爸爸去哪儿-北海道之感想篇 (下）

Day 6

A day of sleep till you feel shiok enough and wake up according to your whims.

Brown and Sally were accompanying us throughout the trip, and for those who know me well enough, they are supposed to represent Daddy and Ryan. So we will still take them out for photos from time to time.

The snow fall overnight was pretty heavy, and my car was covered with snow when we were going to leave the hotel.


Daddy wasn't done with the farms yet, and made another dumb decision to drive to the nearby Tomita Melon House to see if it is really closed. And yes, it is closed. No smart and no luck


So I just aimlessly drove around the area to see if there are anymore surprise finds, only to find out that the whole area is deserted. Though the fresh snow meant that driving through the forest will look pretty awesome (that's if we don't have any accidents).


And since the snow was still fresh in the area, we just drove up to an empty open carpark, and just settled there for another round of snowman making together with a video call with mummy to show her and mei mei what we were doing live (improvised the snowman buttons with coins, which was a bad idea as it was difficult to remove after we were done, and I ended up with frostbites on my fingers)
 
It was a long drive back into Sapporo. Returning the car was a challenge though as I had to unload the luggage at the new hotel without car park access (public parking is horrendously expensive in the city) and finding the exact location of the car rental office was another challenge too. Topping up the fuel tank has to be done at the nearest petrol station and receipt must be shown (which I didn't take from the attendant - lesson learnt) to the car rental staff.

And off we go to the Odori Park X'mas market. The atmosphere, set up, illumination, xmas tree and shops were all spot on. It was a true X'mas market with the snow still falling on us while we made our way through the illumination displays across multiple parks and shops at the market.



It was a long tiring day for Ryan boy, and he totally concussed after going back to the hotel

Day 7
It's going to be another long day of taking the trains around the city, which will be fun for the boy. Ryan was still in high spirits on waking up, so after a pancake breakfast with Dino Brown and Sally chick, off we went to the famous Shiroi Koibito factory (or more commonly known as 白色恋人 in our part of the world).



There were plenty of signages along the way from the train station to the factory, so it was pretty easy getting around



The park around the factory was free for visiting and photo-taking.
The design was pretty quaint (half-timbered old German-styled architecture) together with a good handful of small houses/huts, a double-decked stationary London bus, a tree house and a mini-train that runs around the campus, which makes it an excellent place for photo-lust.



And of course, the factory/ museum itself was amazing in it's own rights, detailing the history of chocolate making and a view of the production floor (from above)



There was also workshops available for some hands-on for making your own Chocolate cookie, which I had to get Ryan to take up (I thought it was pretty fun though)



Their cafe was fully packed though, otherwise I would have chosen to take lunch there. Nonetheless, their soft serve ice cream at ground floor was outstanding - and I had lost count of the number of soft serves that I had taken throughout the trip...




And the standalone pop-corn stall just next to the park was pretty decadent too..
I think we probably spent close to 4 hours here (inclusive of time at a complimentary kids indoor playground). After that, we just went off to the Softbank Sapporo Factory, which had been revamped into a shopping mall - some nice deco, but nothing noteworthy of in my opinion. We were only looking for a place for some afternoon tea.

After night fall, we went on to the underground shopping mall, and found an outlet for the famous kinotoya bake cheese tart



and carried on to Susukino before settling down on a ramen shop for dinner, and finally making a 2nd trip to the illumination display again at Odori park, before retiring for the day



Day 8 (last day in Hokkaido)
Shopping day! Well, at least I had to buy some stuff back for mei mei.
Walked to the JR Tower, and the sun was just behind us in the morning, which yielded one of my favourite shot of the trip - the shadows of Daddy and son holding hands in the snow
 

After a long internal struggle by Ryan on whether he should buy the UFO catcher toy, or the vending machine toy, we eventually ended up buying both 2 large toys, with Daddy getting worried on whether he will be able to carry all of these luggage single handedly to the airport



Well, Daddy will always find a way to pack all the luggage isn't it...
Took the train back to CTS airport with some time to spare, as the airport itself has a couple of pretty new attractions as well.

Royce chocolate factory - where we went on another shopping spree to buy chocolate gifts for his teachers




And we eventually chose to go into Hello Kitty land instead of Doraemon land, due to the limited time left for the tour. Pretty good choice as we were the only ones in the theme park and had the whole place to ourselves. Though it was just an elaborate photo-taking session with various Country-themes



After the check in, there wasn't any additional checks on the hand-carry luggage, and I see almost everyone carrying oversized hand-carry onboard. So we continued unabated with the snack buying in the departure hall. Once onboard, Lady Luck smiled on us and left the 3rd seat in our row empty, and Ryan got to lie down to sleep on my lap on the flight back to SG.




