Lunch with Mike @ Signs a Taste of Vietnam Pho & CNY cookies & tarts from Fran + 包虾枣&reunion dinner @ in-laws + visit to Ian’s new place & reunion dinner with my parents + 虎年初一&初二 + 《슬기로운 의사생활》+ lohei & poker games with Jess, WH & WL + gathering with Potato’s sec sch friends + ART test for WFO + dinner with Ben @ BLYS Banh Mi + CNY steamboat with Farmily

28/1/22 Fri: Met Mike for lunch at Signs a Taste of Vietnam Pho after Pilates. Discussed a bit on plans of his succession and work arrangement after he leaves the Club. It’s the saddest thing I have and will go through as an employee at STC because he is my mentor and the one that opened my eyes to racing. I have learnt a lot from him over the years and he has become a nice friend too, even if we’re 20 years apart haha.

Came home to work and vacuumed the floor before Fran came over for dinner and passed us her homemade pineapple tarts and cookies. She baked six flavours of cookies: chocolate, vanilla, raspberry, strawberry, matcha and coffee. *I liked the matcha one a lot!* Fran’s detailed in the sense that even the packaging was very festive and pretty. Ning got me a can of strawberry-flavoured tea leaves as a belated Christmas gift too haha.

29/1/22 Sat: Ian and Melissa came over with kueh pie tee from Cosy Corner~ good as usual. Potato mopped the floor, wiped some surfaces, cleaned the toilets and cooked dinner for all of us! *Thank you and love you!*  

Yummy Japanese curry, celery with enoki shroom and mushroom, pickled cucumber, edamame, and miso soup with seaweed, tofu and enoki. James came by later to chit-chat for a bit before the guys headed home at 9pm.

30/1/22 Sun: Went over to my in-laws earlier in the afternoon for lunch with them. The prawn noodle at the coffeeshop next to their place that Potato recommended was good. Helped them cleaned the salted beancurd skin (to remove the salt as much as possible) and wrap the fillings (minced prawn, pork meat, water chestnut and spring onion marinated with sesame oil, oyster sauce, white pepper, salt and flounder fish powder) into虾枣! It was not difficult but quite fun to do with Potato because I can see how “greedy” my big cat was lol~

FIL would deep fry them later~ tasted not bad! MM and Andre joined in later without Luke. We all also had vinegar-ed intestine, taupok, taukwa and pork belly meat, abalone with asparagus, prawn with celery in tomato and chilli sauce, lotus root and peanut soup as well as half a steamed chicken MIL bought.

31/1/22 Mon: Pilates with Chisa this morning was downright tiring! Out of the three students, two other regulars were the strong ones I’d always meet in class lol… so I could barely do or endure some of the rep.

Took 154 down to Ian’s new place and I reached the area in 20 minutes! I still had to walk 5 minutes or so before I met up with Potato. We had zichar for lunch that Ian bought from Two Chefs at Sin Ming… curry fish, mushroom, sea cucumber with spinach, cereal prawn, enoki shroom with beancurd and minced meat and chicken meat. *It’s a one-bedder condominium unit and I feel it’s the right size for one person. But two staying there felt a bit tight to me.*

PotaTOHs went to my parents’ to have steamboat for CNY eve’s dinner! Mum bought crayfish this year too~ It’s the usual but as we rarely sit down by the table to eat as a family, so I always enjoy our reunion dinner. *My second and third uncle came over to play manjong with mum and brother at night.*

1/2/22 Tues: Rise and shine to a brand new Chinese new year in the year of the Tiger! I wore the maroon-coloured V-neck jumpsuit with pleats from The Form and it was very comfortable. Also paired it with the blue peony earrings I bought from ColoursbyLiz three years ago.

PotaTOHs headed over to his parents in the afternoon for lunch and we had a homecooked army stew prepared by my MIL. There was also abalone and capsicum salad, duck meat and braised meat and intestines in vinegar. MM, Andre brought Luke over later in the afternoon and tried to put him to sleep but it was hard. We played mahjong while MIL looked after Luke haha.

