Killing two health birds with one well-placed kidney stone?

Someone please tell me BP Healthcare at the very least have someone with an above average command of English to go through their public marketing materials?

"Friendly medical practitioners soothe body fluid donators to ensure a smooth, flowing process. Tests take up to 15 minutes, after which upper class postmen whisk blood and urine samples to brainy testers. Examinations cover health obstacles like hepatitis B, liver and renal malfunctions and patients need not stretch their patience as results can be obtained within 24 hours. After a doctor's consultation, customers are entitled to a complimentary nutritionist consultation, killing two health birds with one well-placed kidney stone."

Source

I am thinking of going there for my regular health checkup (my last two were done at their place). Now I'm not... hmm.. quite so sure.  Am not quite ready to understand how kidney stones are useful to kill health birds. :)

27 Sep 2011: Siemens Run 2011

    

What are you running for?

Siemens has a reputation for hosting one of the more "fun" races in KL and with them donating the run proceeds to charity, it's a run that's always worth supporting. I missed the 2009 run as I was late to the party and the registration has closed. I did sign up for last year's but due to some last minute engagement, couldn't make it on run day itself.

Siemens only has 10K as the competitive category and with limited medals (150 for my Junior Veteran category), you need to make sure you come back fast enough to grab one of the finisher medals. Their running vest is from Brooks and usually far much better quality than those from the "more famous" brands.

 

 
This would be my first road races after SCKLM (which was at end June) and while I've been (trying) to keep to my practice runs at the gym and KLCC (thanks to new-found Sunday running buddy, Ang), the practice sessions been irregular at best as the project at WSM is rolling towards it's Go-live date - and BGC taking up whatever slack time I may have after WSM.

 

Which brings me back to this article's topic, what do I run for? Simple.... to ensure I'm fit enough to continue doing what I'm doing - work, business, personal, boardgaming, etc. And for this 10K races are the best way to keep me "honest" in terms of getting myself fit. Life always gets into our way of maintaining  a healthy lifestyle and good fitness level - we'll always have the "excuse" to skip today's training in order to complete another assignment or report.

 

But when you know you've a race to complete sometime in the horizon, you will make an effort to get to the gym if only to make sure you dun suffer needlessly on race day. If you follow Covey's Four Quadrants, then "running to keep yourself fit" is usually a Quadrant 2 (Q2) activity and one we tend to "sacrifice" when push comes to shove timewise.

 

Ensuring I keep myself fit enough to run 10K races (which fits sweetly into a one hour time slot) helps to avoid this Q2 activities (exercise) turning into a Q1 firefighting crisis (when we've to take a rest/break from our hectic schedule due to reason of poor health).

 

Yeah, that's what I run for. :)

 

The run itself was not a good one for me though. Perhaps I've been slacking in my treadmill sessions. The route is similar to SCKLM 2011 except where we turned into Syed Putra, we kept along Jalan Tun Sambathan instead which made the route shorter by about 800m.

I'd an easier run during SCKLM, doing a 5:51 average pace and generally just chugging along fine. This time however I were struggling a bit to keep even a 6:00 pace even though it's on the same route. Told myself I won't be surprised if I'm past the 150 medals when I reach the finishing line at this pace.

But surprisingly the medals were still around when I came to the Finish point around the one hour mark at position #118 (within my category)! And the finisher medal - made of wood instead of the usual pewter - indeed looks good.

RESULTS

Distance: 10.06 km

Position: 118 (Men Jr Veteran)

Time: 60:45 min

Pace: 6:02 /km

This is the first of a series of races I'd signed up for in Sep/October (August was Puasa month so no races scheduled); the next being the much anticipated Adidas King of the Road held at Sunway next week.

RELATED LINKS

Siemens Run 2011 Official Site

Siemens Run 2011 Results

What dreams wouldn't we dream if we knew we wouldn't fail?

Saw this writing shared on my buddy Hengy's facebook notes. A nice piece of writing - not surprisingly from Paulo Coelho, who in my mind is not just a writer of novels but a philosopher of life as well. Let me share it here for those who follow this blog. :P

--quote--

"We must never stop dreaming. Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a meal does for the body. Many times in our lives we see our dreams shattered and our desires frustrated, but we have to continue dreaming. If we don't, our soul dies and Love cannot reach it.

