Back to Blogging

It has been a very long time since I’ve blogged.  By the evidence of my last blog post about sweet potatoes I buy on the street you may have figured out that no matter where you are in the world, you pretty much have to settle into some routine.   I have gotten over my initial phase of wanting to try everything just to try it and going out of the way to do things I normally wouldn’t do because I want to establish a normal routine and by normal routine I mean by physical activity, rest, and social activities.

Things I’ve Done since Last Blog Entry

I found a very cool bike path to Lumpini Park which has almost no pedestrian or motosai  (scooters, motorcycles)  traffic.  It is actually an actual bike lane and it travels in between the express way and another busy road.  It goes for about 1.5 miles then there is this cool skywalk bikepath, which is made of that hard tenniscourt material and again is devoid of motorized traffic although there are sometimes soccer games with kids.  The skywalk travels in between and over a residential neighborhood and ends up 1/8 of a mile from Lumpini park.   I found a full outdoor basketball court in Lumpini Park which motivated me to buy a basketball so I can ride bike to the park and shoot hoops which I am woefully awful at, but nobody in Thailand will care.  It is something I can do for hours because it gets addicting.

Buying a Bike at Big C

I blogged a while back about the Thai answer to K-Mart or Target called Big C.  I kind of ranted about how cheap Big C was but I went there of all places and bought a bicycle.  The bikes ranged from 1250 baht (~$35) to 5000 ($150) and for some reason I bought one of the double spring mountain bikes instead of the basket street bikes.   I bought a 4,000 baht bike which has to weigh 60 pounds.  It is cheaply made and on the ride back home, I actually wrenched the handlebars off and almost fell off the bike.  When I got back I put the little wire lock that wouldn’t last 5 minutes in San Francisco in between the bikes’ back tire and frame so nobody can ride off with it.   It’s sitting in the parking garage right in front of the security guards so hopefully it will not get stolen.  I have been used to a very nice and light Specialized Sirrus Comp which I can already tell will be sorely missed although I don’t see myself going very far, at least yet…

Got on Channel  7 Thai News Broadcast!

I ran to Lumpini Park which I planned to workout at the gym which is there but as always I got caught up in the park’s main attractions, the monitor lizards.  The park is so laid back, peaceful and relaxing it’s hard to not stop and rest.   I started talking to a Brit who was videoing the monitors and we got to chatting.   He was vacationing in Bangkok and he caught a story on BBC world news about the monitors in the park so he made a trip to visit them.  Next thing we know, we see a Thai news team given away by the pretty reporter with the microphone and the camera man with the giant pro camera.  We chat with them and they want to interview the British guy, Jeremy and they do.  As we were walking away they videos walking down the street which is what was on the news.   I turned on channel 7 and started watching and continued for 2 hours and didn’t see myself on the news.  I found out there were 2 channel 7′s and I didn’t know which one was the correct one.  A couple hours later I received an email from Jeremy telling me we were on the news.  Hopefully he’ll email the video to me so I can post it.

Taking Time Off: Also a Trip to Vietnam

My good friend Jae who owns the fitness studio I trained at for the past 4 years is visiting from San Francisco.   This reminds me, we have to get a Vietnam visa before we can go.  We got very cheap tickets on AirAsia.com which amount to only $75 round trip from Bangkok to Saigon and back to Bangkok from Hanoi.  How we’re getting from Saigon to Hanoi is probably another cheap flight.   I’m supposed to be gone from September 15th through the 23rd although I may want to visit Hong Kong which is one of my favorite cities and is close to Hanoi.  This trip will give me much needed time off from the keyboard but also some great pictures and videos for future blog posts.   You can read about the primary reason why I haven’t been blogging as much about living in Bangkok and traveling in Southeast Asia here: AskTheTrainer Blog

Healthy Surprise

I have been trying to go from the “Try Everything” phase of just getting here to getting back into my healthy eating and daily workout program.  Across from the California WOW which I workout at I usually get something from 7-Eleven and something from a street vendor.

Up to this point I have usually bought corn-on-the-cob and I never noticed that in the giant steamer they have these little red sweet potatoes.

One of the best active diet foods are sweet potatoes and yams which are stacked with complex carbs and  B-Vitamins.  Up until this point I had not seen sweet potatoes anywhere except for grocery stores which sometimes the ones from the USA are very expensive.  The bag of sweet potatoes is only 10 baht (30 cents) and it is the perfect food to eat before and after workouts.

I plan to make these little bags of sweet potatoes a big part of my active diet as they satisfy the sweet tooth and are very hard to pig out on.  The only thing which is yet to be determined is if my stomach can handle them.

I don’t know if it is true but I have heard that some fruits and vegetables with peels can get you sick because they store enough water to irritate your stomach.  I have downed a 2 bags of these little potatoes while I walk back from the gym at Sukhumvit Soi 23 to my apartment at Sukhumvit Soi 1 and have yet to get sick and I’m crossing my fingers.