Final thoughts
Even though there were trying times during this trip, where Ryan just didn't want to eat despite not consuming much food (he actually lost weight over the trip), and I had scolded him numerous times for that, his body language told me that he was really enjoying himself throughout the entire trip, and true to that, he continued to express that this was the best time of his life on numerous occasions throughout 2018.

I made a promise to Ryan that I'll bring him back to visit Hokkaido again someday, and true to promise, that we will be making a return together with Mummy and Mei mei at the end of 2018.

Hope that our Round 2 will be as fascinating as the first trip!

Work lessons

It was a horrible week at work

But having calmed my shit down over the weekend and having the Wise-Me review what and where went wrong with the Pride-Me, clearly shows that I still have much to learn at work

Long story (and tweaked context for confidentiality)... an indirect superior that I had been working with for a long time, grilled me for something that he thought had been completed some time ago.

When he didn't get the "right answer" that he was expecting from me, he started to ask WHY the shit wasn't done yet.

I went into details telling him that we were given wrong info by another dept, and I had laid the ground work to clear their shit before we can get to the answer he wanted, and he was copied in the emails too.

He lost it and started to question every single thing that I did, and asked me to provide the relevant documentation, which I dutifully did, 6x over, with time stamps organised in chronological order.

Still, not the answer that he wanted, and he pulled me into a 1-1 meeting asking me for the answer he wanted. Meeting didn't go well and I became extremely frustrated at why a one time strong ally had suddenly changed into a stubborn bull that refuses to see the 1001 pieces of evidence that were placed in his face, and just want to bulldoze his way to get his expected answer.

In the 2nd external meeting on the same day, he went ahead to commit to a key customer (with extremely poor credit, that just made a 1 year payment for the last 12 months monthly instalment payment) that a product feature (which is NOT ready yet) is ready for the customer to use today, with 3 months deferred payment terms, in whatever kind of currency that they wish to pay in, to whomever in the company that they wish to pay to.

I was questioned why I didn't go and understand what was this customer's pain, which I explained that it was well documented together with our local sales person, that the customer had a ungrounded fear of our bank devulging his contact details to his competitor.

Good thing is that the superior wanted me to send the meeting minutes out after a 3rd internal call on the same day. I just wrote whatever he committed and distributed to the wider audience (credit, finance, operations) on his words and commitments, at verbatim.

Reactions came in fast n furious as expected.

Clarifications and warnings came, stating the exact same words that I had used. But they received the same stubborn bull reaction too.

So everyone concluded that things were getting confusing and wanted me to organise a meeting call to clarify matters.

"Great. Just the audience that I needed to back me up"

The superior called me in for another 1-1 the next day, and after both of us had calmed down a bit. He spoke of observing my "changed behaviour" that I was getting defensive instead of being open like what I used to be. He still didn't want to hear any explanations on what happened or where went wrong. So I just pointed out to him that he didn't provide the resources that he had promised to commit to make our project a successful one. We went away from this meeting with a follow up from my side to write down what I needed from him.

The 3rd call still has not taken place yet, but I took some time to summarise all the lengthy emails into a 1 page visual process and sent it to all through the calendar invite. Received positive response from close colleagues on the clarity.

From this LONGGGGGG story, there were numerous observations:

1) When in the face of being picked-on, Pride-Me was obsessed with being right instead of being expedient. Bad choice to choose Justice over Political correctness

2) Pride-Me was too emotionally charged and got defensive, and went head on with a charging bull

3) Pride-Me expected the same old reasonable behaviour from the indirect superior that he had worked with for years. He has changed. Remember the book, Who Moved My Cheese

4) Pride-Me didn't realise that my customer in this instance is the indirect superior. Don't expect the customer to understand u, it's your job to understand the customer, what he wants, and give it to him to close the damned order

When a stubborn bull is charging at you, instead of trying to be a brainless warrior and tackle it head on, be like a bullfighter. Guide the bull to where you want him to charge to with the red flag. Let it ram into the wall if there's a need. I don't advocate back stabbing though. Just don't freaking stand in the way and tank the charging damage!

If all fails, just roll over and pretend to die. Live to fight another day.

Pride-Me wants to win every single battle.
Wise-Me chooses the important ones to win

1st proper swim coaching for Ryan

It has been a long wish of mine to teach Ryan how to swim, ever since I became a swim coach.

