STC Deepavali lunch + Long Kang TCM consultation & 四马路观音庙&Mio Fine Foods with XY + Kuro’s arrival + “Heart Signal Season 4” + Ning & Fran’s belated bday dinner @ RIB + end of Kuro’s 12-day stay

22/11/23 Weds: Watched some Indian drums and dance performances before we tucked in to our Deepavali buffet. Think I enjoyed their Chaat the most. Didn’t eat the prata in the end because the queue was too long.

Tried a steamed chicken recipe from IG but we changed the chicken wings to boneless chicken leg pieces, peanut oil to sesame oil and added green capsicum to our recipe. Had to steam it for 20 minutes using our microwave oven before the meat was fully cooked. Potato commented it tasted like sesame chicken and I thought to add some pepper to it afterwards~ worked like “magic” ah keke!

He helped me with the sweet corn and carrot soup~

23/11/23 Thurs: PotaTOHs shopped at the new Uniqlo store at Lot 1. I bought a green parka ($39.90) and he got berms, collar shirt and tee in the end. We had dinner at Tokyo Shokudo because he was craving for some tempura haha~ my spicy scallop ramen was okay.

24/11/23 Fri: Boxing Cardio class in the morning was okay. PotaTOHs drank some melon tea with green bean cake for tea time and also finished constructing the “tigger” and “simba” mini lego together!

Decided to make gochujang marinated pork belly rice wrap for dinner after seeing Masa’s video. We added in coral lettuce, carrot strip and kimchi to mine, while Potato further included slices of cheese in his rolls. He also made mushroom and tofu miso soup to go with the wraps. The two didn’t feel compatible at first, but after finishing our mains, the miso soup somehow just tasted better and better!

25/11/23 Sat: Ian and PY came over with two thin crust pizzas (one Hawaiian and one chicken) from MyPizza for dinner while Potato cooked Campbell soup for us. It was not bad. James came over later at night for drinks and to “take a break” from his daddy duties haha. *my eyes were so tired and blood-shot from staring at PC screen… reminder to myself not to watch TV shows at night after race day duty in future!*

26/11/23 Sun: Had my first TCM consultation at Long Kang TCM clinic. Physician Guo was quite patient with me while she also had to deal with other patients that did acupuncture at the same time. I basically told her my body conditions and the medicine and supplements that I take nowadays. She took my pulse from both hands and said that my pulse was weaker on the right hand，气血有点虚. *Apparently, 左手“寸关尺”代表“心肝肾”，右手的“寸关尺”代表“肺脾肾(命门)”.* Then, she saw my tongue and said I was a bit heaty… then I told her because I drank ginger, red date and brown sugar drink on alternate days.

Ended up with a 10-day TCM powder to take and consultation fee was $12… $82 in total. I’m more interested in their body massage and guasha treatments, which I’ll try some time in future.

Met XY at Bugis in the late afternoon because I wanted to buy walnuts. Also visited四马路观音庙after a long time. Ended up sitting at a nearby coffee shop and talking about her trip to Yunnan before we took the bus over to Mio Fine Foods for dinner!

Nice ambience but the place was soon almost full with customers on a weekend evening. We tried the Hamachi Carpaccio with truffle ponzu ($25+) and the assorted sashimi nori taco ($14+) were so yummy! I especially enjoyed the latter with the crispy seaweed.

Though I was enticed to go there because of their “Fall menu”, which had the Maitake mushroom ($18+)… an ochazuke of mixed mushroom tea soup with hamachi belly over mushroom fried rice, but I thought it was somewhat salty on its own, abeit the broth was good by itself.

Another main we ordered was the hotate salmon zaru soba ($29+)… torched fresh Hokkaido scallops, torched salmon, sous vide egg yolk, buckwheat noodles with Japanese dressing(served cold). The dressing reminded us of sesame oil + soy sauce~ fragrant!

Our dessert was the Ringo gyoza ($16): deep fried handmade apple cinnamon dumplings, miso caramel drizzle with vanilla bean ice-cream. It reminded me of apple pie but the vanilla ice-cream was so good! XY had lychee oolong tea ($10+) which was very sweet and fragrant when we smell it but surprisingly not at all when drank.

27/11/23 Mon: Good Pilates reformer workout with Chisa this morning. For dinner, I steamed chicken gyoza and tofu, did scrambled egg with onion and stir-fried red spinach with mushroom! Potato always reminded me to peel off the outer layer of the stalks before cooking but I forgot how to do it, so he patiently helped me with it hehe.

28/11/23 Tues: Ian drove PotaTOHs over to Bukit Timah Food Centre for us to get dinner and then to James’ parents to eat. They bought beef hor fun, satay bee hoon, KL hokkien mee, popiah and rojak while I tried sliced fish and lala bee hoon ($5.70)… was okay lor. *Ava’s such a big girl now and she loves horses because of the cartoon she’s watching on Disney+ channel recently haha.*

Ian drove us home and Kuro was eagerly waiting for us in his bedroom already haha. He arrived this afternoon when Potato was in. Very active cat and acts like a dog because he bellies-down with hind legs spread opened and pants like a dog with the tongue sticking out lol. *wags his tail a lot too~ dog trait too?* He loves to chase his “mouse” toy too. Potato and I played with him for a while before his dinner before putting him back in the bedroom but we probably did not tire him out as much because I woke up twice because he was meow-ing and scratching the door in the middle of the night.