The good fight is the one we fight because our heart asks it of us. The good fight is the one fought in the name of our dreams. When we're young and our dreams first explode inside us with all of their force, we are very courageous, but we haven't yet learned how to fight. With great effort we learned how to fight, but by then we no longer have the courage to go into combat. So we turn against ourselves and do battle within. We become our own worst enemy. We say that our dreams were childish, or too difficult to realize, or the result of our not having known enough about life. We kill our dreams because we are afraid to fight the good fight.

The first symptom of the process of our killing our dreams is the lack of time. The busiest people always have time to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The truth is, they are afraid to fight the good fight.

The second symptom of the death of our dreams lies in our certainties. Because we don't want to see life as a grand adventure, we begin to think of ourselves as wise and fair and correct in asking so little of life. We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day existence, and we hear the sound of lances breaking, we smell the dust and the sweat, and we see the great defeats and the fire in the eyes of the warriors. But we never see the delight, the immense delight in the hearts of those engaged in the battle. For them, neither victory nor defeat is important; what's important is only that they are fighting the good fight.

And, finally, the third symptom of the passing of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon; we ask for nothing grand, and we cease to demand anything more than we are willing to give. In that state, we think of ourselves as mature; we put aside the fantasies of youth, and we seek personal and professional achievement. We are surprised when people our age say that they still want this or that out of life. But really, deep in our hearts, we know that what has happened is that we have renounced the battle for our dreams - we refused to fight the good fight.

When we renounced our dreams and find peace, we go through a short period of tranquility. But the dead dreams begin to rot within us and to infect our entire being. We become cruel to those around us, and then we begin to direct this cruelty against ourselves. That's when illness and psychoses arise. What we sought to avoid in combat - disappointment and defeat - came upon us because of our cowardice. And one day, the dead, spoiled dreams make it difficult to breathe, and we actually seek death. It's death that frees us from our certainties, from our work, and from that terrible peace of our Sunday afternoons.

The only way we can rescue our dreams is to stop being cruel to ourselves."

--adapted from Paulo Coelho, The Pilgrimage

--unquote--

To me when I started the first boardgame meetup years back, I've envisaged the vision of "New OTK" of today. It's been a long road... glad we've arrived in some forms and some parts. There's still a longer road in front I'm sure... but when you are living your dream, the hardship matters less.

Coelho's writing reminded me of a quote I always held close to my heart. A quote that never fails to lift me whenever I felt the road in front is hard to continue... when turning the other way or simply stopping was so much more easier. We may fall. We may stumble. But cold and timid, we will never be. :)

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Lord of the Rings Chess Set

While surfing eBay looking for some other stuff, I stumbled upon the LOTR Chess Sets from Eaglemoss. Not any wanna-be chess set featuring LOTR figures but a very polished looking hand-painted set.

It obviously comes with a price. L Issued in sets of 32 pieces, they used to have two sets and have recently announced Set 3. With each set costing around USD180.... hmm.. Not cheap to acquire them.

http://www.lotr-chess.co.uk/index.html

BIM2011 - Running along the coastline

Even though we only slept around 12 m/n (after getting back from the Carcasean boardgaming session), I felt well rested when I woke up around 5ish. The plus point of staying just 1KM away from the starting point (Likassquare Condo) is that you can afford to wake up later and just saunter your way to the race venue. :P

The races start earlier here compared to KL ie 6 am for our 10K and the ungodly hours of 4 am for the full marathoners! :O The reason is simply the sun rising here 1.5 hrs earlier than KL even though both locations are on the same timezone so a 6 am start here is about equivalent to a 7:30 am start in KL.

By the time we were on the road towards Likas Stadium (start venue) around 530ish, the full marathoners have already been on the road for 1.5 hours. Gosh.

We didn't actually saunter since we thought it might be good for us to slow-jog our way to the Stadium, which was a useful pre-race warm-up for us anyway.

A view of the dynamic Likas Sports Complexs which houses an Olympic-size swimming pool... this complex is located along the route from our condotel to the stadium.

Likas Stadium is imposing.. It's the 8th largest football stadium in M'sia with a capacity to house 35,000 fans! Even though it was not even 6 am, the sky was as bright as any morning sun!

We were flagged off sharp at 6 am. No funny celebrity warm-up stuff, no longish speech about nothing, just a quick "Hi How Are You All This Morning" and Bang! Off we go....

The route for the 10K run... starting from Likas, then a 2KM stretch along Jln Tun Fuad Stephen which is the coastline run before we enter the city centre, an u-turn at the 5KM mark and returning in the opposite direction along the same route.