Ryan never really took to the water, and was even slightly water phobic, thus I had been receiving non-stop questions along the line of "you are a swim coach, your son must be a good swimmer too"

Pool sessions in the past were mostly confined to the pool at Sis's condo, usually when all the kids will be crowding around me to play, and Ryan will shy away at one corner to play with his water gun.

Even the previous 1-1 session at Pasir Ris swimming complex didn't went well, simply due to the fact that Ryan still wasn't mentally resilient enough to put in enough effort and tenacity to learn a difficult life skill, which requires a long period of learning, rather than something that he can pick up in a minute or 2.

After about 4 months of classes with People Impact, I can tell the obvious improvement in Ryan's behaviour on accepting challenges and not easily giving up when asked to.

So, I took some time off this afternoon to pick up Ryan earlier from school to go for a 1-1 swim coaching session at SAFRA Yishun, when the pool isn't crowded.

Concepts on coaching adults to swim can be adapted and used on kids as well.
The fundamental flow is still similar, even with the TI method, though the basics have to be even more elaborate, explicit and abridged, since kids will not be able to understand complex concepts.

Instead of jumping straight into learning strokes, which most swim coaches will do, I focused on getting Ryan more confident and comfortable in water first.

He is a timid and cautious boy when it comes to physical activities, thus will require a fair bit of prompting and experimentation, before he is willing to adopt and learn new subskills.

Today's curriculum:

• Basic prone flutter kick (no cycling kick)
• Bubbling out underwater in upright position
• Bouncing Bear
• Crab Walk

Part of these are probably part of the old CSA curriculum that I had previously taught, but honestly I don't have much recollection of what was in the curriculum. These were by experience and gut feel on what will help Ryan to gain water confidence through play, rather than over focus on achieving a perfect flutter kick or breaststroke kick.

I was pleasantly surprised that Ryan eventually managed to do all of the above and even took the initiative to practice more at the end of the session when I asked him to leave the pool.

Gotta spend more time with the boy and get him to be able to swim a simple breaststroke before end of 2018

CIP 2018 Race Report

This race had the potential to be one of my best race, yet it turned out to be my first DNF due to a technical fault, which once again highlighted the glaring shortcoming in my racing repertoire - cycling.

Having done long distance road running (though not super outstanding) for years had given me enough experience on handling the effects and optimised my racing strategies based on my current physical conditions, I will also know when and how to push it when needed.

Swimming shouldn't even be a question since I'm carrying the TI name, though I should be looking at clocking even faster times

Cycling? Nah. Just use the same old cyclo-cross bike that I had bought years ago, with no upgrades or changes to the parts that I started with. (a well meaning friend helped me to procure this bike, thinking that I may need the versatility of handing different cycling conditions, even though I made it clear that the only reason to cycle is for racing tris. My fault that I can't tell the difference between road bike /tri bike /cyclo Cross)

Cheapo me trying to squeeze mileage out of the miserly fortune that I had spent on this bike, resulting in poor mediocre race results which I gladly used to explain poor race performances.

Again, the prep for CIP 2018 wasn't fantastic as I always do. No brick training, didn't clock the required mileage for each discipline, though I had a minor breakthrough in swimming.

After making some minor changes to my solo swim practices, of getting more used to faster tempo, I finally managed to, for the first time, break the 30 min barrier for 1500m in a pool. The gains were purely technique based rather than any physical conditioning, so I was pretty pleased when I clocked a 35min swim this year, which was pretty close to my pool pace. (a 10min improvement from last year, which I admittedly fared poorly)

The longest single ride that I managed to clock on training was at 78km, though I could feel that I managed to get some gains as well as I could feel I was getting stronger in the aeroposition. Though I had a minor episode in my final practice ride last week of getting stranded at the remote end of changi coastal road with 2 flats. The first was a long standing minute puncture that slowly deflated the rear tyre, which I realised on the ride and tried to fix it. I cleared out 2 small metal pieces from the tyre and used the CO2 cartridge to inflate the tyre, which ended up bursting immediately, as the inner tube was caught in a pinch by the tyre. Had to call dad for rescue at 6am without trying to get them worried about something really nasty that happened to me.

Well, it seems that I didn't really learn from that incident, and repeated the same mistake in the race. 25km into lap 1 and a fellow participant pointed out I was running on flat. Stopped by the road to fix it. Repeated the same steps but this time with the hand pump. The replacement was filling up nicely as I tried to get it to 80psi. And at the moment when I hit 80psi, I heard another burst, and at that moment, I realised that I repeated the same mistake and ended my race prematurely. My 1st DNF for a 703 race. Even when I was fully bloodied in cebu, I didn't give up.