PotaTOHs then had some stir-fried beehoon for dinner FIL cooked before we ended our first day of visit on CNY. *It’s a quiet and chill CNY with the Covid restrictions, and I can get sleepy at times haha.*

2/2/22 Weds: Races on the second day of CNY as usual, so Potato cooked lunch for us. We knew we will have lots of good food at our parents’ during CNY… probably “overly-nutritious” too, so we stuck to cold soba, grilled sutchi fish fillet and stir-fried mushroom, celery and beansprout while it’s just us two.

Went to my parents’ to have dinner after the race meeting ended. 阿姨、三舅、小舅and my brother were playing mahjong. Mum cooked chicken curry, 四川菜汤、otah，虾枣、蒜炒猪肉、番茄炒虾、鲍鱼香菇萝卜炒西兰花和花椰菜for all of us yummy! We did not stay long because I still had two more stories to finish for race day. *PotaTOHs played “Mahjong Leh” late into the night too~ fun!*

3/2/22 Thurs: PotaTOHs cooked our meatless meal for dinner tonight. I decided to stir-fry the brown lentil with celery, and Potato suggested adding onion, carrot and a dash of tabasco sauce to the dish…both the texture and taste came out nice! We also had sweetcorn soup and tofu with nuts hehe.

We finished watching season 1 of 《슬기로운 의사생활》（Hospital Playlist）!

Unlike many medical dramas that are serious in their narration when it comes to such topics, 《슬기로운 의사생활》taught the audience more about the work of a neuro, liver, heart, paediatric surgeon, and gynaecologist, but also brought about the friendship of the five who met in medical school in a much more light-hearted way.

The show ended almost every episode with the five playing music in a band, and the way the characters banter yet support each other makes people envious of such solid friendship.

Will be catching season 2 soon!

Rating: 4.5/5

4/2/22 Fri: Jess, WL and WH came over for CNY dinner at PotaTOHs. We treated them to White Beehoon. Jess bought lo hei over. Then, we played Yaniv, Blackjack, Big 2 and In-Between and placed 20 cent bets haha. There were a few hilarious moments like when Jess and WH “bickered” over “the missing 10 cents”, how WH was all bullish about getting 21 points with five cards in the game of Blackjack but missed by one point, and how Jess somehow managed to “hit the goalpost” in In-Between when she betted quite a bit on it lol~ I managed to win $1.40, but the biggest winner has to be WL because he won all of WH’s $10 asset haha.

5/2/22 Sat: Josh, Tiff, PY, Merv and SD came over to PotaTOHs in the afternoon. Played some VR games and watched “The Tinder Swindler” on Netflix. Merv found and ordered Rite Pizza for dinner ($61). I thought their tom yum pizza, winter special chicken pizza and chicken wings were all quite tasty! We played a few rounds of Yaniv at night before the two couples left, and PY stayed over as it was too late for her to cycle home. *Looking “unglam” or not is subjective, but I admit that it was partly my fault posting photos on FB all along without asking permission from the subjects. Guess most of my friends have been very kind and nice people for not questioning when I did.*

7/2/22 Mon: Did my first ART test at home prior to returning to office this week. It was a quick procedure, but kind of ticklish too. *Looking at buying some local dividend stocks on Tiger Brokers.*

I cooked brown lentil and mushroom rotini for dinner tonight. Potato helped a bit by adding some sugar to the concentrated tomato paste. The red pepper flakes added a nice tinge of spiciness to the dish.   

8/2/22 Tues: *Potato left home early to accompany me on my first day back to work in a long while hehe!* Took my new STC access pass the minute I reached office because the new card has face recognition function. *Got an angpow from my new HOD Esther and $80 NTUC card from STC yay!* Was fixing up my new Lenovo monitor but I could not find the power cord. Would have to search for it at home and hopefully, it is there.