This is the road heading out towards Likas Condotel (that's the tall buildings after the arch) and another 500m we'll hit the coastline. J

This being my 2nd (actual) race this year (the first was the now-infamous ENR at Sepang), my plan for this run was simply to take it at a leisurely 6 min pace. The route here is flat. I mean FLAT with no elevation at all so for those with pace to burn, this is actually a good race to do your PB in whatever category you wanna do.

It's only 1.5K from Likas Stadium to the Tun Fuad Stephen roundabout (above) and from here we turned left and were now running along the coastline of KK facing the South China Sea. Ah.. the sea breeze!

This coastline stretch is about 1.5KM long and it's really such a blissful feeling running along it with the sea breeze in your face! Priceless experience - especially for us city-folks given only to running in the concrete jungles of KL.

Somewhere along this stretch, I saw the 1st Kenyan runners coming from the opposite direction heading back towards Likas Stadium. It's just 6:15 or thereabout and with just 2+ KM back to base, this guy was going back with a timing of around 2:30 hr for a full marathon!

In case you are reaching for your calculator, that's an awesome 3:30 min pace (in other words, he ran each KM of the 42+ KM at the average pace of 3:30 min per KM)!! *shakes head*

At Km3 we start to reach the city centre though the coastline is still very much visible along our route.

The next KM took us alongside one of the newer shopping malls in KK - the Suria Sabah (wonder if it's related to our Suria KLCC?)

After Suria Sabah, we were running along the Harbour Front (above) which has a 2KM boardwalk (arguably the longest in Asia).

We made our u-turn just before the KK Wet Market (the large covered building above). From here, it's just the same route back in the opposite direction. Yay! Another 2KM of coastline run!!

The 21K and 42K went on further down this route... past Le Meridien KK, all the way to Sutera Harbour until they reach Tanjung Aru where their u-turn was.

This was a picture of me stopping for a cuppa of Gatorade at the 7KM mark, taken by Tey. See the coastline in the background? J

The last 200m was on the stadium's soft track..  My Garmin tracked my time at around 59+ min but there was no official time for me as there were some problems with the race bibs they used for this race.

However the BIM organizers were more than willing to help you check your official time from their data if you provide them with sufficient info. A quick email exchange with (the late) Andrew Voon gave my official time as 59:03 min. Sadly, there was probably the last email exchange I'll ever have with Andrew as he passed away suddenly last week.

Overall this was a well-organized race (compared with the ENR, haha), started on time, routes well-marshalled, drinks available almost every 2-3 km (for 10K route) and your goodies like finishing medal, t-shirt and a wet towel were handed to you at the finishing line (makes it easier rather than having the runners queued up for this after crossing the finishing line).

Kudos to Andrew and his organizing team. BIM is a relatively new race (this is their 4th year) and I wish they'll continue to grow from year to year.

waiyan did well in her 10K too. Think she came back around 68:30 min. J

I enjoyed this run a lot.. Probably the best run in all the races I've done. Think part of the reason is that I did not set any finishing target for myself and just decided to do a 6 min pace. I find that at this pace I can just coast along and in the morning air of the South China Sea, while running my mind reflected on where/what/who/why/when/how of my life and I probably achieved clarity in some aspects of those contemplations.

I'll certainly be BACK here for next year's run!

Next: Post-run photo shoot

Borneo International Marathon 2012 date announced!

It's set for 6th May 2012 (Sunday) and online registration is expected to open 1st Oct 2011. We did our first Borneo run last May (see first blog entry here) and my extremely busy schedule is keeping me from writing the rest of the blog entries.... but we thoroughly enjoyed our run (and also the short holiday at Sutera Harbour) and will definitely want to come back again!

If you'd ran in the 2011 race (full or half-mara) and were coming back to the last KM around 8:00 am - 10:00 am, you might find your pics in my BIM2011 albums here in Facebook.

8:00 am - 8:29 am

8:30 am - 8:59 am

9:00 am - 9:29 am

9:30 am - 9:59 am

10:00 am onwards

Official site for Borneo Marathon

http://borneomarathon.com/

------------------------

NOTE: I wrote this entry almost a week back and it was sitting in my journal waiting to be uploaded to Blogger. However on Saturday (June 18) morning, I read a sobering news on one of my running fren's Facebook wall saying Andrew Voon (Race director for BIM) has left us suddenly when he collapsed during his morning run and never woke up.

I do not know Andrew personally but I admired very much what he has done for the Borneo International Marathon (he was one of the founding members) and am sure part of the success of BIM was down to his planning and dedication.

