Trying to finish blogging about my China trip before I forget all about it!

I didn’t take too many photos on Day 3 because it was more of the same: Eating and shopping in Humen.

Tried on the funny hat I bought in Zhuhai.

After adjusting the hat this way and that, trying different hairstyles, I finally decided that it looked too silly, so I didn’t wear it out.

Which was just as well. When we stepped outside, we dicovered that the temperature had risen and it wasn’t as cold as it was the previous day.

We had breakfast at a Chinese cafe, which turned out disappointing.

We ordered you tiao, which was nice enough to begin with, but started tasting of ammonia after a while!! Seriously.

The Goonfather took it to the counter and asked them why, and they actually replied that it’s supposed to be like that, and you’re supposed to leave it out for a while for the ammonia taste to disappear.

But it’s the opposite of what they said. It tasted okay for five minutes and then it was inedible after that.

In any case, since when is you tiao supposed to taste like ammonia at any time at all?!

It was so foul it made us sick even to smell it.

(LOL. The Goonfather just wallked past my PC and saw the photo and said, “What is that?! Is it the disgusting ammonia you tiao??!)

The other things we tried were pretty mediocre.

Shopping after breakfast!

We came across a little corner in a car park with a few kiddy carnival rides. It was quite weird.

It’s always interesting to see sights overseas that you think weird but which locals find absolutely normal.

Like, all cab drivers in China are encased in little cages to deter mugging.

I don’t know about you but I find it a little dehumanising.

Here’s one of the malls we shopped at.

Humen is supposedly a fashion wholesale city, which was why we went there (since I’ve visited Shenzhen before).

Indeed, there is a lot of shopping and it’s very cheap if you know how to bargain. But a large percentage of wares is quite old-fashioned, so we didn’t buy much.

I LOVE THE BOOTS THOUGH.

I could have bought a hundred pairs of boots if not for luggage allowance and lack of time.

The problem is that most shoe stores are little spaces where they can’t keep stock, so if you want something in your size, they’d have to send a runner off to the warehouse to grab it. It takes about 20 minutes each time.

And you have to settle on a price (or even promise to buy it) before they’d send the runner. And if the shoe comes back and you try it on and decide you don’t want it after all, they’ll make you feel guilty for not buying it.

It’s a huge pain in the ass!

(Not all stores are like that, though. Some are pretty patient and pleasant.)

I didn’t buy many things in Humen because of all that. We had originally planned to stay in Humen for another day, but decided to bugger off to Shenzhen the next day.

Our day ended at a restaurant called Zhu Du Ji (literally “pig stomach chicken”), which is a steamboat restaurant featuring a pig stomach with chicken soup base, which I suppose sounds pretty gross if you’re not Chinese.

The soup is really quite tasty!

I might have mentioned this before but I will mention it again.

The Chinese are crazy! (In China, I mean.)

It was the tail end of winter and the weather had turned considerably warm (like a warmish aircon room in Singapore) and yet many people were still dressed in warm clothes and long sleeves.

EVEN IN A STEAMBOAT RESTAURANT INDOORS.

I was feeling warm and almost sweating even before we started eating, and yet there were people who had been eating for ages wearing thick, fur-lined jackets.

CRAZY.

Another quirk: All plates and cutlery come vacuum-sealed. (Except we probably don’t call chopsticks and spoons cutlery but I don’t know what to call them.)

This is supposed to be a show of hygiene.

They also give you a pot of hot tea and a big empty bowl, and you’re supposed to wash your bowl and cutlery with the tea, emptying the “dirty” tea water into the big bowl.

You don’t have to wash the plate because it’s for putting bones and unwanted food scraps.

It’s very troublesome!

Okay, end of Day 3! I took a photo of the hotel toothbrush cos it looks so posh I can’t stand it!

(Here’s the post I talked about the posh Humen hotel if you haven’t read it.)

I brought one toothbrush home! Hehe!

Kerr tries to hack into the Goonfather’s Alienware laptop (using facial recognition login) by using TGF’s photo. LOL.

(He didn’t succeed, of course, even after trying a few different photos.)

Life is so exciting!

I got to try out a new sport last week!

I often see people doing it at the gym and have always been curious about it. And here, I’ve discovered an academy in Singapore that specialises in it!

Whee!

Evolve Mixed Martial Arts (top martial arts academy in Asia) is based in Singapore and has outlets in Brazil. I feel a little suaku because there are already two outlets in Singapore and I never knew about it until now.

Anyway, never too late! I attended a complimentary lesson with a Muay Thai world champion, Nuengpichit Sityodtong. He’s one of the 10 world champion instructors at Evolve, out of 35 instructors.

