The Honeymoon – Day 4 (Rain Day)

So today we had grand plans to drive up to Tauranga and checkout the beach, chillout at a few other spots along the way and enjoy the scenery. Sadly that didn’t quite happen since it rained all day! It was cold and windy the whole time.

All we ended up doing is to grab a quick lunch in Tauranga and then a cup of tea in Waihi. Waihi is actually a gold mining town which has a HUGE pit that we looked at (in the rain), quite impressive I must say.

Next we headed off to Whangamata which is apparently world-renowned for the surfing. We checked in to a fantastic little B&B with two very friendly hosts who upon hearing it was our honeymoon upgraded us to a nicer room! The house is really really nice with a great view of the water which on a clear day must be gorgeous. We’re hoping for good weather tomorrow, but the weather man is not helping…

The Honeymoon- Day 3

We woke up bright and early today, even took away breakfast to eat in the car, and headed down south towards Taupo.

Our first stop for the day – Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland. This was another geothermal park, with lots of pools, boiling mud pools, and sulphuric fumes rising from the ground. The difference between this and Hell’s Gate (which we went yesterday) was that there are alot more strangely-coloured lakes in Waiotapu, some actually even looked like a toxic waste dumping ground, and also that the boiling mud pools were less viscous here compared to Hell’s Gate. I know Ian was disappointed, he likes the violent splattering mud.

And the real reason we rushed out so early this morning – the Lady Knox Geyser, which erupts every morning at 10.15am. Ian and I were puzzled at how it knows what time to erupt every morning. Turns out that the eruption is actually man-induced – the guide drops a bar of soap into the geyser and it sprays out steam and water obediently some 5 mins after. We felt cheated, but it was still an impressive sight.

We then continued our journey towards Taupo, and our next stop was along the Waikato River to try out a New Zealand- invented activity – jetboating! We went zooming up and down the river and did a couple of 360 degree spins. The highlight though, was when we reached the base of the Huka Falls. I’ve seen more impressive waterfalls, but the water here was crystal clear and such a bright brilliant blue, all in all a very pretty sight. Jetboating was originally Ian’s idea, and although I was scared during the ride, I must say that it turned out quite enjoyable.

After all that activity, we headed into Taupo proper and had lunch at a nice cafe beside Lake Taupo. We were lucky that it finally stopped raining, and there was good weather today. The lake looked very nice with all that blue sky and blue water.

We obviously weren’t used to so much activity in half a day – after a short stroll around Taupo, we headed back to our hotel in Rotorua for a long afternoon nap.

The Honeymoon – Day 1 & 2

We’re MARRIED!!! :-O Couldn’t blog on the day itself because it was just too hectic. But now that we’re on our honeymoon in New Zealand there’s plenty of time to chillout, just the 3 of us (Chunnie, Ian and the laptop).

Day One
We landed in Auckland and immediately hopped in a rental car and onto the roads. We were a little sleepy from the 10 hour flight so changed driver role back and forth quite quickly. It also didn’t take long for nice scenery to come along as we headed to Rotorua.

The reason that we didn’t lose the way is probably because Chunnie let me buy a fancy-pants app for my iPhone (the TomTom GPS Navigation App)! It gives us turn-by-turn navigation and is pretty darned fun to have!

Once we got to Rotorua which is apparently one of the main Maori areas in New Zealand so that means we started the honeymoon by going for a traditional Maori Hangi (dinner feast, i think). It was some nice lamb, chicken and vegetables that were cooked in a pit in the ground on top of hot stones. The slow cooking leads to some nice tender meat.

Day Two
This morning, we started off by having a quick breakfast of steak pie and sausage roll at a local bakery. It was a nice quick bite and set us off nicely for our first stop, Hell’s Gate!

Hell’s Gate is a natural geothermal park with boiling hot waters, bubbling mud and it smells, no stinks of sulphur! Its quite pretty to see the steam coming out of the ground and its definitely not something you see in Singapore!

