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Owh Mother!

The last time I met my mom was on November 2017, and for the past few months I have been dreaming of my mom, there were 2 dreams. The first one was quite scary because me and my mom was in a disaster area, a flood in Indonesia, a real flood and I was hugging my mom and the water just took us somewhere and then I woke up. The second one was I was having a phone call with my mom saying “Oh, this weekend is a holiday, I will go home to stay at your place (in Jakarta, while me staying in Bandung)” and then I woke up from my dream and realized that my mom is in Indonesia and I’m in Shanghai. I’ve told this to my mom and she became sad realizing that both of her daughter are not with her. And then out of nowhere she knew that there was a cheap tour to Hainan and that’s why she and I got to meet again 🙂

Before she went to Hainan, she went to Thailand and she knows the only snacks that I eat back home was Pocky. But in Indonesia (or at least while I was there) the flavor of Pocky was only chocolate and strawberry, and while she was in Thailand she saw many many many different flavor of Pocky. So she bought two flavors for me mango and cookies & cream. She said I will bring it to you when we meet in Hainan and she did!

This is not the only snack that she brought, she also brought the famous noodle for us to eat it as dinner as we both landed Hainan pretty late and we did kill that noodle.

Prior to her boarding from Jakarta, as this Hainan was a cheap tour and Hainan did a crazy promotion to Indonesian therefore its not only people from Jakarta that knew it but also from another city like Semarang, Bandung and so on. And one of my cousin get married with a guy from Semarang and turns out his parents also went to Hainan! the same trip as my mom, but different tour agent as they are from other city. At first while still in Jakarta’s airport, my mom didn’t really recognize them, my mom was recalling about who is this familiar face but didn’t really 100% sure that it was the parents of my cousin’s husband, until the boarding time then she remembered who are they.

They sat on the same airlines but different rows, my mom was sitting with someone else from the same tour but mostly at first she was alone because she didn’t know anyone. While this aunt and uncle (yes we can’t call by names in Indonesia it’s consider impolite) sat quiet in front, so my mom could see them. And during this flight this couple was “ngebala” (Idk how to translate that to english but this words only use if you have too much snacks and the rubbish are everywhere). And my first reaction was “oh poor the flight attendants because they need to clean it” but turns out it’s not like they’re throwing the rubbish everywhere but my mom just use this words to describe that they have many snacks and eat many snacks during the flight! haha. From behind, my mom could see that this auntie gave varieties of snacks to the other passengers on their group, and my mom said “I was sitting on behind and drooling to see that they have many snacks” hahaha! I was laughing so hard when I knew that turns out my mom wants to eat their snacks also, and I said to my mom “had you knew they have many snacks, you would have say hi to them at the first place, instead of making sure of who these persons are” hahaha

Moving on to the next day, the breakfast at the first hotel wasn’t so great, and we have to got up early but the night before my mom’s flight got delayed for 2 hours and then she got stuck at the immigration for 1 hour and the flight from Jakarta to Hainan was 5 hours so it was a lloonnnnggg “flight” for her, that’s why we got up late, and we only had breakfast very little. My mom went to the bus first, and then when I arrived, I found that she’s eating my Pocky! hahaha! I was like “mom, didn’t you say that this Pocky is for me?” and she said “hihihi I’m hungry, but there is still half of the Pocky for you” and I ate the other half 🙂

Is it just me or do you also feel that your mom know everything? Like for example when you were a kid and you were looking for a pair of socks, and your mom said it’s in the drawer and you looked for it more than 3 times and you couldn’t find it and you came to your mom and she came with you to the drawer and then find it within a second? That’s my mom, she knows everything, including the time in Hainan when she knew it already that I will have 1 clothes less, I didn’t realize it until the fourth day that I don’t have any clothes to wear again! As the weather was hot there, and I can’t wear the same clothes twice, and she said “I have another spare clothes for you” and I was really against her to wear it, but I don’t have any other options and my mom insisted me to wear those. And she dressed me up as Luigi!