I very quickly learnt what it means to train with a world champion. I was bushed even before training started!

Nueng made me jog around the large training hall many times while doing various motions like kicking up my knees and waving my arms. Then he made me sprint full speed for two rounds, which was not a problem.

The problem started when he said, “Now you jump rope for three minutes,” right after my sprint.

Jumping rope is really not easy. Especially after you’ve done a sprint. Especially when you haven’t run for months. To last the full three minutes, I had to cheat by sometimes skipping like a little girl instead of doing actual training jumps.

Nueng even put on “battle music” and kept urging me to “faster, faster!”

I started regretting being lax in my exercise routines before this session.

Fortunately, only the warm-up was a killer. The actual Muay Thai was fun, if a bit strenuous.

I just googled Muay Thai and found out it means “Art of Eight Limbs”, which is eight points of contact using hands, elbows, knees and feet.

We started doing fist punching first. I didn’t get it right right away. Nueng said I was just punching air. He grabbed my fists and aimed it at his head. “Punch here!” he said.

Except that he actually said “pun here”, instead, in that endearing Thai accent of his. Nueng is really cute BUT DEADLY. He showed me some of his advanced moves which left me slack-jawed. He is so quick and powerful it’s unbelievable!

Next, we did elbows, which is a little hard to get right cos you need to angle it in a very specific way, slashing down at your opponent instead of just throwing your elbow out anyhowly.

Luckily, Nueng didn’t make me yell out each time I threw a punch. I remember when I learnt Ninja-do yonks ago, we had to yell “HAAA!!” every time we punched or kick.

We moved on to the punching bag next. It’s so much easier to punch a real target instead of air.

The opening stance of elbow punching is open hands.

I tried very hard to copy exactly and make myself look like a professional fighter.

But I think I need a lot more practice.

How come it’s so hard to look pro?!!

Kicks are tougher to coordinate because, with every kick, you have to remember how all the other three limbs are to be positioned. It’s a very precise sport!

So, like, this is kinda wrong:

My left hand has to be on the other side of my face, instead.

And this is obviously wrong since I look like I’m doing ballet:

Another attempt:

I have a lot of trouble with my stubborn left hand!

After the punching bag, Nueng got me to chase him around the gym, kicking at his punching pads.

That was really fun. And tough, because I was still trying to get my positionings right, plus nonstop kicking is very exhausting!

We spent quite a bit of time on my kicks until I got it just right. Kicking is fun!

And then it was over and I was utterly winded!

And STILL Nueng made me do sit ups and leg raises to round up the session.

EH.

What a great workout I had, though. I wouldn’t mind doing this regularly, cos it’s fun and allows me to keep fit and healthy and toned and slim at the same time. =D

And I will end up being a lean, mean fighting machine, as opposed to being a lean person who works with machines if I were to train at a normal gym instead. Haha.

The outlet I went to was the one at Far East Square (the other one is at PoMo Mall). It’s very big and impressive! The interior looks very professional and I love the female locker room, which is very cosy!

Besides Muay Thai, there’s also Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu, Boxing, FightShape, Wrestling, Self-Defense and Yoga. I feel like trying the others, too!

I wonder what yoga is like at a mixed martial arts academy.

And maybe self-defense would be a great thing to learn. One could never be safe enough.

There’s even a Little Samurai Children’s Program. So coooool. I want to be a little child samurai! Haha.

There’s going to be an international championship event starting May 14, called Martial Combat, held at Resorts World Sentosa and covered by ESPN Star Sports.

It will feature the world’s most popular and celebrated fighters, including world champions from Evolve.

I want to learn from a world champion instructor who will be fighting at the event. That will be so cool, right, learning from a celebrity fighter!!

Hey, wait. I DID learn from a celebrity fighter! I just googled Nueng and he’s, like, all over the place!

I feel privileged!

Anyone interested in learning, too? Let’s take classes together! =P

I think how it works is you pay a yearly membership and you can attend unlimited classes, seven days a week, as many hours as you like.

Complimentary trial classes are available for booking from the website if you’re interested.

Here’s the website.

And the Facebook page.

Let’s be lean, mean fighting machines together!!

[PS. Submitted this post for the Star Sports Blogger Contest!]

Wen and I set out to make friendship bands last week. We got impatient halfway and cut short our work, so our bands became rings.

I just received the PDF for my Stuff interview spread, so here’s how I look uncreased.

I have to admit that that looks pretty nice.

The problem is that no one will know except you who are reading my blog now.

Because whoever picks up the magazine from the newsstand and flips it open to my page will see THIS:

Woe is me.

Click here to read the interview.