Saturday 10 June 2017

A Heavy Hearted Goodbye

This is it. Two weeks in Singapore over. It is indeed with a heavy heart that I'm leaving. Don't get me wrong, I love Bristol, I'm longing to see Rich again and wouldn't mind a nice luke warm, still, cloudy scrumpy with bits floating in it.

But Singapore is awesome and the Evolve Academy has become my second home. I've met some great fellow students and trained with them and there is such a friendly atmosphere at Evolve despite everyone working hard. 
I'm still absolutely humbled to have had the opportunity to learn from multiple-times world champions. I've looked them up, I've watched their fights on youtube. They're real. And they showed me how to properly punch and kick and move and they held pads for me. And all the time they enjoyed doing this, had a laugh here and there whilst at the same time pushing me. A bunch of very nice guys that just happen to have a large collection of shiny belts at home. Just for this... coming all the way from the UK, just to train with them for two weeks... not seeing anything but the gym... even that would've been worth the money.

My second home - Evolve MMA Academy

But I did see some of Singapore. I had the odd day off and had to decrease my number of training sessions yesterday and today due to a now heavily complaining achilles tendon. Too much skipping, jumping etc. Overtraining after 25 training sessions in just 13 days. And lots of walking on my days off. Now even walking is very unpleasant. Bit frustrating, I would've liked to do another 3 sessions.

So after my last Muay Thai session this morning I had to call it a day, but not without getting a fan girl photo with my instructors! Said goodbye to the girl at the counter as well who's been very helpful and accomodating as all the staff and off I went into the burning midday sun.

Being trained by world champions Kru Orono Wor Petchpun (left) and Kru Pongsaklek Wonjongkam (right)
Quick salad and a load of poultry downtown, then off to Tiong Bahru, which my Lonely Planet said, was worth a trip. A up and coming neighbourhood with some nice cafes and artsy shops. 
I really only spend an hour or so there. Nice vibe indeed and a very typical Singaporean contrast: A cluster of older, smaller houses with said cafes and shops surrounded by towering skyhigh appartment blocks. At least two if not three times as high as the ones we know back in the UK, they don't have the taint of hinting at a dodgy area where you don't want to go at night. No this is indeed the only thing most people can afford. Even if you're working in a fairly decent job.

Had a coffee and a lush raspberry tart in one of the cafes luckily avoiding a heavy rain shower and then took the train to Chinatown to try and spend some money on the market. Even though it's veeeery touristy, I really like it there. Sat outside one of the restaurants with a Singaporean craft beer (!) and watched people walking by, taking photos, browsing, chatting, laughing. What a mix of different cultures and all of them peacfully enjoying a nice day out. 

Terrace houses and skyscrapers in the background

Bustling Chinatown

Supposed to be BBQ pork. They sell it everywhere in Chinatown. I didn't wanna try.


Singaporean craft beer. For around £6 per pint.
Limped back to the MRT station to get home. My foot was really not happy at all by now. Maybe walking at least 15k on my day off yesterday hadn't been such a good idea. Arranged my check out tomorrow morning and just chilling right now watching some Netflix.

Bye bye Singapore, it's been a fantastic time! I'll write down some thoughts on Singapore when I'm back.

Friday 9 June 2017

Tree Tops and Top Shops

After another three days with 8 training sessions all together I had to take another day off today. Tuesday to Thursday my daily routine had been pretty much the same. Breakfast around 8:45am. Greek yoghurt, coconut cream and a load of fruit. Then to Evolve for the 11:15 Muay Thai session.

One hour break of chilling at the gym and then the second Thai session. Longer break with coffee and a huge salad nearby in one of the handfull of salad bars. They're quite popular with people working in the offices. You get a sheet of paper with options. You tick your salad base, extras and protein and hand it over. Couple of minutes later you a have big bowl of healthy shit.


With all those training sessions, my body was craving for green stuff and protein, so I listened and had some pretty good ones, like the one above at Omnivore.
Afternoon training session of Boxing and off home I went knackered. Sometimes another salad, sometimes I was too knackered to be hungry and only had a banana later at home.

Unfortunately, my left achilles tendon started complaining Weds night. Must be all that skipping we do. I did another 2 training sessions on Thursday but it wasn't really happy, so I had a forced day off today. Just when I was making real progress!

Walking hurts but is okay, what it doesn't like is standing on the balls of my feet. Can be arranged. So I made the journey to MacRitchie Reservoir and the surrounding nature reserve. Wow!!! Like the Botanic Gardens (actually not far away from it), but without the landscaping bit. Lots and lots and lots of rainforest. I saw butterflies, lizards, turtles and the local longtail macaques, all of them in their natural habitats.
The main trail leads around the huge MacRitchie reservoir and often you have the choice of walking through the rain forest or on planks along the water. Both options are simply beautiful. All those sounds around! It was quite busy on the main route with lots of runners, but on the planks next to the water I was mostly alone.



