Singapore 2024, November 30

I had an alarm set for 6:00am and checked again when I got up that no rain was scheduled for the morning. Leaving for my parkrun round trip at 6:15am, the walk to the station was quite long but there was another very long walk underground to actually get to the platform from the entrance.

Luckily I was able to take one train the whole way, then just a bit more walking to get across to the start line, but that had already added up to 3000 steps and I was trying to limit my walking for the day. Similarly I didn't do any warmup as I wanted to keep my legs as good as possible for the half marathon tomorrow.

I was getting a bit worried during the briefing as my watch took nearly five minutes to get a GPS signal, probably due to the new location, but finally it cooperated. After the briefing the start line was a whole 400 metres away, so it took another five minutes to get everyone there.

From the start I went out at around five minutes per kilometre, I didn't really care about time or finishing position. A big group of school kids as well as many other low twenty minutes runners went ahead, much more than usual according to the results history. I finished off my race in around twenty-five minutes, still very sweaty due to the humidity, and then walked back to the station.

To save on walking, and since it was nearly 8:30am, I decided instead to get off at Marina Bay and switch trains for one stop to Bayfront to go straight to the race expo when it opened at 9:00am. The expo entrance was close to the train station exit which was good, and there was about fifty people already lining up at around 8:45am when I got there.

The doors opened at 9:00am and it was a quick process since there was about twenty different lines to collect your kit. I probably could have turned up at 9:05am instead and all the early arrivals would have been and gone already. I picked a large singlet during the registration process since the medium is always too short, but this Puma brand is the one time I should have ordered a medium. A small backpack and the race bib was also provided.

Next there was a long line of running related stands to walk past, I didn't think the official race shirts were worth buying as they were quite plain. There wasn't much else of interest but I did see they were advertising for the other big Singapore race in late April, the 2XU compression run.

Getting back on a different train line to Chinatown for a similar distance to walk back to the hotel compared to Fort Canning. It was after 10:00am once all that was done, but still the breakfast area was busy - no idea why so many people still haven't had their breakfast yet. After going back to my room I came down for breakfast around 10:30am and finally it was a bit emptier with the breakfast closing at 11:00am on weekends. There was a pretty standard choice of breakfast options, although the cereal bowls where tiny.

After breakfast I packed for the day and walked over to Fort Canning station to head to Expo station, which has nothing to do with the marina expo, this is back near the airport. I figured I didn't want to do much walking, or be outside in the sun, so instead chose to sit down on a half hour train out to the Changi City Point outlets.

For once it wasn't too hard to find all the sports stores thankfully, but there wasn't much good on offer. Many of the Nike shoes were still $200 SGD so closer to $250 AUD after exchange rates and fees were applied. They had a 30% off for 3 items deal, but I wasn't sure if you could combine clothes and shoes for that deal, but I only found one good pair of shoes anyway.

The other shops Adidas, Asics, New Balance, and Puma were all a bit disappointing, even with their Black Friday deals still going. I got some quick food and drink from the supermarket for lunch before heading back to Chinatown once more. Back at Chinatown Point I got more food and drinks for dinner and the evening, then walked back to the hotel to rest and have a very early night due to the race in the morning.

Steps = 18,939 with 5km running

Singapore 2024, November 29

 The standard extra long trip from home to boarding a plane:

• 6:20am train
• 7:00am bus
• 7:45am check-in
• 8:15am waiting for 9:15am boarding
• 9:30am boarding

On my way through the airport I picked up some Singapore money from an ATM for emergency, otherwise to convert to Vietnam money later. Once business class had boarded the premium economy line was full of idiots with standard economy class tickets, they were even trying to get their boarding passes scanned.

We left about on time, this being my third experience with premium economy after Emirates to Europe and Qantas to Hawaii. This was definitely the smallest section of the three, with only four rows and the primary difference being the seat size, the toilets were down in economy too.

The first couple of hours went along fast, then the first meal service came. Often lately I've risked not choosing the vegetarian option because:

• You get served early so get stuck with a tray table forever
• You often get a stupid vegan meal instead which is worse than the regular options

I think with Singapore Airlines there is more customisation available, so I should have looked into that. Being left with the default options it was a choice between meat and other meat, but the chicken came with a large side of rice so that was quite good.

