tense and stress up. May need to visit the chiropractor to have a further evaluation. (i do hope going to krabi this coming month and visiting the massage would help..).

Alright the next on my list now is to do carbo loading... see you at the race folks!

What would make you lose count





















This would...imagine running for over 30 mins around this track. Lost track of how many rounds i did, maybe it was 12-13 rounds...hmm
anyway the time for the run was 28mins. This would be my last run prior to the Stand Chart run.

Tonight is bib collection night at Suntec. Hopefully there are some bargain to be found at the sport fitness fair.