This is the most exciting event to happen to me in the past 10 yrs (besides meeting Maggie) !
What a Success story to land myself into Alexander Fitness Center. And my goal was to lose weight this year. Looks like I have a vehicle to do that now. My friend promoted to me that a high end fitness club is currently running a promotion .. for those that are, oh.. I would say, obese (no other way to put it :) )  ; the club is providing free 1 month speedy body sculpting !
This is no ordinary run-of-the-mill gym, this place is right in the heard of CBD and each session can cost up to 500 yuan! So to be able to qualify for this, i mean it's funny, i just get mixed emotions after the weigh-in and they said I qualified ! - Should I get upset (that i'm that much overweight) or happy of the fact I am chosen ! It's too funny.

This gig works like this -
30 overweight were selected (I and 29 others) :)
For 30 days, except Mondays, everyday workout 2 hours on Aerobics classes - Spinning, Body Combat, and Pump , the latter is to tighten the loose skin from the first 2 aerobics class. Only allow to be absent 2 days with prior excuse out of the month.
I WANT to do it , because when I qualify for the 2nd month (criteria: staying on the program for 1 mth and showing good progress) , I'll qualify for the 2nd month with these benefits : - 1) one-on-one coaching/training 2) free organic vitamins/food 3) free 10 spa visits (cool beans!!) 4) potential to be among the 4 qualify for the finals at Shanghai (of which one Winner is picked out of 8 contestant).
The winner of the final will get : 1) 100,000 Yuan prize winning 2) become official spokesperson for the Alexander fitness center !!


The end goal is the one reason to stay motivated to finish up top. The other main reason is I believe my life and health will be transformed for the better within a month or so.
Will keep posted on this blogpage.

Power up !

Looks like these days there are more caucasians living in Beijing than before. I've seen some older couples and some are college-aged kids. Even in my community, I've seen more American-accented foreigners living here, probably working in nearby CBD area.

Went to the new mall in Dongzhimen this weekend - Raffles City Beijing Mall. It's one of the handful mall just opened recently here, the others being Glory Mall and Qianmen 23. Raffles City Beijing is opened by Singapore-based company- Capitaland. It has a modern design and the stores are laid out almost identical to malls in Singapore with long-term tenants such as G2000, H&M, Zara, Watsons, etc. In the Basement level, there's a food court sort of place with Toast Box and Bread Talk (Singapore establishments). I tried the Mee Siam from the Toast Box (15 RMB). It was okay for the price, although no where near the quality of Prima Taste (Singaporean Restaurant near Ya Xiu Market).

So overall, quite an eventful weekend.

Working out in Summer is the best feeling. Sweat pores just open up like flood gates and sips out, filling nearly all the fiber on the green t-shirt I had on. Today at gym, there was a Tai-Chi class going on in the workout room.. I think the teacher isn't very good as he teach too many steps/moves in 1 hr rather than focus on some short sequence and repeat it over and over until they mastered it. Seems some people drop out after awhile.
I was on the ellipse running machine for half an hour. These days it was humid as it rained quite a bit yesterday. I forgotten about summer rain as last year, it did not rain (controlled the rain due to Olympics).

Much has changed in one year. At least I'm getting fitter with the exercises. I've trained younger Project Managers on the job and it was a rewarding feeling that they 'get it'. Work is so-so since the slowdown in economy. I'm working my gray muscles by taking up PMP class , a professional Project Management body class. Hope class is good , it starts in August.

Cheers.