This one literally sat down for me and two girls who happend to be there as well, so we could take photos.
The whole trail is about 12km (roughly 8mi) long with the detour to do the Tree Walk. A 250m long bridge through the tops of the trees. Very impressive I must say and well worth the trip!!!
It was sweltering again most of the time, sheltered from the wind, sweat was constantly running down my limbs and back.
It had taken me four hours to do the loop from 10am to 2pm. Lots of photo breaks and fauna watching. I was knackered. My foot wasn't happy. This wasn't a quiet recovery day after all. Boo. But it had been amazing and was well worth the sweat!



Tree Top Walk

Watched this little guy hunt fish for some time.
Off to the complete opposite. Orchard Road. Singaporians love two things the most. Food and shopping. Orchard Road is the epicentre of shopping. Mall after mall all lined up nicely along the road. I wasn't interested in shopping, but every mall comes with a food court and I was staaaarving!!! Had had a small curry pie to tie me over at MacRitchie reservoir cafe, but that surely wasn't gonna last long.
Whilst walking through the ground floor of one of the malls parallel to the street to cool down, I came across some Ben & Jerry's promotion event for their two new flavours. They dished out a scoop of each for free. Score!!!! Both were delicious indeed. Free ice cream, yay!

Malls, malls, malls

Beautiful Emerald Hill Rd., just off Orchard Rd. with it's 1900-1920s terrace houses.
Passed by the small Killiney Kopitiam, a cafe that also serves food. As always I let myself guide by the feel of the place and the pictures of the dishes on the wall and I was intrigued. It all looked yummy and staff was friendly. Right, then. Laksa!!! It was high up on my list of food to have here and I have to say it was delicious and filling for mere £3 (SGD 4.80). Bargain!!!

Laksa
With a full belly and no longer interested in any of the shopping craze I took the next train home, chilling and resting my foot, bathing it in Tiger Balm. Last day tomorrow, boo :(. Will go to a training session at 11:45am and then see if I can get through a second one with an hour's break between. I know I should rest my stupid foot, but it's my last day. I can rest afterwards!

Monday 5 June 2017

Holiday on Holiday

After my three intensive training days Friday, Saturday and Sunday with three sessions each day, my sports watch and to be honest by body both told me it was time to rest. Apparently, I needed 120 hours to recover from my workouts. Yeah, not gonna happen. But I decided to give myself a day off.


With week 1 over, I have done Muay Thai, 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu, Boxing, MMA and Warrior Fit, the latter one being the toughest of the lot. Three days of eat, train, eat, train, eat, train, eat, sleep.
Whilst Warrior Fit is the most fun and exhausting one, I get the most technique improvement out of Boxing and MMA. Boxing because it concentrates on upper body only so we also do defensive techniques like slipping, dodging and counter attacks. The Muay Thai classes do striking only and no defensive maneuvres at my level.
MMA is good fun and the three classes I took were all about take downs, we even did some light sparring in one session. This is surely the closest one to Krav. So next week I'll do 2x Boxing per day and 1 Muay Thai, then swap 1 Boxing class for the MMA classes on Friday and Saturday. Sad to drop 10th Planet, but I would need to train for much longer to get anything useful from it.

Full on week 1 with 16 training sessions in 7 days.
So day off today! I went to Sentosa... a pleasure island just South of Singapore, connected via a bridge. It's full of attractions with Universal Studios being the biggest one. There are beaches, bars, cafes, shops, restaurants, fun pools and all kinds of stuff. I was really just inrested in the world's biggest aquarium!
It re-creates 49 aquatic habitats found between South East Asia, Australia and Africa. The Open Ocean habitat is absolutely spectacular with a 36m long and 8.3m high viewing panel. Inside a plethora of open ocean creatures including a huge black manta ray.
The tube through the big shark tank was equally impressive and if it wasn't for the rising number of visiting famlies with their noisy children I would've stayed for much longer, haha.

The Shark Tube

Love the colours on this one!

Stunning Open Ocean tank
After that I had some nosh at the island's own Hawker Centre called "Malaysian Food Street". It was reasonably cool as it was an indoor Hawker with faux streetscape, and signs everywhere what every dish was. Bit touristy, but I actually liked it a lot and the food was again lovely. Didn't go for Laksa as it was a vegetarian one and had instead a nice Malaysian Chicken and Rice dish.

