Event: Gym Is In Session

I went to Safra Yishun's Energy One gym on friday with a friend. Yeah it was paid per entry, $5 plus, silly I know, but I just wanted to try it once. Apparently there's quite a number of facilities there.

Upon entering, the lady gave us 2 towels and a key. Actually I thought we looked like complete newbies cause I didn't even know how to tell her that I wanted "per entry" at first. After paying, I went inside, totally not knowing where is the locker and what to do etc. But well we did figure it out. There were a bunch of lockers outside the toilet so we wanted to change into our gear before locking things up. After walking back and forth the one and only toilet which says "for EnergyOne members only", we decided that it's the only toilet and we have to go in either way. Inside, we realised that yeah that was really THE toilet. There were larger lockers which I supposed were meant to put our baggage and the lockers outside were meant for things like water bottles. The shower cubicles and steam room was inside the toilet in another room as well.

For the gym, I did my regular sets, mainly with the dumbbells. There were quite a bit of dumbbells available, ranging from 1kg to 10 kg in intervals of 1kg, as well as 12,14kg dumbbells etc. However I must say that the space for the dumbbells and in between the machines were pretty small. The dumbbells section was like half the size of Sengkang Gym's. Overall, I wasn't impressed with the gym.

Then we decided to head for the pool. For me, I really only wanted to try out the jacuzzi. Surprisingly, there was a warm water jacuzzi right outside the exit of the gym. I really enjoyed it, the temperature is just right, though the jets were a little low for my liking. Too bad, Tsun Wang says its too hot (what nonsense, hot is good), and it has a weird smell. So after a while we went to the normal pool's jacuzzi. The jets were strong, the pool's scenery was good. Unfortunately I was all out of strength by then and couldn't swim no more.

The last part was the steam room. I really thought I will be able to take it, but I was so wrong. The heat wasn't that bad, but breathing in all the steam was intolerable. I threw in the white flag after 5 mins. There was this weird old guy talking to us inside. He asked us where we came from, what were we doing then (like, just ORDed yada yada). So I told him, I was from a SIR unit. And guess what he said?

"真的吗?你不像是个会吃苦的人"

roughly translated to "really? you don't look like someone who can take a tough life"

I went "HUH!?".

Sidetrack, but hello? My unit is not just any SIR unit. I bet you my life was hell and I pulled through just fine. And I didn't eat snakes most of the time, if you know what I mean.

Frankly the steam room was great, though I guess the enjoyment of a steam room has to be cultivated. Anyways then we went out and into the showers. The showers were warm too! There's free soap provided as well.

Overall, Yishun Safra felt a little CMI (cannot-make-it) in terms of appearance but its facilities were decent. Good things I experienced were the warm jacuzzi and the warm shower. Many people may say that it's not worth the money. I guess I won't go there regularly, but a nice treat to jacuzzi once in a while should be good.

Take note though, you only get to use these facilities if you pay for the gym. If you go to the pool only (which is free for Safra members), you only get to use the pool and the cold pool jacuzzi.