I said to my mom that I will looks like Mario Bross’ cousins but she couldn’t remember Luigi, she said “No, Mario bross is wearing jeans and red clothes, you’re wearing jeans and green” and I said “Yes! That’s Luigi!” and I will have to search for Luigi pictures and ask her to see that but in the end I still wear that clothes… pfff…. I just need to wear the hats and I become Luigi……tsk tsk tsk

And then here’s come the times where I will have to say goodbye to her, due to my flight was domestic because I’m flying back here to Shanghai and her flight was international as she was going back home. I thought that I will have to hop off from the buss to the domestic terminal but then I hop off to international terminal and walked to the domestic. During the time that we still on the bus my mom asked me “So, you will hop off first, will you turn around and say bye bye to me?” I was like “Of course I will, and it’s only 3 weeks before we meet again at home”. We both got off at the international terminal but then as I walked to the domestic terminal I kept turn around to see her until the point where the trees was too much too block our view.

Owh Mother, please don’t worry, I am super OK here and I hope you’ll be fine there too… Lots of love from me!

 

 

 

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No Electricity? NO MORE!

At first, the very first morning when we hop on to our bus, our tour guide said that there is a MUST VISIT shop that we have to go and there is a MUST ITEM that we need to buy blablabla I was already like “arrghh this could be something unnecessary” and we went to the bamboo, silver, coal kind of store. And of course the sales woman introduce to us the different kind of items, daily used item.

She said that there is two types of coal like the one that has a really high energy and low energy (like the BBQ coal kind of type) and she also tested it with a machine which I don’t really pay attention because why would I have a coal on my home to keep the energy?! I already have enough of energy within me so I don’t need any additional energy.

Besides the coal, they explained the magic bamboo stuff on the daily usage, such as bamboo water bottle that can change the PH of water into the healthier one, she demonstrated that our drinking water was not healthy (which I also don’t care because for almost 27 years of my life I’ve been drinking bad water and I’m still alive so yeah! booyah! I ain’t buying that)

And then the towel for hair that absorb water within seconds so my hair can dry easily which is interesting btw and I bought that! hahahaha. Moving on to the cream that could be use as a glass cleaner for car, bathroom anything anywhere that if you put it on the glass car and then you drive the car but it’s raining, the water will directly drop, of course there is a waiver function on cars but it’s different you don’t need to wipe it with the waiver it will just fall off directly. Next is the chop board that can hold a very heavy meat almost like 75kg (because this is the weight of the tour guide and he stand on the chopboard and it didn’t break) but who would put a 75kg meat on the chopboard?! Scarf with many tutorial on how to use it, which there’s also many people on youtube channel that does that hahaha but honestly the scarf is pretty unique and soft as it’s made out of bamboo so the material is really different.

But then, the most interesting item was!!!!! are you ready??? drumroll pleaseee! dum dum dum dum…. I called it:

EMERGENCY UNDERWEAR!

She said it has some silver and coal on the underwear, well I don’t really get it they said it’s good for the health, anyway I see it on the other way. Watch what is the 功能 of this emergency underwear and why I called it likewise.

And the most amazing is they also have SGS certificate! I mean as someone that doing sourcing the certificate from SGS is pretty hard to get and it’s the most reliable testing institution!

Pretty amazing yah?! So I think if we have this kind of underwear we don’t need to worry about suddenly electric shut off at our home because HAA! Just take this underwear and a rechargeable light bulb and VOILA! electricity 来了 🙂

 

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Definitely Wrong Benchmark

Me and my mom is in Hainan now! Tadaamm…

My mom said that Hainan do a lot of promotion in Indonesia, like cheap tour and also we don’t need a visa to go there which is convenient, but the deal is my mom cannot extend her stay at Hainan or at China. So this tour was for 5 days and 4 night and I took my holiday to meet her in Hainan as well as I also never been there. The main point is mainly to meet my mom, I’m not really interested in Hainan at the first time…untilll! this this place enlightened me for a “wrong benchmark” that I took haha.

We are now on our second day here, and it’s pretty impressive, the sky is sooo clear and sooo blue, the weather is the same as Shanghai I guess which is hot…haha…

We went to a “must visit government bamboo shop” as what the tour guide called, usually I don’t like when the tour guide planned to go to some kind of shopping place but actually this bamboo place was not bad at all, I will explain on my next blog ahahaha stay tuned readers 🙂

And we went to a deer place, I have no idea why the hell it’s called a deer place when we can’t even see the deer, oh! yes we could see a deer statue ahaha, but the view in this place is nice, and of course I mean the dear statue is nice it’s looks like a deer.

