Wednesday 31 May 2017

Full On Training Day

Done as planned and did three training sessions of one hour each. This time I went to the Evolve gym at PoMo Mall as the class schedule suited me best. The gym there is a bit smaller but I really like the area. It's a bit more chilled with a Starbucks and an art cafe nearby and another nice mall with a really good coffee shop and wi-fi a short walk away.

First session was Muay Thai again. Instructors a bit quieter but nevertheless with keen eyes on any incorrect form. Very good. Some of the advanced students showed me how to properly do the low kick, which I thought I'd done pretty well already. Always good to learn how to do it better. Very nice chaps both.

Nice sunshine for my lunch break. But it almost feels like a hot iron on your skin, so I stayed in the shade, having some roast duck at the street market around the corner. Then went to bugis+ mall for coffee and wi-fi.

Light lunch: Roast duck and veg

Back at the gym it was time for another session of 10th planet jiu jitsu. Same drills as yesterday which helped a lot in getting those techniques drilled into my brain. Good fun and again very nice fellow students.

Headed to Albert Hawker Centre for early dinner. Like the Maxwell Road one, Albert is rather quiet, but googling the best Hawker food earlier, I found a fantastic app that lets you search for type of food by area and shows you user recommendations. The app suggested to have Lor Mee at Ma Bo's and since a nice lady mentioned that the Hawker would be closed for two months from tomorrow on, I had to give this a go!
Four mere dollars for a big bowl of this obviously famous dish and I have to say it was not only filling, but also very tasty! Some sort of brown gloopy sauce, a lot of fried fish, some spring onion and chilli. Sounds simple, but again it was all about the balanced taste. Great!

Albert Hawker Centre. Pork organ soup and chicken feet rice.

I rather had this lovely bowl of Lor Mee with fried fish
Back at the gym for 6:15pm and another round of Warrior Fit with Heath. Bodyweight and kettlebell exercises got me sweating like a pig again. This is good stuff!!! Did 30 pull ups all together, with a towel thrown over the bar and jumping up, but letting myself down slowly. I can't do a single proper pull up yet, but 30 half ones it not bad at all!!! Really proud of this and will keep training until I can finally do my first real pull up.

Finally really shattered I had a quick shower and dashed home, just in time before a thunderstorm hit. Good timing. Great day again and three sessions are definitely the way to go for me to feel propperly exhausted.
My watch tells me it's time to recover. Ohhhhhh-kay then.
Day off tomorrow for me. Want to do some sightseeing before another three days of three sessions each. MMA I hear ya calling! Not sure yet what to expect, but there's a session on each of the three days, so they have to be training days for me. But first some touristy stuff. Looking forward to it!!!

Tuesday 30 May 2017

Skills Improvement

Quiet day in Singapore, but still very enjoyable. I improved my physical skills in two training sessions and my knowledge based skills in the morning.

The heavy rain of the early morning hours lasted all the way to just after noon, so I stayed in and actually got a fair bit of my study for the Business Analysis exam done. This time I even had a quick breakfast of oats with some dark chocolate chips and an apple. Quite nice really. I miss my morning tea, but $7 for a pack at the local supermarket is really not worth it.
Headed to the gym for 2pm for my first session of 10th planet jiu jitsu, a no-gi system developed by Eddie Bravo. I was hoping to learn some new tricks for my ground game. Instructor Rick is one of the nicest persons ever and has received his 10th planet jiu jitsu black belt from Eddie Bravo himself.
I leared the rubber guard which is pretty much the centre piece of this version of jiu jitsu and a few combinations with it. Some sparring at the end. Was good fun in a small group of 5 students and I will go again to get more out of it.

Lunchtime was spent getting myself some flip flops at the Chinatown market. I was just getting too hot in my trainers, plus this way I fit right in to the flip flops wearing Singaporians.
Headed over to Maxwell Road Hawker Centre in my new footwear to get my Hainanese Chicken Rice from Tian Tian. Gotta be done. It was easily the busiest stall in a once more quiet Hawker. Not that I minded much. Made finding a table very easy.
It really is half a steamed chicken on rice. Looks simple and bland, but oh my gosh is it good!!! The spicy sauce is perfectly balanced with ginger, garlic and whatnot, the rice is fabulously fragrant and the spoon of a brown sauce over the dish is simply amazing. Wow!!! Lonely planet was right. This is a must-have!!!
Tian Tian's superb Hainanese Chicken
Walked past a cafe of sorts on my way back and fancied their waffle with ice cream. Something fresh and I was still peckish. Had to wait quite a bit to get my plate, which meant I missed boxing class, but boy was it worth it!!!! I'm not a big fan of waffles, I find them boring. This one was so soft and doughy inside and crispy on the outside, the mango ice cream was fruity and fresh and the chocolate sauce on top perfect. YUM!!!! What a find. Doesn't get any better than that!!!

