The 1000KM Project

Past 2 year of my life or should i say no life have a great impact on my health and fitness. I used to be able to run 10km easily, used to be able to cycle 40km when i feel like it, used to weigh 96kg.

After starting work and totally immerse myself in my work, i slowly stop exercising regularly and begin to have a bad uncontrolled diet.

To further worsen the situation, i had an accident earlier this year that require many stitches and took me 2 month to heal and another 2 month to be able to jog again. Though now i still feel some pain while i jog.

I SHALL STOP PROCRASTINATING!

I have set a simple and achievable target for myself... To Swim, cycle and run a collective 1000km from 1st June 2012 till 31st December 2012.

I used to do 40km run a week and cycle up to 120km a week. 1000km seems too easy? Well, i have stop exercising for some time and my fitness dropped sharply. Past few weeks i have been conditioning myself with swimming during split shift and some short jogging after work.

With Army half marathon, osim triathlon and Stand Chart marathon in mind, i should be able to achieve the 1000km target.

Date: 31st May 2012
Weight: 122kg
Goal Achieved: 0/1000 KM

Some kick ass looking bikes :)

Well I love my Giant OCR2, it been thru so much with me. Served me well for 3 triathlons and countless of cycling at East coast park.

But its time i move onto something more professional :) The big boys toy!

I shall reward myself with a awesome Tri Bike if I did finish it :) But i probably can't afford one anyway :)

Sous Vide cooking!

I heard about this product 2 years back... Manage to got hold onto some of this amazing product today.

Sous Vide cooking is getting common and can be even found in some coffeeshop stalls. But recently(past 1 or 2 year), one food supplier brought in something amazing to Singapore that brought sous vide cooking into a new level. 

Introducing... Cooking Sous Vide on a Plancha!

First of all i must state that im no guru in sous vide cooking (under a water bath) and certainly not in this kind of sous vide cooking (over plancha). I was told this sous vide bag could withstand higher temperature then normal. I love experimenting and today is the day i really learn something by this experiment.

In this experiment i used a nice piece of salmon fillet seasoned with fennel pollen, salt and pepper then into the bag with some beurre noisette. Placed the skin side down and flip over after a few min.

I was amazed by the look on the skin. Obviously there were some nice colouration! Maillard reaction still occur while a layer of plastic is over it! After some time, i flip it over again and OMG.

You have to see it to believe it. One thing about cooking in the bag this way, even though i vacuum it till 99.9% the 0.01% air expand upon heated and there will be some steaming reaction going on in the bag giving it a pretty even cooking throughout.

End result was pretty unbelievable! It has the texture and taste of a brown butter poach salmon, it has the nice flavour coming from the maillard reaction that formed somewhat a light crust. about a 200g portion took 7-8mins to achieve medium doneness. 

One of the best thing i felt that the moisture was 100% sealed in the bag and nothing was lost in the process of cooking. All the flavour from the seasoning and butter was "pushed" into the fish.

However due to the light steaming effect in the bag, i was unable to get a crispy skin. 

There is so much more to learn about this new age sous vide bag. 

Rejuvenated, Reborn...

Its been awhile since i last blog, busy with work and have no life. Sometime i wonder why... Then what happens next? I left my work place, found a new job, and have time to take a break.

Most memorable thing i did was to fulfill my long time wish of learning scuba diving. i had 2 weeks before i start work so i email around to see which dive school can fit my timeframe.

Ended up in Gill Divers taking the PADI route, 2 nights of theory course which is pretty easy, a day in swimming pool for competency test and practicing of safety skill sets. All set to go for my weekend trip.

Day 1

Was really bored and finished packing just before 4pm on the day of departure.

Went down early to gills divers area and grab a bite before the long bus ride.

Reach gills just after 5pm and waited.

Before boarding the bus, the dive instructors asked us to have the final check on the dive equipments and we are set to go :)

The bus drove off and soon we reached Tuas checkpoint. On the bus the organizer collected a fee from each person (5RM for marine park fee and 5RM for Malaysia customs express clearing)

Passing thru the customs was a breeze and off we go for the freaking long ridetowards mersing. Had a pit stop after getting caught in a bad traffic jam for 1-2h.

We finally reached mersing jetty just before 11pm. It started raining heavily at some point that some people couldn't board the boat while I'm here in the boat typing these on my iphone notepad and waiting...

At 12am everyone finally boarded and off we go...

It wasn't the smoothest ride after the rain, but sleeping helps.

Finally reached Dayang island resort at 4am, checked into the resort was a breeze. Why? We are the only ones at Dayang! Hahaha..

Day 2

Rise and shine! No need alarm clock because cant really sleep well. Woke up and soon time for some breakfast!

View from the resort goes like this. Waking up to this every morning would be amazing...

Looks simple but when you are hungry anything goes.

Then it's some briefing then off to our first dive! Our instructor wanted to give us a chance to experience shore dive and boat dive so we actually started from land for the first dive.

It was kinda awesome like what u see in movie navy seal going for mission, gearing up and going into the sea.

Dive one and dive two is all about repeating what we did in the pool session. Was pretty awesome seeing the school of fishes swimming about while u do the skills required.

Then the third dive is all about water confidence and swimming around. The fishes are so pretty, it's unbelievable!

After 3 dives everyone was pretty much exhausted... Its actually very physically challenging with the heavy equipment and the finning to move about.

Alfresco Dinner without lights and with Beer :D

However I still manage to squeeze out a little energy for some beach volleyball :) then it was shower, beer and dinner! Chit chat with my fellow divers and had an awesome night without connecting to the Internet. A true get away!

Before heading to bed, we had a debriefing regarding today's dive and filled in our dive log 潜水记！

The amazing group with the world coolest Dad bringing his 12yo daughter and 14yo son to dive with him, Brit working in Singapore for a weekend holiday, Koreans who just landed a job in Singapore, Hong kong student with a strong british accent on school break, NDU (Naval diving unit) guy accompanying his GF to take open water course, My buddy Christ a Brit last few days in singapore before moving to Japan for work and of course me the Chef in between jobs :)

Great Instructor Douglas, Divemaster Thomas and Johnny. Funny guys hahaha...

Somehow I feels like I'm still underwater with current. Hope I don't get sea sick in bed! Hahhaa

Day 3

Woke up really early getting ready for our first dive at first light. Feeling really excited :)

Boat left, equipment rigged up, all set, ready to sink!

Dive 4 and 5 was the best dive ever! Huge ass pufferfish, stingrays, turtles, clown fish (nemo), school of barracudas, weird looking sea slugs and funky looking corals! A whole new world below!

Logging the last 2 dive in the morning. and yes, instructor got attacked by triggerfish hahaha...

Its time to say goodbye to Dayang Resort...

On our journey way back on the ferry, we saw some dolphins swimming by. What a bonus to end the trip :)

And looking at nothing but this is therapeutic.

And here we are, at the boring bus ride back to Singapore :)

Home sweet home

Got myself a new dive buddy at Mersing Jetty. Baby Turt will remind me that i should be back soon to visit his family and friends :)

Possible next dive site?