We went up to the view point where we can see the Dubai made in China building, which is shorter like waaaayyyy shorter hihihi  but instead of Dubai which is 1 very tall building, they have 5 cute short building look like Dubai-ish.

Both me and my mom really likes to watch a show, circus show like ERA in Shanghai and that kind of things. And in Hainan, they have 2 shows, one is Las Vegas Show where it was more like separates shows first is they do some dance, acrobats and magic. The second one was 三亚千古情, the translation will be Romance Park which not me the one who translate it, but this is how its written everywhere…. Both of the shows last for 60-70 mins, but on the second show at least they have only one story while on the first show they have separated acts.

Both of the shows we liked it a lot, but what is the most impressive for me from the Las Vegas shows was the last acrobats which is two men that seems boneless, but they are full of muscles.. yeasss biatchhh! While me and my mom watched the show, our feet was already feels so weak because how could they do that to their bones?!?!

And then tonight, the story from this Romance Park is something about romance duhhh! obviously! haha but also they have another boneless acts. I was wearing my glasses but I couldn’t see of where is the rope or something, I mean how can they bend their body like that!!!! there must be some very thin rope..or a magic shoes….but they moved their legs….. hmmmm… Please be assured that it’s not that I’m jealous because I can’t do it but I was just amazed by HOW HOW HOW!

Definitely they trained since they were kid, and me! what I can do is….. I can only do split and bridge and I already felt that I’m on top of the world in terms of flexibility but turns out I’m on top of nothing compare to this acrobats. Well, it’s simply because I choose the wrong benchmark! haha I choose Thorben and Stefan as my benchmark 🙂 They are pretty shocked that I can do split without warming up in front of them, while Thorben he can do 80% of split but Stefan…he can do like 0% or even – hahaha. John and Aggy was there too and they also remembered that I can do split directly.

Well this Stefan he is not archery guy he is a friend of Thorben…which… he has another 3 guys also with the same name as him at his office (yes! I paid attention to your story! including the story that somebody also have the same name with the same date of birth like you… which Leyfa thought maybe someone stole your identity while me… I don’t think so somebody would steal your identity haha! I mean why would them steal…yours? haha! #notjoking)

Anyway, at least I am still able to do split and bridge which is quiet OK but yeah definitely not count as flexible anymore especially after I see the shows performance and my conclusion is I should not take Thorben and Stefan as my flexibility benchmark hahaha!

aannddd Goodnight from 三亚果喜大酒店！Marlyn’s OUT! for now only 🙂

 

 

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Blessed The Food… I mean THE CHEF!-Part 2

….This is the sequel of Thorben’s signature steak dish…

And Thorben and Marina’s host another dinner day, which I am invited btw 🙂 but this time they both cooked the whole day, because we have another 3 people and yeah I count myself already “in” with them ahahaha, I was obviously the first one arrived, but not because I’m the hungry one (apparently I was but I made it to be not that obvious because I met Marina’s before and we went to her apartments so that’s why I was the first guest). The other guest was Tim, Yves and Ben. So in total they had to prepare a feast for 6 people (including them) but as both of them are Germans their timing was so perfect! It was all finished at the same time! BRAVOOOOO! (I know it’s Italian…but hahaha let it be). Thorben bought a 1.5kg beef! This time he made mushrooms and potatoes and they both are so good! I like the carrots that Thorben’s made I dont know how he made it but the carrots were amazingggg!!!

Look how Thorben sliced it in a professional master chef kind of way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

While we were waiting all the guest to arrived, Marina became our tour guide of the home, but she needs to repeat it again and again as none of us came at the same time ahahaha.

And we did the best that we could to Thorben, which is we didn’t disturbed him hahaha!