Simply superb waffles and ice cream
Back at Evolve I joined the Warrior Fitness class at 6pm. Instructor Heath was a US olympic wrestler and was Dan Henderson's training partner for over 25 years. The guys at Evolve certainly are no mere gym instructors. They know their shit.
Bodyweight and kettlebell circuits got us all sweating and I really enjoyed it. This is a class I can fit into my sightseeing days since I only need shorts and a shirt which fit easily into my shoulder bag. Nice.

Headed home after a nice day out. Not yet physically challenged, I'll try to get three training sessions in tomorrow.

Monday 29 May 2017

Two Times Thai

Today was the day. First Muay Thai sessions at Evolve MMA. I had planned to go to the 11:15am session and had bought some instant oats, dark chocolate buttons and apples for breakfast, but found myself a bit in a hurry in the morning, so just had an apple and dashed off. Stupid late night reading, ahem.

Grabbed a quick soy bean curd porridge with chicken balls at the MRT station which was alright, but nothing to noteworthy. Arrived at Evolve early enough to check in and get the tour and then change for my first session. The facilities are really nice! It is somewhat air conditioned, but training still leaves you dripping sweat. Changing rooms are modern and a fresh towel as well as shower gel are provided. Nice touch.
Two big gym rooms, one mainly for Muay Thai and boxing, the other for BJJ, MMA and "Warrior Fit", a strength and conditioning workout for martial artists.

Quick warm up of running around, then onto the punch bags for 50 kicks each leg. Boy those bags where hard as rock. After the first few "normal" kicks, I only barely touched them. Ouch. Brought some nice bruised shins back from that.
Next group stretching.
Some partner drills and some circuit rounds with three stations next. So everyone gets a go at more punchbag kicks and punches and some padwork with two supporting instructors. Really good stuff. They corrected my elbow strikes and kicks and knees and I already learned a lot from just that one session.
50 knees to the bag, press ups, burpees, front kicks at the end. They do the phys at the end. Nice touch. It was a shorter session at 45mins, but I enjoyed it a lot. quick shower and off I went for the hunt for lunch.
Couldn't find my favoured place at the mall nearby, so went to the harbour side and finally settled for a burger. The view was worth it and the burger not too bad.

Lunch time view.
Killing time until the next session at 16:15 was a bit boring. The stupid bag made long walks a bit cumbersome. Sat a bit in a park and in Point Mall in Chinatown just to stay cool. Think I want to put the training sessions a bit closer together, to avoid this. Or find a nice spot to chill and take my Kindle or something.

Second session was an hour long, another main instructor supported by the main instructor from the morning session. Longer phys at the beginning with some skipping (glad I managed okay without much tangling and didn't look like an idiot). Some striking combos and more kicks and punches to those hard bags, more pad work in between and technique stuff. The hour was over before I knew it.

Another shower and then finally over to Maxwell Road Hawker Centre. One that was recommended by my Lonely Planet. Passed by the facinating Sri Mariamman Temple with the many deities on top of the entrance gate and the impressive Buddha Tooth Relic Temple.

Sri Mariamman Temple
The Hawker was fairly quiet at 6pm. It doesn't seem to be a favourite for dinner after work. I didn't mind at all. Although the one stall I was after was closed as well (Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken, Lonely Planet again). Went for a Black Pepper Chicken dish from one of the other stalls, which was fairly spicy and dead cheap at $5 which is £3.

A very quiet Hawker

Black Pepper Chicken, yum!!!
I'll come back here for lunch after my morning session tomorrow, hoping Tian Tian is as good as promised and ticking another typical Singaporian dish off the list.

Home on the MRT. It was BUSY!!! Rammed train at 7pm. It seems, Singaporians work long hours. Chilling now at home after yet another shower watching my bruised shins chainging colour, haha. More tomorrow!

