Hong Kong Trip Day 1/4: Dinner with HK Runners

It was not as deserted as I thought. There were people still queuing up to check in. They were wearing the red / white jacket with the state flag sown on it. Must be the N team. They were talking away and taking photos. Some people were sleeping away on the benches and they did not seem to mind the noise. I just tried not to care about the noise they were creating and sleep. Thank goodness, they finally checked in and moved off.

I woke up a while later as it was getting cold. My friend had told me airport would be very cold at night. Checked the watch and it was 0130 Hrs.

Sleep again.

At 0345 Hrs, I woke up and washed up. Had asked Joanne to morning call me at 0400 Hrs. It came on time. "Call me and make sure I reply you", I told her. I was afraid I would oversleep in some ulu corner. Ha .. :)


Waiting for the rest to arrive. Quiet quiet .. ssshhhhh ..

The first to arrive were Gary and Vincent. We were commenting on the bags we brought for the trip. I got a big backpack containing all my stuff and my usual backpack which is smaller in size. It was empty. Its for the spoils of the shopping in HK. Ha .. :)

Progressively the rest arrived as we were chatting.


Gary was lying behind.

A few group photos first before we check in.






Checking in. We managed to do a group check in for our luggage so everybody need not carry them onto the plane.

Star jumping. Their morning exercises.





After clearing the customs, we had our breakfast at the cafeteria. Had Subway. The toaster was spoilt so the sandwich was cold. Well, its a different kind of flavour lah.

We saw a number of familiar faces while eating.

"He is so and so of where and where."

"He is the who and who of this and that."

Think all of us are going over to HK for the run.

We quickly made our way to Gate D40 as the announcement over the PA system calls for the passengers of Jetstar flight 3K 691.


Iphoning away and playing games.






Boarding the plane.



Our plane took off at around 0700 Hrs. The flight will take around 3 hr 45 min.


The best way to spend the time on flight was to sleep.

I was having the window seat. Too bad, our window was not facing the sun rise. So this was all of the sun rise I could catch. An golden orange hue across the horizon which was also very beautiful.




There were other good views too later in the flight. A sea of clouds.

Halfway through the flight, I took out my pace schedule and race route to study as I could not sleep anymore. Gary also joined me and we both discussed on how we plan to run the race. I had 2 sets of pace schedule to meet my targeted completion time and I was still contemplating on which one to choose. He advised me to choose the set which allows me to conserve energy for the final part of the race as there would be a steep slope near the end point.


We touched down at around 1015 Hrs.

Discussions for this trip began way back in October 2009. All of us wanted to experience running in HK which was very cooling compared to Singapore. Names for the trip were quickly confirmed and plane tickets were also bought taking advantage of the promotion at that time. While it would be cooler to run in HK, there was also a cut off timing for the race. We had group training runs at MR and ECP in January. Some of us also trained on our own. All of us were eager to do the race and do well.

Now at this moment, we are in Hong Kong!

Online forums were saying that the weather in HK was very cold (around 10 degree C) the week before and temperature was slowly rising. Checking the weather forecast the day before, it showed a temperature of 18 - 22 degree C for the next few days. The moment we stepped out of the plane to board the shuttle bus, both Gary and me felt that the temperature could have been cooler. Its not as cooling as it should be compared to previous years. Well, lets just hope it would turn better (cooler) on race day.

During the checking out, we saw more familiar faces. It seems this race had attracted quite a number of runners from Singapore to take part.

Our first stop of the day: Citygate Outlet. Hook up with Enting for lunch and shopping!


Inside the MTR.


Some of us cannot wait and started snapping away.


Going from airport to Tsing Yi and transit to Tung Chung.



We arrived at Tung Chung MTR station. Enting was already at Citygate Outlet waiting for us. We made our way to the food court for lunch. Hungry!


My lunch. Pork cutlet rice with cheese.


HK-ers are really generous in their servings. This was Joanne's noodles and she could not finish them. The amount of leftover seems as if it was a full serving itself. Imagine how much was the original serving.

After lunch, We split up for our own shopping. The places has lots of outlets from different brands. But too bad, I did not find anything that fancies me.


Will we run here?



We were tired and thirsty from the walking around so we went to the Mac.






Show us what she had taken.


At 1500 Hrs, we gathered to go to our hotel at Causeway Bay. But we had to first collect our luggage from the lockers at the basement. We had deposited them there after lunch.


Trying to figure out how to open them.


Arriving at Causeway Bay station. The station is directly below Times Square.






Our room in The Charterhouse.

We were going to meet the HK runners for dinner. There was still some time available to we went out to walk around.


The hotel was near a wet market.


忙里偷闲






Hotel was just 5 - 10 min walk away from Times Square.


They look as if they were filming some MV for some CNY songs. Ha .. :)


Palm reading.


Dessert stall at the basement.


Yum yum!




草猛


The HK runners would be meeting us at our hotel so we had to make our way back. This stall was near our hotel. Yummy .. :)


全城起动 跑出正能量

Waiting at the hotel ..






One of the HK runners.

Walking towards to the Police Officers Club ..




Marathon!












Sharing their marathon experiences.


Suki, one of the few HK runners I could recognise.


Cheers!

We handed them their certificates for addidas Sundown Marathon 2009 ..



















Suki was commenting on SDM during the dinner: "All of us got our PW at the run."

I was wondering what was PW. Personal what??

"Personal worst!", she explained in her thick Hong Kong accent.

Hahaha .. note that their PW was still a sub 4 .. wow ..








There was a machine outside the toilet measuring HRM and they were comparing their results.







The dinner was sumptuous. There was also red wine to go along. Ate till I was really full.

Simon would bring us for dim sum breakfast tomorrow morning. Tomorrow night would be another dinner to look forward to. Dinner with the Team New Balance from other countries. The race packs would also be given to us during the dinner.