And then dinners are ready! I forgot the time but I think it took us less than 1.5 hours to kill all Thorben’s dishes haha! and then we have to have rest for a while before Marina’s signature cheesecake appears to the dining table 🙂

Look how petite the cheesecakes are! But, Marina also did a back up desert which is cheesecakes with oreo on the bottom, oh yeah! and I ate that one too! I mean I need to decide which one is better so I need to eat both but even after I ate both, I still couldn’t decide, guess I need more cheesecake just to make a decision 🙂

Tim, me and Yves we were that kind of “guest” that didn’t bring anything for the host, Tim said he did offer and Thorben said no, while me…hmmm I was rejected on the first time so I didn’t even bother to ask again hahaha! But then our one and only Ben brought something with him! And of course our host gladly received what Ben brought for them 🙂

Ben was so funny, he has many idea and he wanted to introduce us the game I don’t know what it’s called, but this game needed a laptop to be connected to the TV, so Ben borrowed Thorben’s laptop butttt the keyboard is Germans! so that Ben kept typing the wrong words haha and the 麻烦 was not stop until there, turns out we need to pay for the game, and we were such a “guest” we asked Thorben’s credit card hahaha but then there was another options to pay using Amazon’s account, and we tried to use Marina’s account but still doesn’t works because she forgot her passwords haha well, in the end Tim asked them politely “if we need to get out from your home feel free to say” and Thorben just nodded haha he didn’t even say anything and we left their home.

Here we are before we finished the feast

P.S Marina…… I missed the ice cream 🙁

….To Be Continued…

 

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Blessed The Food… I mean THE CHEF!

As Indonesian, we usually eat rice 3 times a day, I remembered when I still lived with my parents we always had rice with something as a breakfast, lunch was always rice with something at the school canteen and dinner obviously another rice. Therefore I don’t have a big shock culture when I moved to Shanghai because in here we also have rice, but….. I always crave for STEAK! But in Shanghai I never really got a chance to have steak, because I was a student for 4 years and as you know student is always ON BUDGET! hahaha I don’t eat outside much maybe once a week, and the rest was on the school canteen which I can eat big portion but still affordable (read: cheap, read carefully: very cheap!)

And then now I’ve already work for 1 year, but my office located in Jingan and everything in Jingan area are expensive! for a normal food, so don’t even think for a steak. And I’m such an opportunist, when Thorben said that he will make steak for me I said YESSSSS! It’s been a loonngggggg time I didn’t have steak! And I did, as a matter of politeness and also sincerely asked “Do I need to bring you or Marina anything?” and he said “No” and I didn’t ask him again haha he said no and that’s the end of story, I came to his apartment with an empty belly that is super ready to be filled by the steak!

I think I came at his place exactly at 7PM, I met Marina downstaris, she said she didn’t lock the door so I can just sneak in and surprise Thorben’s directly, but then in my mind when she said the door was unlock it means she let the door open duhhhhh! haha so, surprised failed and I knocked the door and then…. TARAMMM! his apartment is sooooo fancy!

Thorben started to cook and I started to make myself seems like at home hahaha I looked at their photo album which is the most sophisticated photo album I have ever saw, Thorben’s took a very good pictures and put it on a very fancy style kind of photo album that looks like a magazine style.

After I saw all of their photo album, dinner was ready! what a perfect timing! I had a medium-rare steak, look at this (drooolingggg)

including the water, he needs to make it fancy water with lemon, ginger, cucumber etc.

After the dinner, Thorben gave me Leyfa’s mama’s cake, yes it is a cake that Leyfa’s mom made it, I don’t know the name and I bet Thorben didnt know either so we just called it that way, it was soooooo good! and then we had an avocado-raspberry popsicle that Marina made. And then last Thorben gave me yoghurt with berry, grapes and nuts. Oh wow, I never had such a feast before! I came with an empty belly and go back home with a family pack belly.

And what makes the after dinner much more cooler ( I know its grammatically incorrect, it’s just the way I describe of how fancy their apartment’s) is Thorben has a DISHWASHER!!!! “I’m sorry landlady, I am a Germans we don’t wash our dishes on the sink, we need to have a dishwasher” perhaps that what he said when he was looking for apartment ahahaha never ever I saw an apartment that has a dishwasher before! But it takes 3 hours and 15 minutes to wash it haha such a waste of water and energy but it was already their eco-friendly mode sooo……… I’m not sure if they are just using the sink to wash how long will it takes? hmmmm

Btw, this Thorben’s cooking series will not only stop here, it is a continuous cycle haha will have the second part, third part and so on… meanwhile this is my happy face to have Chef Thorben’s steak signature dish.