Sunday 28 May 2017

Acclimatisation by Sightseeing

This is the plan, let's turn it upside down. Instead of Little India and then my first training session, I spent the whole day sightseeing. Marina Bay, Central Business District, Chinatown, Gardens by the Bay and Fort Canning Park. I canned my first plan simply because I didn't fancy lugging my kit bag around with me all day and also didn't want to spend an hour going to fetch it from the house. So I rather stayed out all day walking over 27,000 steps according to my watch. not bad.

After a lazy morning I went to a small cafe around the corner and couldn't not have a thai chicken curry pie with my cappuccino. And it was pretty darn good. Nice start to the day. Went back to the house to get my kit bag and changed my plans as mentioned above when I slung it over my shoulder. No way I'm gonna drag this through busy markets.
30 minutes to City Hall via MRT from the house and off I went around Marina Bay with the CBD (Central Business District) skyscrapers looming on the other side. Lovely views and fairly busy, but never too much.

CBD

Over a footbridge and onto the other side I walked, straight into the air conditioned halls of Marina Bay Sands shopping mall. I have to say, today I grew quite fond of walking into and through shopping centres just for some fresh cool air every now and then. A very nice shopping mall this one was. With a DC Super Heroes Cafe!!! All cup cakes, burgers, drinks, cakes etc. in super hero styling. Very cool I have to say. Not my type of food, but I may give it a go if I have some money left at the end of my trip.

The Super Hero Cafe. How awesome!!!

That's how Singapore does shopping malls
Straight into the midst of the skyscrapers I went. It was very quiet on a Sunday but is probably mental around lunch time during the week.

Skyscrapers scraping the sky. Sort of.
Into Chinatown next with its large outdoor street market full of food and touristy stuff. Bought a nice Singapore themed tank top which I later found out fits me like a glove... at size small.
Just wandered along the stalls soaking in the chilled atmosphere. 
Over to Ann Siang Hill next. Lots of European themed bars and restaurants there. I bet it's busy here at night. The biggest one a british pub with real ales and breakfast fry ups. Hm. Looked nice, but no. Up on the hill I had a break in the shade of some tree outside P.S. Cafe. Had planned to go inside, but was neither hungry nor in the mood for a coffee. Weird what the heat does to you, eh?

Bustling Chinatown

A British Pub
Took the MRT back to the bayfront and entered the Gardens at the Bay. Of course it was busy on a Sunday, but I didn't mind. Often enough I was all alone when I wandered off the main paths and it's totally worth doing that anyway. 
Still, the main attraction - and rightly so - are the Super Trees. Simply wow!!! No photo can do them justice and I have to come back one evening just to see them alight. Interestingly, they power the park's watering system as well as all the IT in the main office just from the sunlight they collect. 

Definitely Super Trees
The park has it's own Hawker Centre called "Satay by the Bay". With mostly Chinese food stalls, I went for the obvious satay ones. Would've been rude not to. Plus, I LOVE satay! And I wasn't disappointed. Awesome chicken and mutton satay skewers for me. Easily the best I ever had! Especially the mutton ones were delicious!


Once more I walked along the water front all the way back to the City Hall MRT station and from there to Fort Canning Park to round up a great day. This seems to be the place for groups of young people to hang out. Lots of them at the foot of the hill the park is on. Most with music or a guitar player singing cheesy asian tunes.
Very nice park indeed, but I was getting quite tired now, so headed back after a great day. Got myself a cold lemon/lime green tee at the train station. It was nice and cold, but it just tasted way too artificial. Think I'll stay away from this stuff unless it's 100% fruit juice.

Back at the house around 7:30pm after a long but fabulous day. Really like it so far. Even in the busy places it's all very relaxed and chilled. I'm now aiming to divide my days. A few training days in a row with 2-3 sessions and only food nearby in between sessions. Then sightseeing days with no training at all. This way I don't have to lug my kit bag around and still get to see stuff.

Saturday 27 May 2017

Good afternoon Singapore

I made it. I'm more than 7000 miles away from home and finally in Singapore. The journey was long though. 2.5 hours on the bus to Heathrow, then killing almost another 2 hours mostly by wandering around thinking of the imminent long haul flight.
I had dreaded the 12 hours a bit remembering how boring my 8 hour flight to India had been. But somehow it wasn't so bad at all. The plane took off half 9 and after a light dinner (Singapore Airlines offer low-carb options, how cool is that!) it was already bedtime. Lights dimmed I watched John Wick 1, then tried to sleep a bit but my legs started to stiffen and swell and it got ever more uncomfortable as the hours droned on. Watched John Wick Chapter 2 in a handful of stages, whenever I woke up until I was tired enough to doze off again.
By breakfast time I was already halfway through Passengers and finished it half an hour before landing. Three films done. Neat. Not much to see from the window. Most of the time I had had the shutter down so people could sleep and when I openend it, all I saw was cloud. Boo. I only caught a glimpse of Sumatra just before landing.

