Sengkang West National Day Celebration 2015

Just this month, Derp and I participated in yet another event held by our neighborhood CC.  Not long ago we participated in the RC's 1st anniversary. 

Upon knowing that there will be National Day Celebration in our neighborhood, we gladly bought the tickets for it. We were given red t-shirt to be wore to the event in exchange for a goodie bag. Not forgetting there will be fireworks display at 9pm on the event day(the first fireworks we witness in the new neighborhood). All this was part of the SG50 neighborhood celebration! 

The ticket consists of various food vouchers and also games for the little ones. 

Come to think of it, it's our 2nd National Day spent in the new house/neighborhood! I still remembered we moved in 1 month before National Day and I was missing home pretty much back then. But thankfully there was the Jubliee Weekend this year which allow many to spend more time with their family and loves one :)  

The National Day celebration started as early as 4pm but Derp and I only made our way down to Anchorvale CC after 6pm.

The glorious sunset which greeted us that evening :) 

We started walking around to see what's going on.

There was a long queue for popcorn/candy floss (free for those who purchased the tickets) 

The water game for the kids. Not forgetting there's bouncy castle as well. 

There were a whole stretch of food stalls. Since we can exchange our coupons for it, we went around to see what are the various food available.

Laksa! 

Chicken Rice! 

Nope this is not Kong Ba Pao. But instead it's roasted duck meat. 

We shared 1 of this. Taste yummy! 

Lots of people attending the event. 

There's this stall wrapping popiah with mango puree. A interesting variation from the usual popiah. Taste very refreshing indeed as it's cold.

Another stall selling wraps but this wrap is filled with meat. 

After grabbing some food, we went to the 2nd level of the CC to take a look. 

The little notes were filled with birthday wishes from the residents for Singapore. 

And so we spotted this largest LKY mosiac ribbon(till date) made from NEWater bottles. 

Can't help but to take a #OOTD with it. 

We tried our best to take a #welfie with it. 

Since there's nothing much left to do/any activities suitable for us, we head home to rest before heading out to wait for the fireworks. 

We found a good spot and camp for the fireworks. 

#welfie again but this time round while waiting for the fireworks :) 

When 9pm strikes, here comes the fireworks!  I didn't expect it to be those massive and lasting kind because afterall it's fireworks put out in a neighborhood area. All the photos taken by our Iphones so pardon for the blur quality. 

The firework lasted for a good whole 5 minutes(I think)! 

Ending this post with a #welfie of us and the fireworks. 

Having to enjoy fireworks within a walkable distance from our home is really a blessing (better than nothing). Hope to see more fireworks being put out in the neighborhood in years to come :) At the very least we get to enjoy it without having to travel and squeeze with the crowd. 

Last but not least, Happy 50th Birthday Singapore! May you prosper for many many more 50 years! 

BKK Day 2 Part 1 - Coffman By Friends, Silom Thai Cooking School Part 1

BKK Day 2 started with a hearty and sumptuous hotel breakfast. Since it's our 3rd time staying at Baiyoke Sky Hotel, we roughly know what are the 'must-eat'. 

Day 2's Breakfast Situation :) The prata is one of the 'must-eat', not forgetting the different kinds of omelette cooked on the spot by the chefs (not shown in the pic).

We went back to our room to rest awhile after breakfast before heading out again. We decide to walk around  the shops near the hotel (basically Pratunam Market and Platinum Mall) before taking the BTS to Silom Thai Cooking School. 

Lots of street stalls selling cheap shades! 

We spotted this and nope I didn't get it. Just find it look really funny, I totally can't imagine myself in it haha! 

Before we took the train to Chong Nonsi BTS station(for our cooking lesson) , we decide to get ourselves some bubble tea to cool ourselves down while on the way here. We bought bubble tea from Coco which is located outside Platinum Mall.

#selfie with the bubble tea under the hot sun with my new shades bought at 100baht! 

We ordered the passion fruit green tea with nata de coco. It's actually way too sweet for our liking.

This was supposed to be a #OOTD shot. 