…To Be Continued…

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The Night is Still Young, and So Are We!

On Friday 25th – 26th me, bunch of hungover boys and their +1s went to Moganshan, for the main purpose of Xiakers Competitions. Theoretically we should depart at 7:30 but since we are all come from all around the world and turns out 7:30 PM has a different definition so it was not a 7:30 PM German Time more like worldwide time, the 师傅 was the one that super 着急 to depart due to the regulation that after 10PM he can only allowed to drive below 100km. We had guess from Luxembourg, one is top sergeant in an Army and second is ex-army guy and the rest were archery people and their plus ones. We arrived our one and only villa called 心晴 maybe around midnight or so and nope we didn’t go straight to bed pffff, we went to their living room to continue the night or maybe should I say day because its already passed midnight.

The owner of this villa is a Chinese women and according to my opinion, she was not chill. And turns out it wasn’t only my feeling, Ben also said the same haha. She was wondering about what kind of food that we will eat on the next day. So Binbin, Ben, me and Felix kind of suggested of what to eat but mostly it was Binbin and Ben. And then after that Ben said “she’s been worrying about the food since the past 2 weeks” hahaha. The food was just okay but of course what do I expect? Thorben’s steak and Marina’s cheesecakes? Pleaseeeeee

In the morning we went to hike a bit to supposedly called bamboo forest, I have no idea what was the name of the forest, Radu and Ben stopped by reservoir and I think Nick’s was tried to film it with a drone and then the drone hit the bamboo and fell. Ouch! Bye bye drone! During the hike it was raining for a bit and stopped and rained again etc so we have to be careful while walking because it was slippery and muddy.

On the afternoon before 2PM we were on the way back but somehow I got separated with all of the boys, I was with Felix and Nils and we kind of get lost because! Felix wants to have pizza for lunch! He went to Moganshan before and he “kind of remember” the place of the oven pizza, but he didn’t know if we can have pizza at lunch or only at dinner, and we searched for it! I mean what other options do I have, either I lost by myself which is even worse or I lost with both of them, then I chose to get lost with the Germans.

We found that pizza place, which is up the hills, its written 210 steps but for sure according to my steps it was more than 210, and Nils had to push me up the hills, andddd what a surprise! They don’t have pizza for lunch, but we can’t go to this place at night because we will go to Naked Stable. So they boys had espresso and chocolate, me, I’m just resting after walking up for more than 210 steps hahaha and then it was already pass 2PM and I asked Marina if the lunch is ready (need to ask the Germans!) And the lunch was ready! But we are still somewhere in the middle until we found a yellow scooter!

Felix was so persistent to find a way to use it, while me and Nils was already ready to walk in fact it was only 1km away, but Felix spent 15+mins to try to register it and somehow out of nowhere he succeed hahaha! And we were soooo excited that he finally able to unlock it! The 3 of us were on one scooter, Felix was the driver, I was in the middle and Nils was behind, but the road was not so smooth so Felix need to break sometimes but then Nils said “Felix don’t break, if you do, you will lose me” hahaha I was safe and sound by sitting in the middle. Here is how they yellow scooter looks like, it’s actually looks nice!

At night we went to the famous Naked Stable to have a buffet and swim! I’ve been wearing the bikini since morning so I am so glad that we finally will go to swim! Hahaha the buffet was amazing, the bbq beef wasn’t as good as Thorben’s and dessert also wasn’t as good as Marina’s gezzz chef! You gotta learn something! Hahaha but the atmosphere was so chill and relaxing. And as usual, the Germans always prepares second clothes, Marina did warned me before to bring second clothes…but I didn’t bring it because I didn’t realized that I will be that wet, so in the end I was borrowing Ben’s Spartan shirts.