Immigration and picking up my suitcase was done in no time and before I knew it I was on the MRT into town. It was sweltering! Just what I had expected. The air-con on the plane had been a bit too far on the cold side so I had happily made use of the provided blanket. Now I was drenched in sweat just wearing shorts and a shirt.
Glad to see, that a lot of women here wear shorts, shirt and flip-flops or sandals. I shall fit right in, ha.

My host Johnny had already made contact via Whatsapp and sent some instructions on how to find the house. It was easy enough. Very nice chap and the house is very nice indeed. A 7 minute walk from the MRT station and with a shopping centre and hawker centre very close by.
My room in the house is very nice, too. Fairly big with air-con, en-suite and a big fan on the ceiling. Quickly unpacked most of my stuff and then headed out for food.

My room
The main road near the house was lined with food stalls and rammed with people. Yay! Straight into the mix. Good smells everywhere and plenty to choose from. Lots of kebab stalls, fried seafood and sweet stuff. I decided to try the first thing that looked interesting: Tako Yaki. Turned out to be a very yummy egg and dough ball with crab meat and some sauce. Very good.

Food craziness

Tako Yaki, yum

Haig Road Market
The actual hawker centre stalls where all about to close by the time I had a look, but I didn't really fancy sitting down again anyway (I was a bit tired of sitting, haha). So I went for a bag of freshly deep fried golden squid heads, nice and spicy.

Seafood grill

Squid on a stick is very popular

I went for squid and sticks instead

Is it Christmas yet? No, I'm almost certain this is Ramadan celebration
Went back home for a shower and some chill time after such a long journey. So far I'm planning my first MMA training session at Evolve Academy for 4pm. Before that coffee and breakfast at Black & Ink cafe near the house and maybe a stroll through Little India? We shall see.

Tuesday 23 May 2017

Singapore, I am Ready For You!!!

So excited to finally go to Singapore! Been looking forward to my martial arts vacation ever since I booked it back in December. Only three more days before my evening 13 hour direct flight takes off from London Heathrow.

Where will I be going again?
Singapore!!! Finally. A bustling multicultural metropolis, competing only with Hong Kong for the number one spot of the culinary capitals in Asia. I've wanted to go for a long time, but never really looked for accommodation and flight prices before I found the Evolve MMA Academy and their martial arts vacation offer.

What will I be doing?
I definitely want to fit in some sightseeing. The Gardens by the Bay, Sentosa Island and bimbling around the different cultural quarters. I have a few things on my list, but might struggle to find the time to do all of them.

Eating! Singapore sounds like food heaven to me. Indian, Malaysian and Chinese are the three main culinary influences which make for an interesting mix. I will very likely not bother with restaurants and instead have breakfast, lunch and dinner at the many hawker markets that offer some of the best street food you can get on this planet.

Training! Reason number one I'm there. Evolve offers one-hour training sessions for the most popular martial arts all day long. I can go as often as I want and plan on 2-3 sessions per day concentrating on Muay Thai, MMA and No-Gi Jiu Jitsu.
So one early morning session, then fooood, an afternoon session, fooooood and an evening session and more food. I'm sure I'll need it!



How did I prepare?
I built myself a phased three month training plan, increasing volume with every month and factoring in some recovery time in between phases. I obviously kept attending my 2-3 Krav Maga sessions per week and added 5k and 10k runs, some circuit/HIIT and lifting workouts and the odd walking holiday.

April was a good month! Some serious training volume there!
I can do two workout sessions per day now and feel fitter than ever. I've kept an eye on my training load with Sport Tracks aiming for peak performance (the blue graph) when having my first session in Singapore on Sunday, which means I'm fit, but also rested enough. 

Fitness in green, fatigue in red. You want green as high as possible and red as low as possible.
The one important stat of "performance". Fitness minus fatigue.
I aim to have a day or two off during those two weeks, but I want to go home completely tired and exhausted having given it all! I want to improve my striking skills, defence, foot work and ground work. I want to get the most out of the training!