Anyway if you are wondering why did we decide to attend a cooking lesson this time round in Bangkok, the main reason being we have always wanted to learn how to cooked Thai local dishes. I've chanced upon Silom Thai Cooking School after reading it here! Discussed with Derp about it and we slot in the cooking lesson into part of our itinerary this time round. :) No regrets! 

Okay back to the journey to the cooking lesson, we walked to Chit Lom BTS station and took the train to Siam before changing train to Chong Nonsi BTS station. It wasn't that far from where we stay in Bangkok as it's only 4 stations apart. 

Took us probably less than 15 minutes train ride minus all the waiting/changing train time. 

A #welfie on the BTS

After we got down the train, we followed the step by step instructions and  map given by Silom Thai Cooking School to get to the meeting point for the lesson.

We reached the meeting point around 1pm. Since we were too early, we went to a small cafe that's near the meeting point to rest after all the walking.

A very small cafe but at least the air con is blasting. It's way too hot outside! 

So their signature food is the Rollie Egg. Since we haven't had our lunch, we decide to order the Rollie Egg to try.

Our Ice Blended Coffee and Rollie Egg 

The Rollie Egg is actually made of ham and egg. It taste not bad and it was piping hot when served to us.

The total bill. Around SGD4  for the ice blended coffee and rollie egg. 

We left the cafe around 1:35pm and walked back to the meeting point.

That's the meeting point and you can see lots of foreigners gathering there. There's a total of 4 classes going on that afternoon hence it's a little chaotic. 

The lady who were there taking the attendance and introducing us to our classmates. She then brought us to meet our teacher who will be with us for the rest of the day.

The first part of the lesson was to bring us to the local market for a short tour. Looking forward to it because how often will you get to visit a local market when you are overseas right? :) 

Walking to the local market with the rest of the classmates. 

I don't know when Derp took this picture of me haha. 

Most of the stalls were closed by afternoon. However, there are some that were still opened. Probably they are waiting to serve us as we were supposed to get the fresh ingredients from them for the cooking lesson. 

The wide range of veggies sold at their market. The layout is somewhat similar to that of our local market. 

Our friendly teacher ( I can't remember her name anymore) explaining to us the various ingredients being used in their local dishes. 

She passed around the ingredients to make us smell it and also put these ingredients into our basket to be brought back to the cooking school. 

Derp with his basket. 

Me and my basket :) 

And that's what in my basket haha. Chili and lemon grass! 

After the market tour, we sat a tuk tuk to the cooking school with our baskets filled with ingredients that will be used later. Btw, it's our first time sitting a tuk tuk after going to BKK for the 3rd time. 

 

Us with our classmates on the tuk tuk. They are actually from Korea and Taiwan :)

The friendly tuk tuk driver actually took the initiative to help us take a group photo! That's all about part 1 of our experience to Silom Thai Cooking School. Will be back to update part 2 of  my experience at Silom Thai Cooking School soon.

I think our greatest takeaway from this market trip was actually understanding all the different kinds of ingredients used in Thai Food. And also there's actually more than 1 kind of basil leaves in Thailand. They actually smell/taste very differently. 

I can only find one type in our local supermarket but it's only after we attend the cooking lesson, we realised they actually have 3-4 types of basil. On the first day when we had our dinner at greyhound cafe, they uses basil in Derp's main course. We did figured that out and kept wondering is it really basil leaves haha! 

I guess the mystery is solved now :) 

You may read other post of my BKK2015 trip here:

http://firstlove88.blogspot.sg/2015/08/bangkok-2015-day-1-part-1-singapore-bkk.html
http://firstlove88.blogspot.sg/2015/08/bkk-day-1-part-2-after-you-dessert-cafe.html
http://firstlove88.blogspot.sg/2015/09/bkk-day-2-part-2-silom-thai-cooking.html
http://firstlove88.blogspot.sg/2015/09/bkk-day-2-part-3-ookii-ookii-village.html
http://firstlove88.blogspot.sg/2015/10/bkk-day-3-part-1-big-c-supermarket.html
http://firstlove88.blogspot.sg/2015/11/bkk-day-3-part-2-som-tam-nua-siam.html
http://firstlove88.blogspot.sg/2016/01/bkk-day-4-back-to-singapore.html

Shape Run 2015

It's my 2nd year participating in Shape Run. Reason being, I've always enjoyed women race more than unisex race because the race pack is always filled with goodies! 

