6/6/21 Sun: PotaTOHs headed over to my parents’ place first
to送礼. Mum
has gotten everything ready, including the packets of longan tea, while bro was
the“倒茶小弟”helping
to serve tea haha. It was a simple Chinese tea ceremony that signifies both
sides of the family have accepted the bride and groom into their families. *Oh
man we had to each finish five slices of the cakes in the next few days lol.*
Brought half of the dowry items over to in-laws place and
we had dinner before our tea ceremony too. *MIL even used her iphone to
record our tea ceremony haha.*
7/6/21 Mon: Potato cooked hot soba for dinner! He added
eggs, edamame, FIL’s handmade dumplings and also the leftover chicken and
veggies from dinner at in-laws yesterday.
*rRandom tThought: Maybe I would give the Golden Point Award
a shot this year!*
8/6/21 Tues: After dinner at my mum’s, we headed over to
the Norwegian salmon fillet vending machine to buy 150g of salmon fillet and
100g of smoked salmon at $2.50 each. Potato made cucumber slices with
mayonnaise and smoked salmon as bites for us when we watched “Arthdal
Chronicles”… quite nice!
9/6/21 Weds: Went into office to exchange my old laptop for
a new one from Lenovo, including an external monitor and the docking station.
Had to wait for two hours for the new set-up to be done, so I went to Yew Tee
Kopitiam to takeaway my favourite Korean spicy chicken soup set back into
office for lunch.
Potato cooked soy sauce chicken with ginger for the first
time and it was not bad, just a bit salty. The winter melon soup tonight was
sweeter too, probably because he added in onions as well. We ate九白菜for the first time too, and I
think mum has cooked it before though…
10/6/21 Thurs: Potato tried making pan-fried salmon in
lemon butter “oil” (because we didn’t have heavy cream to thicken it), and I
think both the sourness and savoury taste was quite balanced.11/6/21 Fri: It was my first time dealing with asparagus.
Potato taught me to peel the outer layers, but I did not peel them fully
because the asparagus broke rather easily when I peel, so I got a bit lazy…
ended up we didn’t finish like half of it because the they were too rough to
eat. Stir-fried asparagus with scallops and it took much more time for the
former to be cooked than the latter. I also tried doing pork belly wraps in
teriyaki sauce and though timing was not to perfection, and I probably put a
bit too much sugar while making the sauce so the wraps were a bit charred here
and there, but it was very flavourful and yummy if you finish it in one bite! *Pretty
bad oil splatters around the hob but I was okay!*
13/6/21 Sun: Headed over to in-laws place to grab the rice
dumplings that FIL made. He made 184 this year la! We took 24, and passed half
of it to MM and Andre when we went over. *Luke’s so chubby now!* Rushed
home to prepare dinner because WL and WS will be coming over. PotaTOHs stir fried
prawns in chilli and tomato sauce to go with sushi rice, miso soup and edamame,
while the neighbours bought braised chicken wings, potatoes and eggs. Very nice
dinner!
WL and WS played a bit of VR, and then made coconut blend
using coconut water, flesh, potong coconut ice-cream and ice~ it was quite
sweet and shiok!
14/6/21 Mon: We had the rice dumplings FIL made for lunch~
shiok. It’s the first time I see Potato eat it at home… he adds mayonnaise to
it! I thought it looked weird, but the combined taste turns out not bad.
Potato did the preparatory work while I cooked the dishes. *same
issue with the stalks of kailan’s where he had to peel it*
15/6/21 Tues: *I have probably found a good yin yoga
stretch for my lower back pain issue caused by prolonged hours of sitting!
Gonna do it regularly hoping it gets rid of this nagging problem!*
Craved for cold soba for lunch. Potato decided to finish
the pack of kailan. We also had a sutchi fillet in butter lemon and black
pepper, this time adding paprika powder too. Half a lemon was just nice for the
dish but couldn’t really taste paprika in it though.
16/6/21 Weds: PotaTOHs had rice dumplings for lunch and
went to IMM. We bought some stuff from Daiso, then explored Giant, which was
huge! They have pretty cheap seafood and more selection of fishes as compared
to the Sheng Shiong near our place. *Got veggies at three for $2!* After
that, we headed to Don Don Donki at JCube to buy sushi rice and Shichimi
Togarashi to cook our curry rice tonight for MT, XY and Jake!
