A Great Start

So the move to Hongkers is finally happening. After a week of delays that I suspect have given me a white hair (eep!) I got myself a ticket and made my way to the airport early on a Sunday morning.

I checked-in, went through immigration and after the pain of packing, decided I didn't need any more things, so I wandered through duty-free towards my gate with the hopes of just relaxing on a chair somewhere when look who I bumped into:

Why good morning to you too Mario!
That really perked me right up - I sure do love a bit of Mario so I figured it was a good sign that my new adventure was going to be great! I didn't know the half of it though - within the hour, I was upgraded to business class!

Credit goes to a very very nice person who happened to be working behind check-in
I've only been in business class once ever before, but this was a whole different experience because Cathay's business class are diagonally aligned pods that fold all the way down into a bed, with high 'walls' for lots and lots of privacy. Especially great for single travellers!

There's even a footrest - yay
I settled in and decided that I was going to stay up to check out what they would serve for breakfast and lunch - plus I didn't really want to sleep too much even though I was super tired since I needed to be up and ready for work the next day without being jet-lagged.

Here were the breakfast offerings:

Juice, fruit and a croissant (which was a bit cold and tough unfortunately)
Mozzarella, basil and tomato fritatta with chicken sausage, bacon, sauteed kipfler potatoes, spinach and mushroom - yummies
For lunch:

Starter: Smoked salmon, grilled scallops and marinated baby octopus with mixed salad - very tasty but looking at the octopus grossed me out a bit so I tasted a bit then left it
Main: Lamb korma, turmeric rice and vegetable jalfrezi - not bad but by this stage I was pretty full so I only had a bit
Dessert: Port with a big slice of strawberry and pistachio cheesecake
To finish off: Another glass of port and a praline (pity it was only one)
By now I was ready for my nap but I still forced myself to stay awake a bit longer and watched a couple of movies, Get Him to the Greek (better than I expected) and The Other Guys (highly entertaining). Yes I like mindless comedies, especially when on a plane :)

I finally succumbed to a bit of shut-eye before waking up to an announcement that we were about to land. Oh and before I forget - the best bit! I got a cute toiletries bag with the standard socks, eyemask and toothpaste/brush, with a couple of mini Murad products included.


I think it was one of the best flights I've ever had! If I was rich, I'd be flying business class all the time! I guess I can keep dreaming right? ;)

I should be a plumber

OK so maybe that's an exaggeration but I was horrified the other day when in the midst of cleaning out a bag full of jewellery I heard what sounded like something sliding against the porcelain of the sink. I turned around quick enough to see the flash of something shiny falling down into one of the little drainage holes in the sink.

My first thought was 'OMG what was that?', followed by 'OMG it better not be anything expensive!'. Since I have bits of jewellery all over the place I really wasn't sure if an earring was missing its other half or if a pendant had fallen off a necklace chain. Stress stress - what if it was a diamond??

My Ma advised me to ask a neighbour for help rather than call the plumber - neither of which were appealing to me since even though the neighbour in question is lovely, I just don't know him very well, and plumbers can be expensive - totally not worth it if the lost item was just a trinket!

I plugged up that particular sink and after a couple of days of being in denial and pretending it hadn't happened, I mentioned it to a workmate. Coincidentally, he had been doing some pipework under his house. According to him, it wouldn't be that difficult to fish something out of the sink if it hadn't been already washed away by running water (which I had made sure hadn't happened). As long as the piping was moderately modern and the person who installed it wasn't too heavy-handed, it would be a simple DIY job.

Apparently all you need to do is lay a few towels under the pipe, unscrew the screwy bits that join the pipes up (sorry don't know what the technical term for this is) and tip out whatever is caught in there.

It sounded good in theory, but I was dubious. After all, on TV, when you see a plumber go under a sink, he has a toolbox with spanners and screws and allsorts that are put to use. Could it really be as simple as that?

Turns out that yes, yes it is!


Top screwy bit unscrewed successfully!
I managed to unscrew both ends using a towel to protect my palms (doing it without really hurt!). My workmate failed to mention that the inside of the pipe was going to be gross and stinky, and I hadn't thought that far ahead since, y'know, I was dubious and all, so I quickly poured out the contents of the pipe into a bucket and restored the piping to all of its former glory. *bleurgh*

Turns out, it was an earring that had fallen in, and a cheap one at that. Probably wasn't worth the grossness of the whole experience, but what was worth it was learning how to do it. Sure, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be, but I've never been handy around the house so I felt pretty awesome.

