by Jonny | Feb 1, 2013 | Fitness
Let’s just say that while my sister has been in Taiwan I’ve gained weight, as I’ve been going out and eating at restaurants and I simply have not had enough time to exercise.
However, I’ve changed all that; now that my sister has returned to the UK I’ve started exercising again.
Today, I pushed myself and I ran around the track 14 times without stopping at a fast pace; it took half an hour to do that as I was really pushing myself.
I just weighed myself and I only gained 3kgs, so it isn’t as bad as I thought it was — as I originally thought I had gained 7kgs; that would really have been a disaster. So, weighing myself now I weigh 86kgs where at my peak I got down to 80kgs, however that was long time ago. In December, before my sister arrived in Taiwan I weighed roughly 83kgs. I’m still overweight by a small margin in comparison to how I was 2 years ago when I originally arrived in Taiwan, but I’ve still got more weight to carve away at. My ideal weight would be 75kgs, but the reason I started putting weight on at 80kgs is because I became fed up as I wasn’t losing any more weight; effectively I hit a plateau. That plateau really demotivated me as I was tirelessly trying to lose weight, yet there were no obvious signs of any weight loss or muscle growth. That really annoyed me, so I became lazy I guess.
I’m rebooting now and hopefully in a month or two I will notice changes, as I will be pushing myself to the absolute LIMITS! Ha.
Here’s a recent pic of myself:
I’ll update this when I feel I can see a difference! I’ve definitely gained weight around my face as I’ve been comparing my face to how it was one year ago:
I can definitely see a difference, or am I just hallucinating?
by Jonny | Sep 19, 2012 | Travel
Chinese: 今天我和我的狗狗在台中散步!
English: Today, I walked around Taichung with my dog!
Let’s just say I might make it a habit to go around Taichung by myself in the morning just to look around, it’s so peaceful and the exercise is good. Plus, it’s like exploring, seeing places you haven’t seen before and you get to see how things work in the morning, like people rushing to go to school, work or things like that. Anyway’s, here are my pictures for today! 🙂
This is MODE Mall (德安購物中心) in Taichung, just across from Taichung Station. (台中火車站)
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People in Taichung heading to work.
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Looked like a really old alley way, so I thought it would make for a nice picture. This is also an entry way to peoples homes!
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Came across this today, it’s across from the MODE mall, but damn, this building is so narrow. It is the narrowest building I’ve seen in Taichung.
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Just waiting to cross the road. (我等一下、過馬路)
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Police scooters! (警察摩托車)
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This is a 警察車 or police car! They drive around in what I’ve come mostly across as Mitsubishi vehicles from Japan!
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This is the view from when you exit the entrance of 台中火車站 or Taichung Train Station!
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Front view of Taichung station! (前端台中火車站)
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我的狗狗! My little baby doggy! She’s so cute! 🙂
It was great exercise and it was quite enjoyable. All in all, we walked for around 2 hours! 🙂 I love having free time!
by Jonny | Sep 18, 2012 | Travel
This morning I decided to go for a walk, as opposed to the running that I usually do. Instead of running inside the park (台中公園), I walked and I went sightseeing around the area where I live nearby. I took a few low quality pictures with my phone’s camera.
Here are the pictures:
Outside Taichung park (台中公園)
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Goat Statue in Taichung Park (台中公園)
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Just a random photo (台中公園)
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The famous house in the middle of the lake! (台中公園)
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These are horrible looking apartments just outside of Taichung Park. They really look awful with their windows covered with metal & with walls which haven’t been washed in decades. (台中公園)
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This is Taichung library, or at least it used to be. They moved to another location, so this building is currently not being used. (台中公園)
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A man exercising. I saw him hitting himself on the head repeatedly, quite a strange way to exercise. (台中公園)
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I found an extremely cheap gym in Taichung, well, if it’s true. According to the sign it says pay $4,000NT for one year. Which is around £83 or $136USD. If it’s true, I might just sign up!
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This is YiZhongJie (一中街), of course in the mornings the place is deserted, however as soon as the afternoon comes the place soon lights up and is literally crowded with people.
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- This is ZhongYouBaiHuo (中友百貨), a large shopping mall/centre nearby to where I live! I sometimes go there to purchase coffee, frappachinos etc from Starbucks.