I enjoyed my BIM run this year, luv the feeling of running along the coastline... and I'm sure I'll now return to KK next year for BIM2012 to run again in this wonderful race and to say "goodbye" to Andrew.

Life is fragile... live it now.

BIM2011: Race Pack Collection

It was 2 years ago that I first noticed this boutique race - Borneo International Marathon - held in the land of the hornbills. The picture of the proboscis monkey (which I kept confusing as orang utan) on the finisher's medal made it a unique medal to collect. The attraction of running along the coastline is probably a strong second pull. And earlier sessreps from Yim (who attended the 2009 run) pointed to a well-organized run.

In 2009, the event was held in the later part of the year (October if I'm not mistaken) but in 2010 they switched it to May 1st which happily coincide with the Labour Day public holiday here. This year's even better, May 1st falls on a Sunday which means Monday is the replacement day-off for us (and we do not even have to take annual leave for Monday).

Not wanting to miss this good opportunity to swing by KK for the Borneo Run this year, we were rather quick to sign up when they opened for registration in December 2010. Yup, they have good planning and started promoting their way almost 6 mths to the event.

Early registration means early flight bookings and while AirAsia continues to offer cheap flights into KK, we found MAS' schedule more amenable to us. If I remembered correctly AirAsia's deal was around Rm400 while MAS about Rm550 per pax. However AirAsia's flight required us to wake up in the ungodly hours of 3am or something since it's departing around 7am (Sat) and then leaving KK on the 9am flight on Monday hardly giving us enough time to R&R (rest & relax) in KK (which beside the Race is part of the reason for this trip).

Some of you might wonder what's wrong with a 3am wake-up on Saturday. Well for one, I do have to host the Boardgamecafe.net's Friday meetup which usually ends (if early) around 2-3 am Sat morning so that meant I'm rushing straight off the meetup to the airport? Nosireee....  I would rather get a couple of hours rest in-between and then get ourselves leisurely to KK in the afternoon.

Oh yes AirAsia do have flights leaving on times better suited to our itinerary but that would meant their cost would be similar to MAS. So MAS it is, which gave us a 12 noon flight out of KUL and a nice 7pm flight back from KK.

First to-do on our list upon arrival at KK (after checking in to our hotel in Likassquare) was to get our Race Pack from the Community Hall, which is about 5 km from Likassquare. We took the complimentary shuttle van from the hotel to get to the Community Hall in good time and the Race Pack collection went smoothly.

I noticed Jesseltown Hotel's located just opposite the Community Hall so if you are thinking of staying somewhere within really short walking distance, you can consider this hotel (not that I've any good nor bad reviews about it).

When we were searching for an accommodation for this trip, we were deciding whether to stay in the city centre (which is just a short 4-5 km the race venue Likas Stadium) or to stay at Likassquare, a short 1 km walk from the stadium. In the end we decided on Likassquare as their frontline person was more responsive and attentive to my emails.

As we were about to leave the Community Hall, we spotted Tey (Facebook link if you do not know who he is). He came with a posse of runners from KL (all from the same family I think). Wow! He's really passionate about promoting the sport of running!

Thanks Tey for this photo!

A little bit on KK City

We decided to hang around a bit in the city centre before moving back to the Likassquare area and were looking for a place to sit and have a cup of coffee.. And we spotted Old Town White Coffee (OTK). Those of you who are boardgamers would surely understand my affinity with them. :)

This OTK outlet seems to be overstaffed but we couldn't complained since it meant their staff are very attentive to your needs.

We didn't order much food to eat as we were saving our stomach for tonight's dinner with Sean & his wife (that'll be our trip to Carcasean Cafe which was the main agenda for today).

My bib for the 10K Run. There's also a useful Starbucks voucher (buy 1 free 1) and a nice eco Newton bag. No running vest but they'll hand out a finisher tee at the Finish Line. You can also see their distinctive logo being branded everywhere.

When we left Old Town and walked around, we noticed a café beside OTK that was packed with customers! The peeps inside were enjoying their food and engrossed in conversation. The café was well (though simple) decorated and we could see a lot of those customers who appeared to be "runners", no doubt for tomorrow's race.

Ah.. Now we know why Old Town was relatively quiet compared to this buzzing place which is know as Fook Yuen Cafe & Bakery. :P We later found out - from Facebook- this was WHERE most of the runners (especially the West M'sians) were gathering to fuel themselves!

Strange sign post in KK. hehe... 164M to the toilet?