This was technical, so there's no way I could get back into this race. As I came to grips with the reality of DNF, I could only pick myself up and slowly walk back to the transition area, hoping that the race officials will come by and spot me, and ferry me back to TA and put me out of my misery. After a long walk and multiple officials stopping by, one of them finally offered to ferry me and my bike on his motorbike - yes, handcarry my bicycle as I pillion on his motorbike. Whatever it takes man...

Got back to the officials tentage, and took my DNF, lamenting that chance of PB in such a rare fine weather. The officials suggested that I could continue with the run, just without timing chip and no official results (still DNF) and I jumped at the opportunity! Afterall I'm just after the fun of completing, timing didn't really mean much except for an official record. Not that the official timing will be of any use anyway.

Checked in my bike into the TA, did my T2 and started my run. It was a pretty unique experience though, as it was the time when the 1st female Pro just ran into T2, so I was effectively starting my run with the Pros!

Was a little ashamed of the fact that I'm a DNF, and the spectators took my photos as I ran past them, though I tried to keep my pace respectable in the first half of the run. Pretty chill to have the empty run course all to myself for lap 1, as I kept up the 5.30 to 5.45 pace for the first 10km.

Took the 2nd lap much more slowly as stitches and cramps started to set in. After a good 3km of run walk, I managed to get back into a slow jog to run off the pain. It never went off. I just managed to endure it as I picked up pace again as I got nearer to the finish line.

The time on my watch showed 1h59m as I crossed the finish line, but the distance seems to be 19km instead of 21km. Doesn't matter. What I had gathered was the damned mental strength and agility to manage the physical condition and pain to be just below the red line of cramping up again.

The race clock probably showed 4h51m when I crossed the finish line. I just kept low and walked back to the TA to pick up my hotel room card.

I probably raised a few eyebrows with the Elites on why this nondescript guy managed to finish so quickly.  (same expression I saw on those still cycling when I started run lap 1)

Even though this was a DNF, I guess I had more chuckles than being sad about it.

Key takeaways :
Best swim so far. Continue to refine my TI technique to continue improving!
Great management on the run. Grind through the pain and mental weakness, and the body can carry through.
Damned that freaking excuse of a lousy bike. Time to look into upgrading if I wanna continue racing Tris. Not only the physical bike, but also the knowledge, just like how I converted my worst discipline to my strongest suite. Time to get more technical.

爸爸去哪儿-北海道之感想篇 (中）

Day 5
Ryan woke up with a nose bleed, which was stopped fairly quickly. It's most probably caused by the dry air. I had been religiously applying nose spray for him every night with the exception of the previous night as he had fell asleep before I could spray for him, and the repercussion was pretty immediate. Have to keep up with the nose spray.

We had bought instant noodles from 7-11 last night as today's breakfast, which takes away the problem of trying to find breakfast in the morning especially when it was snowing heavily. Ryan had not been finishing his meals over the last few days, so it was much easier to get him to finish the entire cup of instant noodles in the room, though the quantity wasn't barely enough.

Brought him back to the Asahikawa train station to continue our hunt for postal services to mail postcards back to Mom in Singapore. It has stopped snowing when we stepped out of the hotel, but the ground is already covered with fresh snow powder, probably about 5cm thick. So it made for nice photos as we crossed the road to the train station.

Found a post office and got Ryan to pen the post card to be addressed to Mummy and Rainie, and I wrote another to be sent to him. He loves receiving mail. It only costs 140 yen (about S$1.75) to mail 2 postcards back to SG

The park behind the train station was empty and covered with fresh powder, so we just ended up spending the remaining time playing in the snow before checking out of the hotel to visit the excellent Asahiyama zoo

The snow was starting to get heavier when we left the hotel, and the roads were totally covered with snow. This is the first time that I'm driving in snow covered urban roads, different from Otaru as it wasn't fully covered then.

With the advice of the rental company staff fresh in mind, I was driving much slower than the previous days, probably up to 50km/h on the straights.

At the first left turn that I had to make at a junction, I slowed down to probably about 25km/h, and the car started to skid towards another stationary car waiting on at the crossroad. Luckily, quick instincts pumped in, and I abandoned that turn, swerving back right and regained control and traction to put the car back onto a straight and quickly got out of the impending crash.
Huge lesson learnt: 25km/h is still too fast for turning on icy/snowy roads. Knock that down to 10km/h max

Slowly made our way to the famed Asahikawa Zoo. Parking was free and entrance was free for Ryan. I was expecting a really small zoo from the online reviews. True to that, it was on the small size, though the cold weather made it a slightly longer walk than 2 hours.
The penguin parade is only available later into the winter season, but seeing them upclose and through an underwater aquarium was good enough.


