Early CNY steamboat with Potato’s sec sch friends & cat-sitting Coco + YR’s one-month old shower & early团圆饭with in-laws + 《이재, 곧 죽습니다》+ “The Minimalists: Less Is Now” + Liz, Harry, Michael & Potato’s sec sch friends over for dinner + 农历年初一&二拜年 + steamboat with Farmily on初三 + Lunch @ Soi 47 Thai with Amelia + PotaTOHs’ Valentine’s dinner @ Mio Fine Foods

31/1/24 Weds: Haven’t cooked spaghetti with pork and cabbage in Wafu sauce for a long while so I did it for dinner tonight! It was a bit drier than usual and the cabbage wasn’t soft enough, but the linguine was flavourful though. *Potato said linguine would go well with sauce-based pasta but not Angel Hair.*

*To be honest, I’m not even that keen on the overseas work trip. Now, I do have the chance, but I have to do it the “harder” way. Well, many things I don’t and I cannot comprehend coming from the “corporate world” and a management that pretty much don’t know their “products”. Potato nailed it: “pick my battles”. Guess that’s the way to go here now till I’m “free”.*

Good stretch in Yin Yoga class tonight but I still could not do the wheel-assisted headstand, albeit I did felt myself “leaning back comfortably” for a short moment. I’m too scared of falling backwards in class, hence I shall try to practice when I’m at home.

2/2/24 Fri: Did “Car-Streng-Dio” class this morning… awkward term that Coach Gerald coined lol. Rather repetitive and tiring haha. After that, I tried to do wheel-assisted headstand at home and I did manage to flip up but the arms still float, hence I could never balance myself for too long upside down. It was very fun trying though.

Ian joined PotaTOHs for dinner at Ramen Taisho. My shio ramen was a bit too salty. The “duck shit” tea (oolong floral tea) was not bad, albeit it probably made it diifcult for me to fall asleep at night. James came over “for a breather” and the guys had a short catch-up at ours.

3/2/24 Sat: Joshua, Tiff, SD, Mervyn, PY, Fran, Galvin and Joan came over for steamboat dinner and played “Mysterium”. Galvin and Joan also settled Coco into Ian’s room because we will be fostering her for the rest of this year. She was quite anxious as expected and stayed high up on the cabinet lol.

4/2/24 Sun: Slept at 1+am and we were so tired this morning. My sore throat got better but was lethargic overall. Potato also had phlegm and blocked nose issue for quite a while now. Fed Coco in the morning and she started to come towards us in the room, which was a good sign I suppose?

We went over to WL and WS to join YR’s monthsary shower. Had buffet lunch with YB, BY, Ethan, WH and YH. WH and YH brought their dog Kiyomi along too haha. They then came over to PotaTOH’s place for a while in the afternoon to visit Coco too.

Had early reunion dinner with my in-laws~ had braised meat and tau pok, abalone slices with Chinese spinach, a-zhar and ginseng chicken soup!

5/2/24 Mon: *Sore throat worsened a bit this morning but luckily I’d already cancelled Pilates Reformer class.* Opened Coco’s bedroom door but she’d only step out to sit for a bit before she’d heard sudden noises and run back in haha.

Potato stir-fried the leftover pork belly slices and onion in Teriyaki sauce, mirin, light soy sauce and sesame oil, together with tamago he made a day before! It was tasty but got a bit oily towards the end, so having the miso soup helped.

Finished watching all eight episodes of《이재, 곧 죽습니다》(Death’s Game).

The drama’s based on a webtoon. Choi Yi-jae (Seo In Guk) committed suicide and he was on the verge of falling into hell, where he experienced death and reincarnation 12 times due to the judgment of Death (Park So Dam).

The episodes where he reincarnated as Jeong Gyu-cheol (Kim Jae Wook) and was saw to death was too gross to watch… I literally had nightmare after that lol. The last episode where he reincarnated as his mother was also painful and sad to watch.

With the high suicide rate in South Korea, this drama probably was filmed to remind people not to take their lives too lightly. Society could be cruel in a way like throwing you into retrenchment or a break-up, but there are so many other aspects of life out there that are still beautiful and positive, for example, the love and support from family and friends, nature, new skills to be discovered etc.

Rating: 4/5

6/2/24 Tues: Coco finally came out for a brief walk round the living room this morning. We did“水中蛟龙”pose in Aerial yoga class tonight to welcome the Year of the Dragon haha. Not difficult to do but I saw “ruptured veins” near the shoulders’ areas where we were “wrapped and roped”. Such bruises occur sometimes when we do certain poses.

7/2/24 Weds: Did half of the Metabolic Plan class because I was distracted by Coco lol. She “did her rounds” in the living room and jumped onto the dining table once but I brought her down.

I found an online Japanese recipe to cook pork in sweet Ginger sauce so I tried it with our leftover pork collar. It was a bit of work to grate the ginger and onion, and though the final taste came out okay, I doubt it’s a recipe I’d go back to much.