For a change since it was a day time flight I started watching a bit of the Boston Strangler movie but was still a bit tired and fell asleep for a while towards the end, since I'd been up from 6am. Once the movie was over about four hours had elapsed, so I listened to a couple of podcasts and slept a bit more to use up the rest of the time of the eight hour flight.

We had to do the customary circle around the airport a few times before being allowed to land, but still arrived slightly early. I got through immigration quickly since I filled in the entry form online as required, but lots of other people had forgotten or didn't know and had to leave the line to go back and do it. The bags took a little while to come through but nothing too bad, then it was straight through the "nothing to declare" line.

I had to walk forever to get to the underground train station that was underground between terminals two and three. That train only went for one stop before having to change to another line, then it was a slow trip with many stops for about 30 minutes to arrive at Fort Canning. The walk was a bit less than one kilometre to the hotel, but I didn't go the quickest way I found out later. The ground was still wet but luckily the rain had cleared.

Soon I was able to check-in at the same Holiday Inn Express as the last visit several years ago. I usually choose the Holiday Inn for reliability, the only downside of this one was being just a bit too far from the closest trains and shops. After dropping off all my stuff I took a quick walk down towards Chinatown for some food, I guess it was overdue dinner time by now.

A compact room but enough space to move around

Luggage compartments survived the trip

I got some donuts from Bread Talk (not Bread Top) and a Singapore version of a burrito that was more like a toasted wrap, but still good. I was disappointed to find there wasn't many good drink choices in the convenience stores.

Back to the hotel it was 6pm local time but 9pm Australian time already. My old power adapter still worked to charge my phone, the same plug as for the UK. Had a quick check through the TV channels but it had no guide. There was lots of news channels and a few sports channels with one even showing the A League.

I still had to get a quick plan together to make it to parkrun and back in the morning, and decide what to do about the marathon expo afterwards. I decided for now to come back to the hotel first and get changed, then have breakfast before going out again to the marathon expo.

The hotel room was quite cold with the cooling system running, like usual I couldn't made much sense of the operations panel with vague icons and no words.

Steps = 8,632

October Review

 Nearly forgot this month.

One quick topic for the miscellaneous section, there was about one day of excitement when negative gearing was back in the news, then it was quickly shut down again. So just the usual strategy for political parties taking no risks and doing nothing of significance.

Another month with similar running results, a collection of 18 minute parkruns. I've substituted some midweek 10 kilometre sessions with 9 x 1 kilometre intervals - so far no benefits and my legs feel a bit more banged up the next day. My one race was the 10 kilometre event at Melbourne Marathon, which had a disappointing slow start but got better towards the end and finished about 36:45. I didn't run a really good 10 kilometre race for the whole year, hopefully next year I can get back under 36 minutes at least.

A good month for shares only because all of my annual dividends came through. Overall I made close to 3% from dividends after tax, which is not bad considering some are growth companies with little or no dividends. With 30% company tax already deducted it comes out similar to a 5% bank interest savings account before tax - and which will probably start dropping soon.

In local sports I went to my first state gridiron game for the year, but the Croydon team isn't doing well this year and are currently bottom of division one.

For the to do list:

• Holidays
• One month to go, but I don't want to leave everything to the last week
• Singapore
• I got scared by a flight change email, but it was only adjusted by 30 minutes
• No visa, but arrival card can be submitted three days before departure
• Vietnam
• Visa issued, I read stories about them having mistakes but mine looks correct
• Running Holidays
• Nothing else for this year or early 2025
• Many races are already open for registration and some fill up early
• Tax Return
• Finally after paying quarterly in advance for years I got some of that money back this time
• USA visa lottery
• Registered again, but they might cancel the program again like last time

Haven't got final confirmation for work shutdown for the year, but sounds like it could be three weeks. If I had more notice I might have planned something, but there's nothing I'm that interested in locally.

That's it for this month.

• Books
• None
• Music
• None
• Movies
• None
• TV
• The Office Australia season 1
• Better than feared
• 6 out of 10
• Video Games
• Xbox One
• Elder Scrolls V Skyrim
• Still wandering around the huge map adding quests
• Not even sure what the main objectives are anymore