It was neat to see how differently the animals behave in winter. Tigers, Black bear, Polar bear, Snow Leopards, Timberwolves, etc

The only problem was that, Ryan was only interested in the snow rather than the animals, so it wasn't long before he got bored and it started to get too cold. So we shared a hot bowl of udon and a can of hot corn soup for him at the Zoo's cafe before hitting the road again to our next destination.

From this point onwards, the roads were fully covered in (fresh) snow, so the driving difficulty slowly inched up as we moved further inland

Did the dumb thing of visiting Shikisai No Oka during winter.
It is supposed to be a sea of beautiful flowers/colours, but alas, we visited at the wrong season, thus we could only see an endless sea of white powder instead, though it was enough to make the boy happy again, and he was up for another few rounds of snow-angel making again.


The only consolation for Daddy was the oiishi Lavendar soft serve ice cream, which despite the freezing temperatures, was absolutely worth it. Of course it was mainly for Daddy to eat, and I only gave Ryan a few nibbles at the ice cream and the entire cone biscuit. Gotta make sure that he doesn't catch a cold












Didn't stay for too long at the farm, and made our way to the best accommodation of the entire trip, Furano La Terre. (more on this later)

Both of us weren't really feeling hungry, so it was another quick visit to the top attraction in Furano, the picture-risque Ningle Terrace

It wasn't an easy place to navigate or drive to, as the GPS and google maps were giving conflicting instructions most of the time. However, I just persisted with Google map and it eventually brought us to the correct location, though not without much detour and wasted gas.


Ningle Terrace looks straight out of a Children Fairy tale storybook, with quaint timber cottages and workshops in the middle of a forrest, perched on top of a hill.

It was already nightfall when we reached, so the pretty lights were all up, and with the continued snow, the atmosphere was nothing short of magical - though Ryan was already getting fatigued at this point, and probably had not read his fair share of Western fairy tales to fully appreciate what he was seeing, not to mention that it was getting crazy cold..

And soon we were off in search of our dinner. Brought him to a nearby Italian restaurant  for some pizza, curry rice and warm milk. I guess he probably spent more of his dinner time playing at the small play area in the restaurant rather than at the table dining with Daddy.


The drive back to the hotel was the #2 most challenging drive for me ever in my life (#1 was the extremely dangerous solo 80km Taroko Gorge ride in the middle of the night in Taiwan back in 2009). The roads leading back to the hotel had started to gather black ice, which means that it was extremely easy to skid out of control, which was evident from the car that was infront of mine. I had to be at 110% focus to just drive in a straight line at 20km/h to 30km/h, and I was still skidding most of the time.

Nonetheless it was an uneventful drive back to the fantastic Furano Le Terre.
Worth a special mention about the exceptional service and honesty.
I made an online reservation for 1 room with 2 persons, but on check-in, the reception informed me that the rate that I had paid was for 2 adults, and they proactively changed my bill to 1 adult and 1 child. Even for such an experienced traveller as me, I'm really impressed by their attention to details, and the introduction to the hotel facilities, the tips and tricks, were simply beyond 5 stars.



And there is a large inhouse onsen, which I gladly brought Ryan to experience again. Great fun and learning for him, though he is fully exhausted by the time we were done with the bath. It's always so sweet to see children sleeping naturally in such a cute pose :)

Back to busy

Writing this on my mobile as I'm stuck in the causeway customs jam at 6am on a Saturday morning

2nd week into January and I'm back at full speed at work and business.

Completed a 3 day business planning meeting in Bintan this week, and will be visiting Bangkok for customer meetings on this coming Monday to Wednesday, sandwiching a weekend coaching session in Malaysia.

Just had only 3 hours of sleep before driving off this morning. Mei has fell sick since the start of my Bintan trip and brought her to the Dr last night. Viral fever. And the kids and mom stayed over at grandma's for the night

This is the unhealthy cycle which has been bothering me for the last 2 years. Am I going to make a break through this year and make the necessary changes for a healthier work cycle, for myself and the family?

Ryan is going to P1 next year, and is starting to feel the effects of daddy going on frequent work trips more keenly. One of my biggest wish is to be able to spend more quality time with him. Teaching and showing him all the beautiful things in life before he gets into the academic grind cycle.

Mei is also starting to be more sensible, so I'll need to spend more time with her too.

As I'm finishing this post in the car, the song "忙與盲＂ by 周華健 just played... How apt...