Still Trying to Get to Malaysia

We're still trying to get to Malaysia on our bikes. It's a goal now. So last weekend [the weekend before the dive trip] we tried another route.

19.54 miles round trip / 31.44 km (I wasn't feeling 100% so it was a short trip.) 

Yes, I am aware that Malaysia is NORTH of Singapore and this route has us headed SOUTH, but as we mentioned last time we biked to Malaysia, we can't cross the main bridge on bikes. Instead, we need to take a ferry and the ferries are on the eastern tip of the island. So we thought the best bet might be to head south to East Coast Park, and wrap around the island in the park.

This has the added advantage that East Coast Park is really lovely in a lot of ways. There were people camping and fishing and flying kites. There's a boardwalk area with lots of restaurants, bike rental places, and drink stands. We took a break and hung out by the beach for a while, and then had dinner at an Indian restaurant in the park before we came home.

It is slightly less lovely only in that there are a ton of people hanging out at the park on Sunday and they don't all respect the bike path. But we didn't hit anyone, so yay for that.

Still haven't actually made it to Malaysia, but we're making progress, I think.

Happy New Year, Malaysia

On Sunday we biked to* Malaysia. No kidding.

 

33.6 miles round trip / 54.07 km

Look it's us and Malaysia!

Hello, panoramic Malaysia. You are a bit farther from my house than I thought.

*TO Malaysia, not IN Malaysia. Singapore is an island, remember? We biked to the Johor Straits and the bridge into Malaysia, but we've heard that they don't allow you to bike across the causeway anymore. Plus we didn't bring our passports. If we want to bike IN Malaysia, we need to go a different direction and take a boat across the Straits. And bring our passports. 

Full route details here, if you're interested.

In which our friends are extremely good sports

Upon opening the Panty Hose, we didn't have to threaten or cajole or anything! Emily and Philip were happy to try out their new Christmas game.

Once earrings were out and glasses and hats were off, they donned their respective ends of the panty hose.



Emily had some hair obscuring her vision, but didn't seem bothered.

We paused for some pre-competition mugging.

On your mark, get set...

Go!

Emily took an early lead by immediately wrapping the panty hose around her head (not her neck, thank goodness).  

Philip was caught off guard, but soon recovered. By switching positions and somehow capturing the hose in his teeth, he gained the upper hand.

The fighting got more intimate as the contenders tried twists and turns to remove their opponent's panty hose.

Both put forth valiant efforts.

In the end, the contest was judged a draw. The panty hose didn't seem likely to budge, and the seam in the middle where the toes were sewn together was pulling apart. As we really didn't want either Philip or Emily to go flying backwards if it broke (crashing into the table, or worse, falling out of the window!) we called it.

Plus, of course, we were all laughing so hard, no one could see anyway.

39

Lunch on the patio

4 bottles of water
Lots of monkeys

One near-collision with a construction worker
5 fishermen fishing by the No Fishing sign

39 kilometers (24.25 miles) on our bikes today.

Good ride. :)

(I've come a long way!)

Medium Tough

My wife is medium tough. It's sort of a joke we have with regard to her willingness to try dangerous/scary/potentially painful scenarios.

Ever since deciding we'd move to Singapore, I've thought it would be a lot of fun for us to both get bikes and be able to go on rides together. She has constantly reminded me of how many years it has been since her last biking foray, but ultimately we agree that if there is a whole phrase dedicated to the widely held belief that once you learn, you don't forget, a medium tough girl can handle it.

Although the heat, traffic, and various other factors have lessened that desire to purchase our own bikes right away, I still wanted to give this a go. Additionally, it would be quite sad to spend big bucks on a nice bike only to have Alli decide it wasn't for her and she would never ride with me. So last weekend we took another trip down to East Coast Park and rented some bicycles for a couple of hours.

As is easily seen in photos, the phrase is true! Alli had not forgotten how to ride a bike.

There was a brief period as we were getting started when some little tykes were showing off their skills, kind of taunting Alli really: "see how easy it is!" Alli reminded them that they have training wheels and that is not fair! but yea, once she got up and on and moving, it was a breeze!

We proceeded to go on a roughly 16 km round trip expedition down the coast, all the way to and from Changi airport, and we were only a little sore the next day.

Wait for me, Alli!

I've Ordered a Hit on the Packing Fairies

Oh the stuff and the moving and the deadlines. And the flat out refusal of the Packing Fairies to show up as requested. We're supposed to pick up a moving truck in two hours and our apartment still has a long, long, way to go.

Thanks to our friend Charlotte, though, we've come a long way since Friday night when she arrived. I think she had a small panic attack when she saw the state of the apartment. It was nice and neat and together, which is really not the point.

We went on a midnight run to scavenge for boxes at MIT and got so many that the car was solidly filled. You couldn't even see Kyle in the backseat for the boxes.

We did get a lot of boxes packed. FYI: thesis drafts make excellent packing materials:


But while Charlotte packed and did my laundry and thoughtfully took our crock pot home in her carry on, there was only so much she could do.

Now it's just up to us. We need to pick up a moving truck in an hour and a half. Oh dear.

Push!

UPDATE: If you really want to keep up with our progress (Ma), feel free to make a regular check of our stats on this spreadsheet.
note: if you are curious what the column for KP planche training is about, watch this video. Currently planche training means those pseudo pushups, the comments will inform you if I ever progress beyond them.

I've been on a bit of a push up kick for a while now, ever since this New York Times article came out raving about the push up and how great it is. By "push up kick," I mean I'm a fan of the push up. Yay push ups! I don't mean that I'm really doing any or otherwise insulting the push up by taking part in any poor imitations. I respect the push up too much for that sort of thing.

But then I found this and decided to jump on the blog bandwagon and be challenged. So I emailed Kyle on Friday to tell him that we should do the Hundred Push Up Challenge. He asked me when I got home if I was really serious. I was. He asked me if I wanted to start right away. I did not. You can't do push ups on Fridays. It's not respectful.

But today we started. We did the diagnostic test: what is the absolute most push ups can you do with good form? I can do 8, apparently. I wanted to do less, but Kyle said I was not exhausted. He actually thinks I could do more and that maybe I don't really know the meaning of exhausted.

Kyle can do 35. Because he is the brains AND the brawn in this relationship.