Mike and I met Dennis and spoke for a bit. Don’t know what’s in store for me moving forth, but I shall monitor and see.

Aerial flow was not bad tonight. *Diana also gave us a Valentine’s day gift in advance!*

9/2/22 Weds: Had lunch with WL at Koufu and we both went to queue for the $16m Toto angpow draw on Friday at the Pools branch at Le Quest. Waited for 30 minutes and I spent $54 for 4D and toto, including Potato’s $10 toto angpow packet. *May we strike windfall in the new year!*

Potato cooked soba for dinner tonight and it was nice, though the sweetness of the onion was not as strong in the soup as he wished.

10/2/22 Thurs: Revisited the barrier trials after two or three years omg. I have not been back in office for so long that some trainers thought I was new here lol! Mike and I had to bring our laptops over to the weighing room to ensure the internet could still work for us.

Met Ben for dinner at BLYS Banh Mi at Jurong East because I saw they have cheap banh mi. Ben used a 1-for-1 deal on Burpple so we tried their grilled pork and egg banh mi. I ordered seven dumplings ($5.50) for us too. Nothing to rave about the banh mi honestly, but I liked the dumplings! We went shopping at Daiso and思佳客where I bought some tidbits and drinks that I thought were interesting, like the red wine and steak-flavoured grilled chips and单身喵粮青柠芋头片. My “bias” was the初饮我还是个宝宝酸奶(strawberry and mango-flavoured, $2.25 each) because of the glass milk bottle designs! Too cute to resist as they remind me of how hard it was for me to quit my favourite milk bottles even when I was in primary school (so much so that I’d hide under my bed to drink when my cousins come over to my grandma’s place next door lol~). Coincidentally, Potato also could not stop drinking from milk bottles till around the same age LOL! *That’s why we’re “a match made in heaven” la haha!*

11/2/22 Fri: PotaTOHs had lunch with WL and WS at Koufu, then went to NTUC to buy ingredients for dinner tonight and steamboat tomorrow.

I cooked chicken with mushroom and green capsicum spaghetti in tomato sauce tonight! First, I stir-fried the diced onion and sliced mushroom in olive oil, then threw in chopped capsicum and tomato concentrate. I added water and then chicken pieces not long after. Had to taste-test throughout the process, and added salt, black pepper and sugar when I felt like I should. *很没“安全感”呢！每一步的调味几乎都是“大概”lol.* Though there was not much sauce, the whole pasta was surprisingly delicious! Even Potato was praising it hehe.

12/2/22 Sat: PY and Fran came earlier in the afternoon. Fran bought yong tau foo and chicken bones from the market to cook the soup base for the CNY steamboat with the Farmily tonight. We had a spread alright!

Melissa wanted to try the VR games and we had fun with “Acron: Attack of the Squirrels” and “Beat Saber”.

13/2/22 Sun: Returned to weighing room for work for the first time since April 2020. There were intermittent connection from the start, so Mike and I moved to our cubicles in the admin building, thinking that might solve the problem, but alas it did not. The racing portal was only up and running normally when I continued to work from home after dinner.

Thankfully, Potato cooked my favourite home-cooked meals for us for dinner! Very nice to come home to yummy dishes made by my hubby! *The lotus root soup was especially sweet!* He added in kimchi to the bacon and eboki wrap, and I thought the taste went well together.

14/2/22 Mon: I could feel my triceps getting sore while working on the reformer this morning! Had a good rest day and I whipped up meatless dishes for dinner tonight: spinach with enoki, ladys’ finger with lentil, chilli and onion and scrambled egg with onion.

15/2/22 Tues: Met new jockey Bayliss at the trials this morning. He’s only arrived here on Friday, come to the tracks today and riding this Saturday already… super duper fast.

Did "bow" pose in aerial class tonight. *Kept thinking about work and could not focus very well tsk.*