We said bye-bye to our Naked Stable or Castle whatever it’s called and back to our Villa again, as far as I know only Bohai and me went straight to sleep while the others stays at the living room, I just want to have a good sleep before the race the next day……

Morning morning morning, and even for this morning we weren’t ontime hahaha! Ben bought his new gopro and forgot to bring it, and Thorben was like “WHATTTT!” and Ben replied “Sorry Thorben, I’m not German, I forgot to put it on my bag” hahaha but lucky Laurent has his go-pro so Thorben can record the race.

As what I already expected, the boys will just go like a wind wush wush wush gone! Haha and in the end it was me, Chris and Thorben, we are THE THREE HACK AMIGOS! Look at our time only 2 mili seconds difference, wogh! Such a race! Ahahaha. I am so happy that Chris is not in the army anymore otherwise he will be the second winner after Laurent, and Thorben’s somehow “miraculously” cut his fingertips haha this is the Act of God so that he needs to run slow 🙂

Yeay! I can say that I’m satisfied with the results 🙂

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Monday Morning Not Mourning

It was started actually on 19th of August Sunday when somebody on the archery people posted how to swear in Germans but since it was already late at night and this conversation continue until Monday morning the 20th of August. Usually every Monday at precise exact German 12:00 noon time Tim will post an announcement so that we can register for the archery game on Sunday the following week, but since it was Xiaker’s race so there was no sign up and this is when it happened!

It was started with Thorben explained quote: “the beauty of German language is that we can concatenate as many nouns as we wish and it still makes sense!”

Followed by Luxembourgish guy Raoul wrote a sentence Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitansmutzenhaterung. (yes it has 3 f and its correct).

And  Aggy challenged Thorben to add 1 more word after Raoul’s…..and here it goes: Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitansmutzenhalterungbefestigungsschraube. (Look how long it is!)

and the updated one to: Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitansmutzenhalterungbefestigungsschraubengewindeschneider.

and if that’s not enough, here is the final words: Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitansmutzenhalterungbefestigungsschraubengewindeschneiderfertigungsanlagenbediener.

and the translation will be: the person using a machine that produces devices to cut the thread on the screw that you use to mount the holding a captain of a steam boat on the river Donau uses to store his hat!

UNBELIEVABLE! and I know it will be so hard to picture it so our dear German friend-Andy made a picture of it:

I need to took a very deep breath to read this sentence:

I will have to ask Thorben to record this video and will update it again! So far, I only have a voice record of him reading this sentence. But both of us need to write the sentence first on paper and then read it.

I was laughing so hard when I read all this messages so that particular Monday morning was not mourning at all! These guys genuinely have a funny heart! Sometimes some random things goes to this Hungover Games group chat and that random things makes this group chat one of the group chat that I don’t want to skip reading it.

 

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Sports…. sports….. and burp

6 days more to the Xiaker’s Competition!

I was actually preparing myself for more than a month, I don’t like running before (not that I like running now) but now is I can run, I usually only go to the gym to have my Mindarts and Zumba class, I never step on the treadmill but because I will go to this Xiaker’s then I will have to train myself to run at the treadmill. I did improved a bit, until I was sick a month ago then I had vertigo for about 3 weeks so I didn’t really exercise….until…. 18th of August!

It was me, Thorben and Yves. Yves wasn’t so sure he will join us, so at first me and Thorben “planned” to run for 7K and then work out at Airpark. All 3 of us was super ontime, mostly because Thorben is Germans so he will always ontime, we met at Jingan Temple Station at 8:30.

I really f&%*ed up with their running pace, because I was so slow and I could’t run as fast as they could. I did 900meters for 11 minutes haha! and I was super exhausted already! I kept drinking Vita Coco while running but Thorben took it away.

At some point, I was so afraid that I will faint, and I felt like I want to puke and I had to sit down infront of idk maybe its a hotel or so but then it was only a burp 😛 and I’m totally fine haha

We finally arrived at Hushan Park, Yves and Thorben did 5K, while me…… idk maybe only 1K haha and then we biked to Airpark while Yves ran.

I have no idea how I can ran 7K with 30 obstacles in between, but one thing that I know and Thorben advise is QUITTING IS NOT AN OPTION. I also want to finish this race, but seriously I can’t catch up with your speed!

Look at what a motivation from Yves 🙂

And this is just when we started to run from Jingan to Airpark to put our bag there so I was still not that far behind haha