Lean On

Last Saturday we viewed the rehearsal for Singapore's National Day celebrations that are happening tomorrow! My family and I saw the rehearsal from the Lantern Bar where we had a wonderful view of Marina Bay. My parents will be married for 25 years in September but as I will be back in the Netherlands then we had an early celebration for this occasion on this beautiful evening as well! With a beautiful view of Marina Bay Sands and champagne in our hands (and a mocktail for my sister) we waited for the airshow to begin. It truly was a very impressive show and a wonderful evening!

Not My Day

We went to 9 yoga classes in 7 days in the last week! My mom and sister are members of a yoga school here in Singapore and they took myself and my dad to their classes for the past week. We tried multiple types of yoga and I have to say it was really great! Despite being a bit confronting (I have been injured for the entire summer so far) it was also really wonderful to discover that even if a certain pose hurt my injury, I could find an alternative pose together with the instructor and still get the same benefit that the initial pose was intended for. We attended multiple classes called Iyengar & Hatha 1. We also went to one Restorative class and one Chakra cleansing class. I completely understand why my family enjoys going to yoga almost daily and wish I could join them for longer but our trial period ended unfortunately. When I get back to the Netherlands I want to start attending a yoga school in my city again (which I also attended in my third semester) and continue recovering from my injury so I can slowly go back to doing workouts on a regular basis like I used to!

I can barely wait to continue with the yoga classes but thankfully it does have to wait a little while because I still get to be in Singapore for the next 2 weeks! This week I am at a traineeship that I unexpectedly got during the middle of last week but next week I will spend visiting some last things that I still want to do before I leave and of course just spending time with my family!

 

 I am also slightly obsessed with the song called Not My Day by Keith James (hence the title of this post). The title may seem a bit negative but the song makes me so happy and to me it means to also enjoy the days where everything may seem to be going wrong, just keep going and it'll all be good again sooner than you think! Enjoy!

The Greenest Grass

I can't believe it's already been 3 weeks since I left the Netherlands for Singapore! It's so strange (and wonderful) to be in a country where the weather is always warm even when it rains! In my second week here I spent four days on a private island in Indonesia together with my mother as an early 21st birthday present. I'm turning 21 in November (so a very early birthday present) but I'll be back in the Netherlands without my family so we decided on an early celebration now and a late celebration during the winter break. I'll post an update on my time in Singapore soon but this post is dedicated to some of the pictures of the beautiful island Telunas! So grateful to have been able to spend some time here with my mama! The island is amazingly beautiful, so peaceful and relaxing. No internet just quality time with my mom, reading, eating and sleeping!

 

Love You More

Together with ten other lovely ladies, I spent five days in Lisbon! We had a really busy but wonderful time there, I had never been to Portugal before and it was great to try some authentic Portugese cuisine and go sightseeing in this beautiful country! We had thirty degree cloudless weather for all of the five days that we were there so it was finally time to wear shorts and start tanning.

Tuesday we explored an area called Alfama which was about half an hour from the appartment we stayed in. We walked around in the area and visited a market that was really nice! After this we went to St. George Castle to do some final sightseeing for the day.

On Wednesday we took the bus and the train to Cascais to spend some time in this very nice town and lie on the beach!

 Our last day was spent in Sintra, an amazing day of sightseeing in this beautiful town! In the evening we went to a skybar near our appartment to celebrate one of the girls' 20th birthday!

And then before we knew it, it was time to leave! Friday was a very long day filled with a lot of waiting but the whole holiday was a lot of fun so it was pretty nice to sit and chat at Starbucks during the waiting. Lisbon was really great and it was great to see so much of the surrounding area as well! 

Technicolour Beat

Last Saturday it was finally time for the Nike Women's 10K run in Amsterdam! I signed up for this run in January and now, four months later, it was finally here! Initially planning to go with three of my friends I unfortunately ended up being the only one running as the rest was ill or injured. But Ambrosa joined me on the trip to Amsterdam and she was the best supporter and motivator! Getting slightly more nervous each hour before the race, it was great to have such an amazing friend there with me.

The entire event was really great, the DJ's played great music, 7000 other excited ladies ready to run and the Nike crew making everyone excited to start! There was a hair stand where you could get your hair done with some type of aerodynamic hairspray, tattoo's and face paint were applied as everyone got ready to run. Most ladies came back from the hair stand with some awesome big hair but I asked if they could just get my hair out of my face which ended up making it look as though it was braided!

My goal was to run the 10 kilometers in a time under 1:20:00. One month ago I ran my first 10 kilometers with Ambrosa and so this time I wanted to be faster! Before the start I spoke with one of the Nike pacers who told me she was running the track in 80 minutes so in order to achieve my goal I just had to make sure not to run behind her. This was greatly motivating and to my own surprise my pace was quite a bit faster for the duration of the entire run and I ended up finishing in 1:12:52!!! The finish line was in the Olympic stadium and so the last few 100 meters were extra motivating as the stadium was even more full of supporters than the streets of Amsterdam had been. Seeing Ambrosa there made me realize I was almost done and that I could still run slightly faster! The last 100 meters a pacer joined me to the finish line while motivating me with wonderful words and because of her I was able to sprint faster than I thought I would ever be able to!

This whole event was such an amazing experience that I really enjoyed and cherish. It was my first time at a running event in which I ran myself rather than just seeing my father run and I can't wait to sign up for my next running event! This summer I will be in Singapore for eight weeks, so my dad and I are signing up for a 10K there! I will definitely be back in Amsterdam for this event next year as well to improve my time even further! 

Photo from before the race with my end results!