singapore

YOLO [in Singapore]

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Fresh faced and 0kms on our legs.

A very cold IPA is slipping down right now as I wait to board for Melbourne. The crowning of an indulgent adventure in Singapore this weekend with my running compadre, Mr Lars Grombach.

We came to tackle the Craze Ultra 55km night run. Neither of us had necessarily reached pique fitness in the preceding weeks (Lars, in fact, fractured a toe whilst playing football on the beach during my stag weekend 6 weeks back) however both of us were in fine mental fettle, and then increasingly delirious from touching down at Changi airport on Friday lunchtime and checking into our hotel (complete with McDonalds round the corner and 7/11 even closer) all the way up to our 5pm starting time yesterday.

We moved into full prep mode once we got to Singapore. No alcohol Friday night. Lots of carbs and protein. Movie. Sleeping tablets. Lie in. And then an enormous buffet breakfast yesterday morning before plenty of chill time, during which our eyes watered as we watched Eliud Kipchoge smash his sub-two hour marathon attempt.

As soon as Kipchoge was hugging his family and jumping up and down with the Vienna crowds, we were marching off to the start line, vaseline applied, energy gels packed and music playlists at the ready.

Our starting group number was 30 runners in all. A “local” race you could say – a status cemented in full as a young girl, taking our picture on her smart phone, handed out our pre race instructions: “just run straight, unless you see any signposts telling you otherwise”.    Continue reading →

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And the result is…

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Big day today.

Millions of Australians will end it comatose, as the annual Melbourne Cup tradition of drinking-your-entire-body-weight-in-beer-before-lunch will ensure that particular country’s collective outputs for 24 hours will be, at best, sub-optimal.

As the table-top dancing down under comes to a close, the United States of America will awake to Election Day, with polls still saying the result is “too close to call” – hopefully this is a canny angle to ensure media sales rather than pointing to the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led by Mitt “The Binder” Romney.

In Saigon, very little attention is being given to either of these events by the locals today.  Many international media outlets have tried to express what the US Election outcome will mean to the rest of the world.  For the lady who sold me a coffee on the street outside our office just now, it is implausible to find a connection between her daily grind with that of the politics playing out on the other side of the world.

But this gap is shrinking.  It will continue to take further generational change for some of the positive aspects of global citizenship to really shift the status quo.  But it will happen.  And the role of the private sector in accelerating this is finally being recognised.  Business as usual is changing. Continue reading →

#ImpactForum: Singapore

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One of the other perks – aside from the sunshine, addictive food, friendly people and out of this world caffeine experiences – of living in Saigon, is the close proximity to some of the region’s enticing, and inspiring, neighbouring countries.

Take Singapore, for example.  I have been here for 24 hours, attending a conference, and despite so far spending the majority of my time here cooped up in windowless rooms on an (albeit uber plush) university campus, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the brief transition from the bustle of Saigon life to the serene and functional order that is Singapore.

I know, despite this, that I’ll be just as eager to board my plane home on Wednesday, however the intervening hours experiencing this very different aspect of South East Asian life has been novel.

From the moment you board the skytrain at Singapore airport and head into town, you are aware of having been momentarily transported into a different world to that of Saigon.  In fact, although Bangkok boasts an impressive skytrain facility itself, there is no comparison even there in terms of the images you take in as passenger as you skirt round the suburbs of the respective cities. Continue reading →