Phew it feels like the week just flew by in a heartbeat sometimes.

On Monday, I got a call booking my time for some mahjong on Friday and the next thing I knew, the days I flew by and I was having dinner with some of the GAs and FredBear at this Beijing Dumpling shop. I personally will never ever go back to that shop again. I thought the food was really lousy ! Was introduced to GaVin's girlfriend MsJoa and friend MrJoe. We had quite a good time and spent time at the mahjong table until about half past two.

By this time I was really sleepy, having been up for the last 20 hours ! Took a quick shower and fell into bed only to awakened by the alarm clock reminding me of my Chinese class. Fortunately, today was German Bridge day with Teacher MsCar and another teached MsCin. The plan was to make me talk more in Chinese so that it will improve, so no really formal stuff, but more like informal speaking to get me to get more used to speaking in Chinese. It was a really fun game and we even managed to squeeze in a game of BigTwo and 2 rounds of Bluff.

Went home for quick change and had lunch with FredBear at the Fenwick pier cafe. It was a place where we had to show our ID and go through a metal detector to get to. I soon realised that this was because it was a hotspot for naval officers from the US. We saw a lot of servicemen around as well. We had our food, a Caesar Salad and some Scrambled Eggs in double quick time as we were almost late for our weekly tennis appointment ! As it is, we rushed and huffed and puffed and managed to make it for tennis after all. Exercise is always good and today was really really bright and sunny. Strange for a Winter Day.

We then bought some food at Macca's and headed back to the apartment for more mahjong ! Being too lazy to cook, we ordered Pizza Hut delivery and FredBear also made some Coke chicken wings, which funnily enough to me, tasted just like plain old soy sauce wings. Not impressed ! But it was another fun time, especially at the mahjong table, with another group of friends.

Now it is actually already Sunday morning and I am almost ready to turn in as soon as I hang out my laundry. I plan to have a good long sleep, scrounge up some food, and then will be off to RoxBear's church as she will be getting baptised !! Good for her, and will be nice after all the trouble that she has been having lately. Later I should go for my half marathon training, and hopefully will be able to finish my 5 km in less than an hour. I have made a pact with GACle to do some runs together soon.

Yawn.

Yawn. Beddy time.

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Sorry !!

Haha, my mom came over for the second week of my holidays, and basically it was more or less a summary of my last three months ! We did almost everything that I have done on the weekends, including the shopping, the places, the monuments, houses, attractions, food......and even managed to do a bit more than I previously did. During the second week of her stay here, while I was at work, it was good to come home to food, without cooking, and of course, no need to do laundry for a week !

But all too soon, 2 weeks flew by and it was back to work +life again. And this past week has been really hectic. And will stay so for the next three weeks. Someone or the other from the team will be on leave, so the rest of us have got to pick up the slack. Add to that the many volatile happenings in the world market today, and have we got a whole lot to do. I am also learning a lot and taking up new responsibilities so you can imagine all the extra work !

That being said, the weekly tennis games are proving to be some healthy outdoor activity, and since I signed up for the half marathon, I suppose the time has come to start training for it. 21 km ! I must have been crazy when I did. But then again, it is a good self challenge right ? Take it as an early 2009 resolution !! (speaking of which, am not looking forward to the annual resolution post and analysis).

So far today, I managed 4.5 km in 35 minutes. Not exactly fantastic, but it was a start to get my butt off the chair at least. Hope to bring this down to 30 minutes at least, and also to start increasing the distances. So far, this 4.5 km is along my street and up the hill to another street, pretty steep in some places. I got FredBear to drive along yesterday to mark the distances, so I am quite sure that the route is 4.5 km. The target is to do two of this route by end of December, which makes it around 9 km. Then by January, will be around twice of that, just in time for my half marathon on February 8. The bad thing is that it is pretty near the Chinese New Year, which may be a time for over eating and lethargy. However, I plan to overcome that this year !!

Hopefully, on weekdays, I can finish a little earlier, and get home by nine so that I can do some weekday runs as well. It was not as tiring as I thought it would be once I finished, but you can be sure that I walked plenty of times. Which was kinda disappointing since the last time I ran 10km, I did not stop for 4 km. So one target would be to complete this route without stopping. I am confident that this would cut the time from 35 minutes to at least 25 minutes. My boss is running the half as well, and he completed it last year in One Hour and 50 minutes. The man is crazy. I guess my target (at the moment anyway) is to finish within 3 hours. I think that is pretty fair, as that means around 7 km an hour. While I guess I can finishe the first 7 km in an hour, I am not as sure about the consequent ones.

Just got to work on it.

So it has been a pretty healthy weekend so far. Yesterday, I skipped Chinese since I had a very long week at work, and did not do my homework. Slept till about 9 and started cleaning up house, which had taken on a very messy look. Watched the movie The Out of Towners on HBO, which was a movie that I had wanted to watch since primary school but did not get to until now, and then went for brunch at The Press Club with FredBear. It is a great place and remind me to take you guys there if you are in Hong Kong. I had to resist all the oysters and lobster omelettes, and crab cakes and ended up with a brunch of grilled chicken with salad. (Someone had the FULL ENGLISH BREAKFAST !) Though I traded some leaves and a piece of chicken for a poached egg.

After brunch, we walked around MidLevels West while listening to some historical facts of the area from my friendly tour guide. Incidentally, we also went into a temple so that he could touch the 'brush' at the altar, for good luck for his upcoming exam. We walked uphill, and old staircases and it was a pretty good walk, since it is such good cool weather now, so it was good exercise as well. Then we walked to his under renovation house for a look and then took the car for a drive. This was when I measured my training route.

Back at the apartment, I did some internet, chatted to NiqBear and SherBear and watched Superbad. Had a sandwich with eggs and sausages for dinner, just two pieces of bread...no butter...and also danced around to ABBA songs for a while before taking a shower. (I was alone, since FredBear had dinner with his family.) I like dancing and/or having a private concerts while along at home. I had to cut short this concert, and rushed over to Victoria Garden for the weekly tennis meetup, and even had some fun looking at the racing cycles happening !

Heroically resisted more 'fried ghost' for supper and instead of getting my iced coffee/milk tea, I had a hot honey with tangerines. I need to get some honey to make some drinks at home instead of relying on sweetened juices and zero sodas. Note to self.

Ah.

Work tomorrow. Who can tell me what will tomorrow bring ?

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