Malaysian Food Street with Malaysian Street Food
After that I stepped back into the heat of midday and dragged myself to the Southernmost point of continental Asia. It is actually on a small island but since this one is connected by a bridge to Sentosa, Sentosa is connected by a bridge to Singapore and Singapore is connected to Malaysia by a bridge as well, it counts as continental Asia. Well, if you say so. Not much to see really apart from loads of huge container ships hanging around. Bit of a weird sight that.

Does a dream beach involve container ships???
Sunshine, 35C and hardly any breeze had me pouring sweat as I made my way back to the centre of Sentosa and the train back to Singapore. Had a coffee at the very nice Vivo Mall and headed uphill to the highest mountain... well, hill... hump maybe... of Singapore. Mt. Faber with its impressive 166m. Loved the walk up through secondary rainforest with the sounds and smells that came with it. The top was a top and full of people. Funny how you can be pretty much all alone on the way up, only to find everyone else at the top. Ha.

Old school summit selfie.
On I went on the highest foot bridge of Singapore, the Henderson Waves. Always staying within park landscape from Mt. Faber Park via Henderson Waves to Telok Blangah Hill Park, Hort Park and finally Kent Ridge Park where I dropped down to the main street and onto the MRT again.

Walking on the Henderson Waves.
I was pretty knackered. The heat and a fairly long walk (27,000 steps... whatever that is in km/mi) had taken their toll. The train was rammed at 6pm and I was glad when I was off it again.

Great day. Missed the rest of Kent Park and didn't visit Labrador Park. But I'll probably have another day off and I certainly want to come back to Singapore, so better leave some things do to later. Back at Evolve - my second home - tomorrow for more training!

Friday 2 June 2017

Alien Trees and Lightshow Super Trees

Thursday was my day off training, so what to do? The list was long but two things stood out as must-do: Sentosa Island and Botanic Gardens. I decided to do the Botanic Gardens as the day was forecasted mostly overcast.

Headed off to the gardens' very own MRT station around 9am and started walking. What a fantastic place!!! Though sheltered most of the time I was drenched in sweat without the slightest wind. It's a lovely big space and I ended up spending four hours there. They have a number of themed gardens within like the superb Foliage Garden and a Rainforest Walk.

The Foliage Garden
Highlight for me was the Evolution Garden. A walk through the evolution of plants through the different ages from no plants to moss to ferns all the way to flowering plants and trees etc. The models of now extinct Lepidodrendron were most impressive and the neverending background noise of cicadas gave the whole scene a very otherworldly feel. Spooky and elating at the same time, especially when being all alone.

Spooky, despite being a model of extinct trees.
Solitude ended at the Orchid Garden for which you had to pay $5 to get in. Beautiful, colourful and a feast for the eyes, I still preferred the other gardens, haha. Not just because it was fairly busy here.

Orchid Garden, one of the few parts that were actually inside
Headed to the local food court/Hawker for some lunch as I was getting really hungry now. Had another favourite of Singaporians: Banmian. The name itself referrs to a flat cut noodle which is often served in a soup with anchovies, a choice of meat and some little extras. I had a dry version called Spicy Mala Ban Mian which had dried anchovies and beef. Again very yummy.

Once again Hawker nosh
Two stations on the MRT to Holland Village which wouldn't have been worth the visit if it wasn't for Haakon, a tiny cafe with "healthy shit"... and I was craving for healthy shit, haha. Got a green smoothy and a smoked salmon salad, then took the train back down to Little India.
Had looked forward to going there, but just walked around for a bit. It is a bit like India indeed, but really just a few smaller streets with mostly flower stalls and green grocer stalls.

This must be Singapore's most colourful house.
Coffee at Bugis+ mall, then into town to see the city centre and most of all the Super Trees after sunset! The Singapore Regatta 2017 that was on, was a bit boring as nothing was happening really and I didn't fancy paying for a cocktail. So I had a snooze on one of the deck chairs facing the bay and pretty much woke up to watch day turn into night. Amazing, stunning and soooo worth the wait!!!

CBD after sunset.
Time to head over to the Gardens by the Bay again to see the Super Trees alight. I wasn't the only one.. by far... with that idea. Still absolutely amazing and a must-do in Singapore!!! They actually pulled off a light show with the Star Wars score blasting from the speakers around. Very, very cool. Just now my GoPro gave up, arg!!!! And I had brought it for its wide angle really. Boo. but to be honest, I don't mind watching the show again after properly charging my cam. Silly me.

Super Tree Lightshow.
Tired and with blisters on both heels I limped home. Grabbed a superb pulled lamb wrap from the market near the house and collapsed on the bed after a quick shower. What a day!