Next, we headed off to the blue and green lakes, which actually I didn’t notice the difference between. They’re just great big lakes to me. I found the rolling, windy roads on the way to the lakes more fun than actually looking at the lakes. Although seeing the lakes wasn’t exactly “yahoo” fun but it sure was pretty.

After that, we headed off to the Agrodome but sadly we arrived just as the sheep-sheering show had ended, we missed it! Chunnie was bummed about it since she wanted to see animals. The lady at the ticket counter said there was an organic farm tour starting in a few minutes though. I thought to myself, wow as if looking at pesticide-free apples growing in an orchard was interesting, let’s pass on this one. But then she said that we’d get to feed animals and even without looking at Chunnie i told her, “YES, we’ll do it!” Chunnie loves animals, take a look at her glee:

While we were going around the farm we saw that there was fake sky-diving just next door. This is fake since its when they just take a big fan and blow air upwards so that you float. I HAD to do that. It was surprisingly hard to stay balanced in the air and i think the helper ended up holding my feet in place most of the time!

To round out the day we went for a romantic dinner for two at Bistro 1284 and then proceeded to soak in the Polynesian Spa… Aaaahhhhh… Relaxation.

Chunnie’s home!!!

It’s offical, Chunnie is home. She’s back with a little less Singapore inside but also a lot more New Yorker in it’s place.

Just in case it’s not obvious, let me say, I AM SO HAPPY! This means she’s around to do all the wedding prep like sending invites, food tasting…

“Home sweet hot and humid home”
- Chunnie on her first day back

Chunnie’s Finally Coming Home!

Chunnie’s booked her ticket to come home next month and its seemed like a long time since she left yet at the same time the months have flown by. I think it will have been 17 months by the time she gets back and going back over the blog during those months you can see how much has happened. Before she left, I had never done a triathlon but in the time since then – probably because she’s been gone i’ve really dived head-long into the triathlon scene! Its definitely my favorite “hobby”. I’ve also taken up wakeboarding (on the cable) as a kind of secondary hobby as well, perhaps the only thing that hasn’t changed around here is what i do in between weekends

I think Chunnie’s changed a lot too… First time she’s lived by herself and with that came a new skill! She can COOK! Who knew?! She only once sent herself to the hospital because of her cooking, but i think the blame for that is really with the scallops and not the chef. Soon I’ll get to sample her cuisine on a regular basis.

The blog has evolved from being about our dates to races and triathlon to wedding preparation and soon to married life. Too bad there isn’t a log of where Chunnie and I started back in school worrying about homework and tests… that was a LONG time ago now!

OSIM Singapore Interenational Triathlon 2009

From OSIM Triathlon 2009 – Day 2

It was more than a month ago that I took part in my 2nd Olympic Distance (OD) triathlon and it was the exact same event as the first time. This time it was different because I was there thanks to my sponsors (L’Oreal Men Expert and New Balance)!! Not to mention this time I had a non-Hall teammate with me too.

From OSIM Triathlon 2009 – Day 2

Marisa was competing this time as well and since she had done Bintan earlier in the year this was ALSO her second OD. Although my race didn’t start till about noon, I went down earlier on to cheer Marisa on, “Go Team Hall!” But unfortunately that meant I had to wait around for my race to start for something like 3 hours. Speaking of waiting around, I had been down to the race site the day before to watch Danny, Revant and a bunch of other Breakfast Clubbers take part in the shorter distance races. I tried not to walk around too much but by the time i left in the afternoon I seemed pretty tired. Luckily, by the next morning I don’t think i felt it in my legs anymore. So anyway… getting back to my race, I spent some time waiting around…

From OSIM Triathlon 2009 – Day 2

But before I knew it… It was time to start. The swim was relatively uneventful, I felt strong through but that’s probably because of all my SeaMonsta training. In fact I had done a 4K swim during the class and so I was confident that the 1.5K swim would go fine. It did indeed go fine and I even managed to find some feet draft for a lot of the way. In hindsight however, I think i took it a bit too easy on the swim and should’ve pulled ahead of the person I was drafting. I had been aiming for a 33min swim but alas, it wasn’t to be. Although my time was almost 7min faster than last year!