This year marked the 10th year anniversary of Shape Run hence they launched a new race category which is the 15km race. 

I did not gave much thought and signed up for the 15km race since it's only a few dollars more expensive than the 10km race. And it's a slightly different route for the 15km so why not!

The race pack collection was held at Raffles City Shopping Centre, nearly 3 weeks before the actual race day. Glad that it didn't clash with my BKK trip if not it will be really troublesome to collect the racepack at a different day and location.

The queue was quite long due to the after work peak period and I waited around 45 minutes before it finally reached my turn. 

Overall the whole race pack collection was well organised and the queue moved fast enough.  

All the goodies from the race pack. Shape run have one of the most/best goodies in their racepack. 

On therace day, the flag off time for 15km was at 6am. I was totally dreading it because I didn't really train for the race. And it was 15km! I've to convinced myself that it's just 5km more than my usual 10km race, it shouldn't pose much a problem. #selfmotivation

I was afraid I couldn't make it because it will be my longest race this year. I didn't signed up for 21km for GEWR2015(even though I was very tempted) because I'm afraid I don't have the chance to train and the race will be very torturing rather than enjoyable.

Anyway, given the fact that I just came back from BKK that week, I take it as a chance to burn the fats gained from all the good food eaten in BKK lol. It's more like a fats-burning race rather than a achieving personal-best race because I still can have many other race to achieve my PB.  

#flatlay of my attire to the race! 

I still remember clearly the pre-race jitters I felt the entire day and how I force myself to sleep early as I got to wake as early as 4.30AM.

I reached the race site before 6am and it was at Kallang Practice Track. It's my first time going there! 

Many race have being held there ever since it was opened but I didn't have a chance to join those race. 

The scene while waiting for flag off.

Surprisingly the participants for the 15km race wasn't as much as I've expected. Or maybe many was late because the race starts too early. 

The race started sharply at 6am after the warm up. The first 5km was done in almost complete darkness (except for the street lights) as the sun has not rise yet. It wasn't easy because I was in half asleep mode during the first 5km. There were some areas which were really dark (especially at the F1 pit area) which made me even more sleepy with the cooling wind blowing into my face.

After I reached the 5km mark, I told myself the race has just 'started' and I should count down as I go pass by every distance marker. That's how I motivated myself along the way. 

I was infront of the 2:00HR pacer all this while till after 10km. That's when the sun has risen and my legs have also started to feel tired. 

Kudos to the 2:00HR pacer who have cheered/motivated me along the way. 

The tiredness kicked in at the last few km. What seems so near can be so far but yet the feeling of getting close to the finishing point makes me never give up. 

Derp was standing by for me at the finishing point when I was at my last km. That really motivates me to stop slacking and faster complete the race. 

Witness the whole sun rise that morning...

The scenery was scenic enough :) 

Yet another slope! There were quite a few up and down slopes throughout the race but I remembered what the pacers said "take small steps and you won't feel so tired" 

And indeed, I complete the race :) 

Below are some pics Derp took of me when I passed by the finishing line and running to find him haha!

Super shag face

Unglam face and I didn't know when he took it lol. 

I crossed the finishing line slightly below 2 hours. I'm glad I didn't took 3 hours because I've been telling people how long I didn't run and I've got zero confidence to complete it. 

When I was looking at the race guide, there were 1h40mins, 1h50mins and 2hour pacer. I told myself to at least keep up with the 2 hour pacer and I did :) 

Some more pics below...

Pic credit to Running Shots

Pic credit to Running Shots

I look better here than previously lol. There's more shag face photo just that I didn't post it up. 

The official results :) 

The finisher singlet and medal 

This year race was indeed a better race than last year.This finisher singlet is more nicer looking than the previous year. The collection of the singlet, medal and etc were done better than last year. Indeed, it was a more well-organized race this year. 

There were sufficient water points and no bottle neck. Stepping out of my usual 10km comfort zone to participate in the 15km race cat was indeed #achievementunlocked . 

I hope that they will continue to have the 15km race category in the following years to come.

Looking forward to Shape Run 2016!