Am I ready?
Hell, yeah! I certainly can't be better prepared. It's an advantage that our Krav Maga club is probably one of the hardest with grinding conditioning work and a number of sparing rounds in almost every one of the 1.5hr sessions. I've done prison burpees and sparred with guys twice my size, what else can there be, eh?

I'm extremely excited about this and hope the whole trip is physically, culturally and culinary everything I hope for. I'll get myself a pay-as-you sim over there with a good data allowance and will post photos and updates as and when I can.

Watch this space!!!

Hello, I'm a Walking Tour Guide

It's done!!! I finished my first week as tour guide for a group of walkers about two weeks week ago. Still chuffed with actually having made it this far. This has been a dream of mine for some time, but having settled for my IT full time job I would've never thought I'd be able to do this kinda stuff without quitting my job and completely starting over.... until Martin came along like 2.5 years ago, asking me if I would consider guiding some of his tours. He's offering some 20 week long walking trips for German speaking people every year, most of them in Scotland but with the odd one in England or Wales.

I took my first aid and advanced navigation courses, got me a D1 mini bus license and shadowed him on two tours. Step by step I got a wee bit closer, but it only felt real when I sat there all alone on Friday April 26 in the driver's seat of a white Mercedes 16 seater bus parked in a lay-by near Bristol airport, killing time before picking up my group.
Martin had handed over "The Beast" - as I quietly called it - at the airport before heading home on the next flight to Edinburgh. Just me now, being responsible for 14 people for the next 8 days. Shit just got real.

I went through some of mine and Martin's notes, played around with the buttons and controls of the bus and went to a nearby pub for some coffee and a lavish piece of cake. Screw my diet, I needed a treat to calm my nerves!

Picked up nine customers (the rest made their own way to our accomodation) at the airport bang on time 6:30pm, amongst them two of my Berlin friends. Their booking had been a very pleasant surprise and it was great to see them again. Eventless drive down to South Devon near Halwell where we met the rest of the group at the beautifully converted Bickleigh Farm.
The first night is always a bit awkward and already knowing our cook Christina helped a great deal. Great seeing her again and working with her proved to be a breeze.
The group seemed nice enough, we did a bit of an introduction round, I talked a bit about admin stuff like meal times and what to take on the walks, then everybody went to bed soon after pudding.

I was shattered, mentally. Day 1 done! The following day was our first day of actual walking and I didn't sleep much with thoughts on the walks and where to park and where to have picnics etc coursing through my brain.

With every night I slept better, with every day I got more relaxed and my initial fears around driving the bus along those narrow single track lanes proved to be unnecessary. I soon got the hang of it. There were a few tight moments, but nothing that got me into trouble at all and I actually enjoyed the challenge of squeezing the beast past cars, vans and the occasional lorry.

People relaxed as well after a day or two and there was a lively chatter every night around the dinner table.
Leading the walks was easier than I thought. I realised very soon, that I didn't need to count my folks all the time, only when we stopped somewhere or had a wee break and just generally paid attention how the group was spread.
We did two long and one short coastal walk, two walks in Dartmoor, one along the Avon near Loddiswell and one from the house to Totnes. For me it was veeery gentle walking with no more than 8 miles per day. But I didn't mind. The weather was fantastic apart from one day and I brought back a nice tan.





I did a cider tasting session at dinner for the group which went extremely well and was good fun for everybody. This proved to be a great way of getting everybody even more relaxed. Who would've known, haha.

I really started to enjoy this tour guiding from day three on I think. When I had sorted some issues and questions from customers and everyone was happy, when I knew I would not get the bus stuck, people got used to how the tour worked and trusted me as guide.



Had a fantastic week, brought all 14 back safe and sound and handed over the bus to Martin at Bristol airport. Phew. I made it!!! My first week as tour guide. And it had been great! I had enjoyed it very much and I knew I wanted more. Still, I felt a big relief as I chatted with Martin about the past week. Relief that I am no longer bearing the responsibility. It was weird. On one side happy it was over, on the other eager to go again.

It was great to show people the beauty and variety of South Devon especially with all the flowers in bloom at the time. Funny, how I'm not growing tired of seeing the same places a second or even third time. Already looking forward to doing the tour again!
But first I'm off to Snowdonia in September to take another group around North Wales. Yet, another area I really came to love and certainly want to explore more. Bring it on!!!