Wheel Yoga class was cancelled so I attended Yin Yoga and Sound Bath as usual. There were only five students, so Yip could come to us personally and point out the exact places to massage. *He gave us“真字”for CNY too lol.*

Watched “The Minimalists: Less Is Now” at night.

I haven’t read the book written by Joshua Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, so just by watching this documentary itself, I enjoyed the concept and gained insight into the superficial level of how e-commerce manipulates our wants and needs. No doubt they vie for our attention in order to sell their products, but we’re also giving in to fast consumerism nowadays. We buy things that we don’t really need with money we don’t really have to impress people, who we probably don’t even like or know.

The duo reminded us that memory is in a person and not in the things we own. I’m definitely guilty of being a “well-organised hoarder” too. I’m nowhere near a minimalist, but I will consciously remind myself to throw old stuff and re-consider when I want to buy stuff. We don’t need more space to stuff more things, instead, we need space for growth, progress and healthy relationships.

What I’ve learned in life and advocate for now: what matters most is the experience we had and not necessary to owe them or things.

Rating: 5/5

8/2/24 Thurs: Joined a random Pilates mat class online in the morning and it was a nice workout.

Liz came back to Singapore with her son Harrison and husband Michael for CNY and together with SD, Mervyn, Joan and Galvin, they came over for homecooked pasta bolognaise dinner made by Potato! It was a good dinner. Harry just wanted to eat the pasta from his dad and mum’s plate but not his lol.

Mervyn joined us later and we took a group photo before Liz and her family left for Harry’s nap.

9/2/24 Fri: Potato cooked his version of maggie ba chor mee for lunch hehe.

Had steamboat for reunion dinner with Potato and my family~

10/2/24 Sat: Went over to my parents first in the morning to拜年on初一. Remembered to take photos together! 

PotaTOHs then headed to his parents’ and had lunch with the family. Some of his cousins, nieces and nephews came early afternoon. It’s the usual chit-chat sessions before things got a bit quiet in the late afternoon. Ian came over for dinner and drove us back~

11/2/24 Sun: Potato cooked sausage, mushroom, cabbage, onion and tamago for me to pack as bento lunch for race day duty on初二~ yummy!

Headed over to my parents for dinner and a short catch-up with XY and SF before I had to go home and continue with the racing stories.

12/2/24 Mon: Ian and PY came over in the afternoon after collecting the pen cai and pizza. Ian also baked apple crumble pie for us~ would go very nicely with vanilla ice-cream we thought.

Fran bought sashimi and Lo Hei over for Farmily. We prepared steamboat and waited for Ning and Wandi to finally be here at 7.15pm for dinner lol. Lo Hei was quite nice but the pen cai for five pax from Tam Kah was rather disappointing. Too much yam and baby cabbage la. Also during the steamboat, the mala pot induction cooker kept displaying “error” and refused to “cook”. In the end, we found out that the the base of the pot was probably too hot for the cooker to take… maybe we should have heeded PY’s suggestion and removed some oil at the start to help with that lol.

Watched a few episodes of “Ultimate Beastmaster China” on Netflix too. I’ve always enjoyed shows on physical challenges since young so it was quite fun.

13/2/24 Tues: Met Amelia for lunch at Soi 47 Thai at Orchard Central since she brough the Golden Sixty keychain plushie for me back from Hong Kong. I thought the pad Thai and omelette was not bad, as well as the sotong in lime sauce. She treated me to lunch and in return, I treated her to desserts at Lady M… oh wow green tea mille crepe is $12 a slice now fwah. It was a good catch-up and omg, it’s been nine years since Amelia interned at STC! The 96-er is busy as a business analyst now at ST Engineering but I can still feel the genuineness in xiaomei.

Potato cooked fried rice with the leftovers from steamboat yesterday~ nice. Spent half the time on foam rollers in Aerial Yoga class tonight and I thought it was a good stretch. Struck some poses to go with Valentine’s Day too haha.

14/2/24 Weds: *看了以前的blog post才发现自己今早重看了《五月天追梦3DNA》电影，但是一点印象都没有了哈哈~但歌我是几乎都会唱的哦！上一次现场看五月天的演唱会好像是2016年的事情了~下一次他们来我一定要再去看！* Cooked the leftover food and rice for lunch before I went to work.

Random photos of Coco and her puke this morning haiz...

Attended Yin Yoga and Sound Bath class tonight but Wheel Yoga class was cancelled again because of the low number of attendees.

16/2/24 Fri: Car-Streng-Dio class this morning was energy-zapping~ I attempted wheel-assisted headstand again and though my arms were floating now and then, I was more confident in going up this time. Haven't succeeded in balancing myself but I'll continue to try! 

It wasn’t to celebrate Valentine’s Day that PotaTOHs went for dinner at Mio Fine Foods but I’d wanted to bring him there since some time ago hehe~