Yes, we are 0KM in Kota Kinabalu!

The interiors of the Likassquare apartment. Ours was supposedly a studio apartment but it's essentially a 3-bedroom apartment converted into a studio, to cater for couples like us who do not need 2- or 3-bedrooms.

But they do have 3-bedroom apartments for rent and the price would be very attractive for a group of 5-6 runners sharing an accommodation for this run. With the Start/Finish venue (Likas Stadium) being only one KM walk from this hotel, it's very well positioned for runners who are attending this Race.

The only downside is probably this hotel being away from the city centre hence you'll either need your own transport or to use their complimentary shuttle van when getting to/from the city centre. They even sent a shuttle van to pick us up from the airport!

We took a taxi back (from the Community Hall) and local taxis here go by a fixed rate rather than meter, which I think is understandable given the low volume of customers. Fare from city centre here is about Rm15-17 which is expensive considering the distance covered (barely 5 KM). The hotel's shuttle van is available as long as you make pickup arrangement.

We'll definitely be staying here again if we are back for the next run! At just Rm130+ per night, this hotel is well recommended by us especially if you are a runner coming here for the Borneo Intl Marathon. :P

Next stop: Carcasean Cafe for some boardgaming session & Race Day

--------------------------------------------------------------

For more photos, pls check out my Facebook Album

- BIM2011 Race Pack Collection

Links

- Borneo International Marathon

- Likassquare Condotel

The Bladerunners

THE BLADERUNNERS
About half a year back when I was due to replace my Adizero Tempo, I was scouring the market to see what's new with running shoes and one brand caught my eye - K-Swiss. I actually first saw it some time ago while in the LRT when a young chap walked in with a nice dynamic looking shoe. It had 4-bands so it couldn't be Adidas. It was not until some of my runner frens started using K-Swiss that I finally found out which brand it was.

Note: I did end up replacing my old Adizero Tempo with another Tempo back in Oct last year (during the Adidas Refresh Your Gear promo) coz Frank told me the yellow model of BLR won't be available in Msia until March this year, and my old Adizero Tempo has had more mileage than it should be.

The Blade Light Run (BLR) caught my eye - in particular the yellow model (above) - probably due to it's bold colors, dynamic shape and it's close proximity to the weight of Adizero (which is a very light trainer). I don't run longer-than-10K races but still, I do not want to lug around a brick on my feet everytime I run. :P

In the early days, it was difficult buying a K-Swiss here since there's no one retailing the shoes locally. Everyone I knew who had this shoe bought them from overseas; usually S'pore or HK. You won't have that problem now since Runnerz Circle (run by Frank Chong) carries (almost) the full range of K-Swiss running shoes.

I didn't get around to asking Frank what's the story behind the Mashimaro but it was displayed rather prominently at the front of his shop. :P

Frank's store is in Kota Damansara which is kinda far from where I stay... so I've been dilly dallying about getting to his shop to look-see at the K-Swiss shoes. The Race Pack collection for the Energizer Night Run (ENR) on the 10th April at Tropicana Mall gave us an opportunity to swing around to his store. The ENR event itself is another big fubar story altogether (will save it for another blog entry).

It was not hard finding our way to Runnerz Circle in Kota Damansara - well, a Garmin nuvi sure helped made things easier. His store was opened a couple months back and I can see that Frank has now keep his shop well-stocked with all types of clothing & accessories for runners - and also triathletes. :D

But we are here for the shoes and it's close to closing time (5pm). :P So we promptly get down to business. He took out a few sizes of the Yellow BLR for me to try out, and I finally found one size that fits me.

The array of K-Swiss shoes available from Runnerz Circle. As you can from the above picture, Frank has one pair of the latest Kwicky Blade Light shoes in his store but we were told that was a trial pair from K-swiss and this shoe won't be available here until later.

Anyway I've already made up my mind long ago to get the Yellow Blade (even though I already have bought a replacement for my Adizero Tempo). No harm having another pair of good running shoes. This shoe looks like I could use it on race day which would then mean it can replace my aging Adizero Ace.

Waiyan also found the Blade Light Run to her liking and decided to get the red colored lady version of the BLR. Haha.. Good for Frank then, a quick double sales!

I took the BLR for a short run at KLCC Park the following Sunday to see how it would go with my feet before using it for the actual race day on the 16th (Energizer Night Run). The shoe fitted snugly and was very good to run in. Can feel the support when my foot hits the ground.