30/11/23 Thurs: *Glad to know mum has recovered from COVID-19 since Sunday and she looks okay now.* I had a much better sleep yesterday night because Kuro must have been quite tired out by significantly longer play time with Potato on Weds night haha. He brought out a new toy – ping pong ball – for Kuro this morning and the boy could self-entertain with it~ brilliant idea lol!

PY came over to play with Kuro while Fran was here to borrow the Unlock games from Potato. The trio ended up playing Mansion of Madness in the afternoon lol. Then, Potato cooked cold soba with duck meat for us for dinner~ yummy.

Kuro played the whole morning and afternoon so he already slept a few times before his dinner time at 10pm. On hindsight, we shouldn’t have let him play so much earlier in the day because he was awake by the middle of the night!

1/12/23 Fri: *Potato found out Kuro probably puked at night because he saw two puddles on the floor that didn’t smell like pee. He also peed on the tarp of the bed jeez. Kuro doesn’t have the best digestive system… think we’d better stick to his usual routine and not tire him too much with playing.* 

I craved for bibimbap a bit, so had that for dinner! I made it with carrot slices, sunny side up, shimeiji shroom, marinated chicken meat, cucumber slices (that Potato taught me how to remove the seeds afterwards), kimchi and Chinese spinach~ so nice!

2/12/23 Sat: *Lol Potato said Kuro tried to escape out of the cage via his kitty litter when he was changing it~ naughty cat!* Did two stories and two translation today at work because Larry took leave for his niece’s wedding. Sharing some photos MY and Tim took of me and Mike haha~

3/12/23 Sun: Finished watching season 4 of the Korean version’s “Heart Signal”.

Min Gyu can be so “un-manly” at times. Ji Young was the popular lady and I do agree because she looked cutest to me since the first episode. Wasn’t a big fan of Ji Min because I found the 2000-er too childish from the start, but I do hope Hoo Shin and her would get together in their spin-off series of “After Signal”! I thought Ji Won the doctor left a good impression from the start but because he was so busy with his medical duties, my attention went to Hoo Shin the painter! He’s quite humourous, albeit he kept reminding me of Kwang Soo somehow lol.

Not my favourite season anyway.

Rating: 3.25/5

Kuro was playing in the living room but suddenly jumped up onto one of our bomb shelter decks and smashed the small pot of succulent~ angry with him! *I wonder if cats feel guilty after all…*

4/12/23 Mon: Pilates reformer lesson was cancelled so I did some strength pilates, core workouts and yoga while watching exercise videos on Netflix in the morning.  

Headed out to RIB at Bugis in the evening for Ning and Fran’s belated birthday celebration. We had mixed platters and lots of fried food haha… I got a bit sick of them in the end. *Still, great that we remembered to take a group photo!*

5/12/23 Tues: Ate Potato’s take on kimchi bolognaise for dinner~ the kimchi and tomato sauce have distinctive taste but still good to go together. *naughty Kuro now likes to scratch the undersides of my sofa when we’re not paying attention to him…*

7/12/23 Thurs: MIL came over in the morning and we had lunch at Happy Hawkers before I went to work in the afternoon.

After work, I came home to a yummy Korean dinner cooked by Potato for MIL and us! There was teokpokki and pork dumpling in the teokpokki soup, sliced Japanese cucumber, kimchi and crabmeat and tuna gimbap! MIL and I found the teokpokki a bit tough on the inside but it’s still good overall.

We don’t know if it was Kuro being kept up in the cage for too long the whole day or he’s simply getting too playful. When we let him out at night, he was running all over the living room, knocking things here and there and scratching our sofa when he can. I was so angry with him and we put him back in cage. *Even if we were to have our own cat in future, I don’t think I have the time for cats that are active and need a lot of attention.*

8/12/23 Fri: I realised Kuro would keep meowing in the room in the mornings after he heard our footsteps in the living room. It’s better to bring him to the living room and let him see what I’m doing like cooking my oatmeal in the kitchen because he’d be very focused and quiet down, albeit gets noisy again when he knows Potato is preparing his breakfast lol.

Did boxing cardio this morning and halfway through, I noticed some small red bumps on my arms. It's the allergic "hive" reaction I haven't had in a long while, but it went away not long after I stopped exercising. I thought it was because I worked quickly using the arms and blood rushed there that's why.

Went for breast massage in the afternoon and some areas were achy as usual but after that, I felt very tired and sleepy… also a bit sick omg. Potato cooked salmon with Chinese spinach and shimeiji shroom cabonara spaghetti for dinner~ the sauce was a bit salty for me though. *almost done with packing my luggage for our New Zealand trip~ phew.*

After shower, I felt a bit cold and feverish. Took my temperature and I was running a slight fever. Didn't sleep well at night and I woke up twice to go to the toilet. 

9/12/23 Sat: *Was still sleepy and tired in the morning. Took ART test but I'm negative.* Kuro actually managed to escape from his cage in the middle of the night in his bedroom! He did so by pushing the kitty litter out. Decided to take a photo together before he goes back to Salikin tomorrow~ *Kuro doesn't like people carrying him nor sitting on people's lap.* 

Potato vacuumed and mopped the whole house since Kuro is leaving tomorrow. He also cooked oyako don for dinner! <3