Swim Time: 35:00
Place (age-group): 25/103

This was Bennie’s first race… and I was expecting great things from him! I was happily zooming by people throughout the entire bike leg. Because so few people passed me, I actually counted them – five. Five people passed me and I think 3 of them were actually in the relay category so they don’t count (the hadn’t swam before the bike). But speaking of the relay category, there was a guy wearing the OCBC Cycling Jersey who went by me so fast that it was like I was standing still! He had on the full aero-helmet and disc wheel going but i seriously doubt that it was the equipment that helped him go so fast.

From OSIM Triathlon 2009 – Day 2

Towards the end of the bike leg, I took off my shoes and did a “running dismount” of the bike… As I was running along, I found it impossibly to wheel the bike, the wheel just wouldn’t turn. I was forced to carry it something like 100m which luckily wasn’t THAT tiring but definitely more tiring than wheeling it. I would later find out that the chain had fallen off after my dismount and gotten tangled in the spokes of the rear wheel! After the race, it was insane trying to get the chain untangled but luckily I managed to get the help of some other participants. Thanks guys!!

My time for the bike was 1min faster than last year which in itself is a bit disappointing given that I had Bennie and also had been training on the bike quite a bit more. But I think it could hopefully be attributed to the fact the course was now a 6-lapper instead of a 4-lapper meaning more sharp turns and slowing down.

Bike Time: 1:15:49
Place (age-group): 6/103

The run this year, was in the blazing sun. I didn’t get the benefit of a nice rain-shower and also I hadn’t been running too much since recovering from an ankle injury. So I was expecting this run to be slower than usual. I felt relatively good throughout but definitely not as amazing as last year. I really felt exceptional last year. I pulled through the run in a time almost 3 minutes slower than last year. Along the way, i did see my ex-housemate from Cornell… Hi Mao!!

Run Time: 50:32
Place (age-group): 7/103

From OSIM Triathlon 2009 – Day 2

It was a really good race but one area for improvement is definitely the run! In fact, I had originally thought that my total time was under 2:40 but alas, I missed that slightly and will definitely be gunning to go under that time when I do the TriFactor OD this coming weekend!

Oh yes… and did i mention i finished SEVENTH in my age-group!!!?? I was HAPPY!

Total Time: 2:41:20
Place (age-group): 7/103

Oh yeah… Marisa finished 5th… *grumble grumble… sister stealing my thunder*… GOOD JOB SISTER!

100 DAYS TO OUR WEDDING!!

YAY! Can’t wait.

From Our Wedding

Where has Chunnie been?

Around the world and back it seems.
Yes, I was back in Singapore and it was a busy busy trip, but in short:

*I landed back in Singapore on the morning of Ian’s birthday bearing Magnolia Bakery cupcakes!

*We celebrated Ian’s birthday with his mommy and sister over yummy choco-lava cake.

*I joined Ian on his weekly Breakfast Club ride – was embarrassingly slow and bad at it, and was absolutely terrified by the experience

*I worked a week at the Singapore office, caught up with ma old peeps, felt strange in the different office

*Brother took the family out for crabs to celebrate mommy’s birthday – and Ian was such a good SILTB, he remembered to call my mommy to wish her happy birthday!

*We checked out Suburbia, the first time seeing our solemnization venue for me.. and I like it!! 28 Nov. 12pm. Suburbia. Done.

*We celebrated daddy’s 60th birthday with a nice big dinner at Hua Ting.

*We had dinner with Ian’s ACN peeps. I met up with my girlies. And of course we met often for our toast and teh-C breakfasts.

And now I’m back in New York, with a short stopover in London. Oh and yes I flew the A380, not a biggie I thought, like any other plane.

Sponsorship Update – The Photoshoot

So as of my recent photoshoot, I am now a model/consultant.