They got here around dinner time. MT got bubble tea for us,
while XY and Jake got us sides from Tori Q and some Putu Piring. Showed them
around our house and we played VR for a bit and a few rounds of “Off Track”. *Thanks
for the air fryer!*
17/6/21 Thurs: I was having tuition with Triston when
Potato tried to make waffles for a surprise tea-time at home haha! *But I
found out lol~* It’s only plain waffles but we probably could have
ice-cream, honey or berries to go with it next time.
We used the Mayer air fryer given by my university friends
to fry the EB tiger prawn rolls… the prawn rolls were okay, maybe we could have
left it longer inside so the skin can be crispier.
Spent the night doing jigsaw puzzle and we made some
progression!
18/6/21 Fri: Cooked pork belly wrap for a second time, but
Potato suggested to use the bottle of teriyaki marinade we had. He also cut up
red chilli in lemon sauce and soy sauce dip… not bad a combination but I reckon
we could use other stuff to complement the dish when adding sourness and
spiciness to it.
19/6/21 Sat: Ordered Newton chicken thigh rice for lunch
for both of us ($7.60) via Groupbuy but they only tasted normal.
Potato made us drumsticks in honey lemon and soy sauce
tonight~ pretty good! *I craved for noodles last minute so I cooked soba
haha.*
20/6/21 Sun: PotaTOHs actually finished piecing up the “Oesterle
library” jigsaw puzzle last night, but somehow we had one missing piece. I
really thought we had no chance but to live with it framed like this but I was
really lucky to find it by the foot of my study desk this morning! No idea how
it dropped there, but we finally had that sense of achievement and satisfaction
after framing the 1500-piece puzzle up!
Also done with the reading of “The things you can see only when you slow down” by Haemin Sunim.
Most part of the world would have already slowed down due to Covid-19, but I’m not sure for individuals. It’s hard when we’re born in the cities. I used to find “flowers by the roadside” boring too, because I’ve lots more to do than looking at them.
Our Buddhist meditation teacher here shared about well-being and happiness in eight areas, including relationships, love and spirituality, the importance of forging deeper connections with people, being compassionate and giving it forward etc. *Oh I enjoyed the colourful illustrations in the book too.* He starts a new topic with a short and simple story, and then lots of quotes for readers to ponder. *sometimes I feel the way to find inner peace and balance is to read~*
Mahatma Gandhi said, “Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.”
Haemin Sunim mentioned he’d became a monastic practitioner because he wanted to know true meaning of life and awake to his true nature. Also, he did not want to “subject myself to the measures of success according to others” and that he did not want to “meet my death after a lifetime of struggle for money and power”. Right! We all have the choice to choose what we want. *反正我自从认识了道家的哲学后就欣赏“出世”的看法。*
And about faith and religion, Reverend Dr Kang Won Yong said, “How should we consider a different spiritual path? We shall approach it with humility as well as a willingness to learn about other tradition. If our faith can be shaken from merely learning about a different tradition, then that faith is not worth keeping.” We have our beliefs, and that is what keeps us going on many a times. It’s okay to share and educate, but never to force onto others.
Slowly but surely, I’m finding pockets of time for things/events I thought weren’t worth my attention in the past, and also reducing focus on unnecessary events/thoughts that drain me or make me feel bad.
Rating: 5/5
PotaTOHs finished watching a political-ancient times drama,
“Arthdal Chronicles”. This was only the first season of the drama apparently.
Quoted from wiki: “Regarded as the first Korean ancient fantasy drama, the story takes place during the Bronze Age and is loosely based on the story of Dangun (장동건), the founder of the first Korean Kingdom of Gojoseon” and “In a mythical land called Arth, the inhabitants of the ancient city of Arthdal contend with power struggles, while some encounter love along the way. Eun-seom (송중기) goes through hardships to bring his tribe back to life and learns of his true origins in the process.”
People said the drama’s like “Game of Thrones” in many ways, but I’m not sure as I did not watch that. I’m not a fan of political dramas, even if it it’s categorised as “fantasy”. We watched this together, and I do get tired of the killings and betrayal against each other for greed at times. *I wonder if they actually created languages for the show as different tribes have their own dialects or did the actors just made it up in their lines?*
When it ended, we were like “huh? this is it?”. Now that I’m halfway there, I might as well catch the second season when it comes out to satisfy my curiosity.
Rating: 3/5
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