Another aspect of the Blade Light Run is their "drainage" technology - you see those pores in the shoes? - where supposedly even if you stepped into a pool of water, the heavy water would drain itself out from the shoes and avoid turning the shoes into a heavy wet lump.

I did not manage to test this out - and not that I'm keen to do so (hehe) - but Jamie Pang has written a very good review that explained this "drainage" part of the shoe. You might want to read Jamie's review if you are keen to find out more.

I've since used this shoe for two race days - hehe.. the only two races I ever did for 2011 so far (been real busy la!) - which were the Energizer Night Run and the recently concluded Borneo International Marathon. I did the 10K in both races and maintained a consistent (and slow! hah) 6-min pace in both races and I felt the shoes gave me tremendous support.

Waiyan has the same positive remarks for her red BLR. So yes if anyone asks us, this Blade Light Run comes highly recommended by us. But now the Kwicky is slowly turning our heads... hehe.

Btw if you fancy some t-shirts - maybe as souvenir - from past local races, do drop by Runnerz Circle as they have a Frank and Jamie's corners (see below) of past races' t-shirts available for sale. :)

Till next time.

Change.Work.Shop

OSLO. Today's a full day change management workshop we did for the Oslo office. Not going to write much about the change management programme (since that's client specific and I would like to keep this blog personal). Perhaps let me share some pics of the Oslo office.

We owned the building, two of them in fact - and in Norway almost all commercial buildings are designed distinctively with its own identity. No mass design here. :P

As such, each building is able to convey it's own character and carry a facade unique to herself. Its actually quite cool to be working in such beautifully designed & built offices.

Our building faces the sea - being a maritime business - and while the water's all frozen now in winter, the view outside can be awesome in other seasons.

A concept prototype (below) of a futuristic car carrier using solar powered energy!

We ended our programme earlier than we thought and since we already have plans for tomorrow, everyone agreed tonight's a good time as any to visit the famous Opera House.

Random buildings on our way to the Opera House.

This is a restaurant and it disappointed us! It looks posh outside but on closer inspection, realized they serve only café food!

This (above) I believe is one of the good hotels near to the Opera House.

OSLO Opera House

http://www.operaen.no/Default.aspx?ID=27237

Operahuset, or otherwise known as the OSLO Opera House is right now the largest cultural building in Oslo for a city that's famed for her culture & arts. As one who luvs musicals, I've made it a habit of visiting opera houses where I travel and when me & wifey were at Brisbane 2 years back, we even booked ourselves tickets for "Chicago" at the Brisbane Opera House.

The bridge connecting us to the Opera House, and along the bridge you get to see pictures of the development of the Opera House from concept to completion of the entire building sometime in 2008.

A picture dated 2006 showing the Opera House almost completed...

Sally & John at the Oslo Opera House

We saw Oslo locals going into the foyer so I think there's a show or performance tonight. Too bad we were really on very short time here else I won't mind getting myself a ticket. :P

Ticket prices are reasonable with the front seats going for around NOK800 or about RM400.

You can't come to the Opera House without getting to the top! The snow-covered steps leading to the roof of the Opera House can be slippery especially when you are dragging along a DSLR.

Not sure which building this is (below) but it's situated just opposite the Opera House across the river. Seems like it's under construction or upgrading.

I've to think these are locals (below) as otherwise I wasn't able to differentiate which was frozen water and which was solid land.

Merchandising is always good business, and opera houses not excluded. J Seems like their current performance is "LULU".

Ooh..... rows of audio CDs. Bought an Edvard Grieg collection, and also a book about "Norway - Past Present & Future".

They sell everything it seems....

Sally & John in the foyer... definitely a show on for tonight, looking at the crowd behind them. :P

PEPPE'S Pizza

We were told pizza is one of Oslo's fave food, and the pizza here can be as good as the Italianos. After eating humble pie with the Chinese restaurant thingie (see Day One), I have an open mind on this.. LOL.

We went to a place near the central park named "Peppe's Pizza". Looks like a typical American-style pizza place....

But how did the pizza go?

Apology for a out-of-focus pizza... but you see.. The pizza smelt - and tasted so good - it's a sin to waste time taking pictures instead of chomping on them! Yes Oslo has great pizzas!! Compared to this, Dominos/Pizza Hut seems like junk food. Maybe I need to revisit Micasa when I'm back in KL to see if standards are comparable. :)

Today's still a relatively quiet day travel-wise since we did have a full day's work to account for. But stay tune for tomorrow we visit the famous Vigeland Park...