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This is World Gym Taichung. This is a little more pricier than the previous gym I showed. However, it’s much more pricier for a reason. If memory serves me correct, it costs like $2,200NT per month on a 12 month contract. Month by month it’s like double that price. If I could afford it, I would, but frankly speaking I’d rather pay $4,000NT for an entire year for a less established place and yeah, the other place is not as attractive, but it’s a gym, not a house. Not sure what point I’m trying to make, but I try to avoid expensive places, lol.
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Oh, and here’s what I had for breakfast!
That’s all for now. I’ll try and take more interesting pictures next time, and I’ll be travelling to South Korea this month on the 29th, so hopefully I’ll get some interesting pictures up. I’ll also be uploading higher quality pictures of my trip in Seoul, Korea to my photography website, so be sure to check that out. 🙂
by Jonny | Jun 25, 2012 | Updates
Quite obviously, I have not been able to exercise as much as I have wanted to, seeing as I had that tiny issue with my leg. It has been around a month since I had that operation and now I can walk properly and also run.
Last Friday, I started running again and I did swimming and running last weekend up until now.
It feels as if I have lost all my stamina as I can’t run as far without breathing heavily.
For example, I went to the racing track today and I could only run around the track for 15 minutes before feeling really tired. Perhaps, it is my work schedule along with the fact that I hadn’t exercised for 1 month straight. – I more or less became a coach potato, waiting for my leg to recover so I could go out and be active again.
I’m glad to say that I am now active. I’m still trying to regain the stamina that I built up, but I don’t want to push myself too far in-case something really bad does happen to my leg and it’ll be something I’ll regret as I grow up.
I haven’t got the six-pack yet, which I’m aiming for, but I think in a few months time it is very possible looking at my body now. I have done a lot of tone and fat-losing exercising and hopefully it will pay-off.
I just need to stay on track.
by Jonny | Apr 21, 2012 | Updates
Finding a swimming pool, or at least a decent swimming pool, in Taichung is quite a feat if you don’t know where to look. I found this great place where it’s pretty decent and cheap. A good combination if you don’t have all the money in the world and you perhaps want to swim or relax on a frequent basis. Swimming is the epitome to travelling and you need to at least have an experience of some sort swimming wherever you are in the world.
This swimming centre includes a pretty decent spa along with other swimming options. Although, when I went to Dong Feng Swimming pool, it seemed as if it focused mainly on the relaxing side of things. So perhaps after work or on the weekends you can go to this place for the sole purpose of relaxing. Or if you need to exercise then swimming is the perfect exercise as it practically exercises all of the muscles in your body.
I recommend this place 100%! If you have kids then this place is perfectly adequate to accommodate them. In fact, they have safety gear for kids who want to swim and they have shallow pools where they can swim safely without the worst occurring.
However, the kids can be sometimes quite annoying when they splash water on your face without the consideration of others who are trying to actually relax after a hard day at work or something. I’ve had this on a few occasions where kids were trying to swim in the spa section; the two don’t fit together.
If they want to swim, splash around and whatnot, well then, they have a huge swimming area specifically for them to do that. Who could blame them though, as they designed the swimming areas poorly in that respect, as they built a small playground area for kids too nearby to the resting and relaxation area. – However, the two are connected, making it hard for kids not to disturb and generally be kids. That’s a huge flaw.
I digress that it isn’t much of an issue. On the odd day, you do get a large amount of kids in the swimming centre, although I believe that most days the swimming centre generally doesn’t have that many kids and most are people of the older generation.
The price
The price is probably the biggest factor when it comes to deciding whether or not this type of relaxation/exercise is too expensive or not.
For me, one ticket to gain entry into this place only cost me $100NT. (Although, for this deal you have to pay $500 and also have a student ID upfront and you get 5 tickets) There are other membership options, which I’ll find out about. However, for this specific deal, I used my student ID when I was studying some Mandarin at Feng Chia University. If you have a friend who’s studying at a university or who is a student and can prove it, then bring him along and you’ll also pay the same price as me. Otherwise, I believe the cost for a single ticket for those who are not students is around $200NT. – While not being much different in price, it can soon add up, so I would try to find a student to come with you and you can purchase as many tickets as you want, or even a one month membership deal based upon the same pricing a student would pay if you brought along someone who is a student.
You check on this swimming centre’s website for more information:
http://www.dongfeng.com.tw/about_us/index.php