Here's hoping that this random post ends up being helpful to some of you other non-handy people out there :)

C25K Update

So I'm now up to Week 7 of the program and I'm actually managing to jog (at an incredibly slow pace) for 25 minutes. It's not fun and I haven't been converted to being a running fanatic but I must say I'm pretty proud of myself. Personally it's a huge achievement as I've never really had much stamina - I managed some decent sprinting when I was younger but that's been about it.

Still 3 weeks to go - not sure I'll make the 5k at the end as I'm going at a pretty slow pace (7.5 on the treadmill) but I figure once I get up to 30 mins I can always work on my speed :)

active feet indeed!

Today I started Week 4 of my C25K program. If I was going to be really particular about it I should really be midway through Week 5, but my stupid knee has been playing up again so I decided to pace myself a little. I think I'll do a post on the program once I finish it but for now I have to say that even though I'm not really enjoying myself during the jogging intervals of each session, when I'm not at the gym I've been thinking about how I'm going to finish it all and be awesome at it *YAY*

Anyhoo, this knee issue has been quite the pain in the behind. I asked my physio if there was anything else I could do to improve the healing rate or prevent this from happening again and he asked if I had old or ill-fitting shoes. The 2 pairs I use aren't particularly old but were bought with my wide feet in mind. I had also had my feet assessed by the folk at The Athlete's Foot (who knew the name included the word 'The'?) and using an assessment pad that they get you to walk over, they found that my feet didn't over-pronate (i.e. roll in too much), so I was recommended some neutral shoes. Mr Physio took one look at me standing there in my bare socks and said that my feet looked like they did roll in. Needless to say I wasn't very impressed and decided to get a reassessment.

My suspected foot behaviour (pic courtesy of Philadelphia Runner)
I was quite reluctant to go back to The Athlete's Foot seeing as it sounded like they had gotten it wrong twice before (annoying!), but didn't know if I really needed to see a podiatrist. Mr Physio said that there was another option, a happy hybrid if you like, where I could go to a shop run by podiatrists who assessed the way your feet moved by putting you on a treadmill. I had never heard of such a thing - most likely due to my aversion to exercise - but it sure sounded worth a shot!

I visited a branch of the active feet chain over the weekend and the place was packed. Who knew there would be so many people with ungainly gaits around? After a bit of a wait, I got to chat to one of the staff, let's call him Fred, about my feet/knee/exercise issues and my shoe-wearing history. I then jumped on a treadmill that had a camera attached to the wall behind it, so as I walked my feet were projected onto a large screen in front of me. According to their website, this 'allows the individuals own biomechanical foot function to be assessed and a shoe selected to suit that individuals foot type'. Hurray for technology!

I must say I really didn't realise I had such an odd walk! Oh and also massive calves *cry* but I decided not to point this out to Fred as I figured new shoes weren't going to fix that issue and his care factor would be pretty close to zero.

The screen showed that my feet rolled in a bit too much before lifting up off the ground, so I needed shoes that addressed that problem. Fred brought out some shoes he thought would correct the issue, and then I got my walk and run re-assessed on the treadmill. As the original treadmill was occupied, we used a different one and guess what - my calves aren't all that big after all. Turns out the first camera was distorting the projected image :D

The shoes seemed to do the job well but Fred offered up a couple of other choices which were also assessed on the treadmill. What I found pretty amazing is that I was told to go for a 50m walk/run outside on the public pavement, which is something I guarantee most shops don't let you do, and I think that really helped me in my decision-making process.

So here they are - my new beauties!

Fresh and new Brooks runners in the box
As Fred explained to me, these particular shoes work well for my feet because the grey area under the arch of the foot is made out of foam that compresses less than the white area - so it stops my foot from turning it too far and corrects my gait when I walk/run.

That sure is a lot of correctional foam
So what was the verdict today? The shoes were comfy enough, they felt really supportive and now that I understand how my feet work I think they really did help with my exercise session! I now understand why my ankles got sore once in awhile as well - I used to think I was just weak and bad at exercise but I just wasn't getting enough support! No thanks to The Athlete's Foot. Admittedly the knee is still sore but I wasn't expecting miracles.

active feet : 1
The Athlete's Foot : a BIG FAT 0