I had a sponsorship obligation to take part in a photoshoot and boy was it an interesting experience! First off they told us to get extra sleep the night before so that we wouldn’t have eye bags, which I ignored. I stayed up late and I also woke up early to go cycling heh heh…

When i arrived at the studio there was somebody sitting there who asked “are you the talent?” I was a bit shocked and was like “i’m here for the l’oreal shoot.” He just pointed around the corner. I walked around and was pleasantly surprised to see a bunch of guys hanging out playing PS2 on a nice big flat screen tv, oh and there was a photoshoot going on behind them. There was free food and drinks lying at the side. Over at the photoshoot there was another big apple LCD was there with two people reviewing the shots, one person shooting and another minion running back and forth to adjust the model. WOW!

Anyway… First thing I had to do was to throw on a brand new tracksuit that was going to be used for the shoot and then sit down in the MAKEUP ARTISTS CHAIR!! OMG… MAKEUP! And now I know why it takes so long for girls to get ready… It sure took forever for him to hide the ugly spots on my face, but luckily for him i’m daaaaaamn sexy and there are very few. But still, I think my skin looked better than it has ever looked. I then made a mental note at what a deadly weapon makeup could be… Think of all those girls that only look “okay” WITH makeup… oh dear.

And then it was my turn to “just stand on the x on the floor” I was up in front of the lights with EVERYBODY staring at me. For some reason I didn’t feel that nervous… Maybe it was the knowledge that hey… i’m doing this “because I’m worth it.” It was funny because initially i just grinned goofily and the photographer was like, “smile a bit less.” She would ask things like, “can you tilt your chin in another direction?”, “look here”, “look there”. But one of my favorite exchanges was just after I did a few shots with my BLUE STEEL (ie. no smile) look. She then went, “smile a bit”… “a bit more”… “TOO MUCH!” I think i laughed at that point.

After everybody had done their individual shots we had a big group shot. The incredible planning they put into the shoot was there for show because there was a drawing showing how each and every person should stand including orientation of legs and arms! For some reason i was chosen to wear a singlet, goggles and a swim cap… can you say TOTAL DORK?! I did however get the number 1 painted on my arm, so i suppose that makes it marginally less dorky. The sad part about the group shot is that while they were adjusting people the minion rushed forward to me and threw a sandbag on the floor and told me to stand on it. Apparently i was too short! Then after a while somebody said, “Ian, can you breathe in?” I was too fat! I made a mental note to do a few more crunches and extra Ks running the next week.

I don’t actually have any pictures to show for the day and I’m actually not sure what they will be using the pictures for. But i would definitely say the day was an interesting experience!!

Sponsorship Update – Ian’s New Shoes

In a continuing series about my sponsorship from L’Oreal Men Expert and New Balance, I just headed down to the New Balance concept store at Raffles City to collect my new shoes! I have been wearing Asics Gel Kayano’s ever since I started running seriously back in 2007, mainly because a doctor had recommended them. But now, I’m finally giving New Balance a try.

I have to say that this was quite possibly the best shoe “buying” experience I’ve had. I don’t think it was due to the fact that I didn’t have to pay for the shoes but really the person that helped me seemed very knowledgeable and friendly. I told him I was wearing Gel Kayano’s and he immediately knew what type of shoe that was and which was the New Balance equivalent. He also then measured my feet individually and told me that actually my left foot was half a size bigger than my right foot. Whaaaaat?? I’m 27 (almost 28) years old and I’m only finding this out now??? oh geez. that means whenever I tried on shoes only on my right foot they would’ve been too small! Shocking.

Another interesting thing is that (according to what the New Balance rep told us) only they carry multiple widths of shoes in Singapore. I experienced this when trying the shoes as well since the first pair i tried were a little too wide and the guy helping me noticed it as well and quickly got me another pair. I was quickly kitted up with the correctly fitting shoes and some fancy socks, both of which feel great. I shall let you know how they perform real soon!

Aren’t my blue 769s nice?