Farmily gathering & “Culinary Class Wars” + written test @ MDDI & "Wonderland" + Jess' belated 36th @ Umai Artisanal Udon Bar & badminton + YR's 1st bday party

1/1/25 Weds: Farmily gathered at PotaTOHs’ this afternoon. Fran and I started playing《西游斗妖行》and we started watching the final two episodes of “Culinary Class Wars” after Ian and Linh came.

There were some very pretty and creative dishes done up by the contestants and the competition was so intense towards the end, especially the non-stop 30-minute tofu challenges! Some of us were rooting for chef Edward Lee to win but Nepoli Mafia took the title more for the “completeness” of his final dish I think.

Rating: 4.5/5

Headed down to Koufu at Le Quest for dinner. Potato ate kimchi chicken ramyeon while I had the rice version. Tried durian cheese cake Ian brought over and it was more cheesy than much of durian taste though. Wandi, Fran , PY and I played another round of board game and Potato stepped in to help after Wandi, Ning, Ian and Linh left earlier. We won the second time yay!

2/1/25 Thurs: *Don’t know since when but on days I don’t exercise, I tend to feel more lethargic. There’s also a wierd sense of “weight” in my head recently... maybe due to the fact that I haven’t been sleeping well.* Cooked meatless wafu spaghetti for dinner tonight and it turned out very tasty!

Went for my first wheel yoga class at The New Place with Jack and although it was more of a stretch class, I enjoyed the mixed level of difficulty there.

3/1/25 Fri: Went for the 3-hour written translation test at MDDI this afternoon. It sure was difficult at times because I haven’t done general translation in a long time, but still finished translating the passages within the given time frame. What’s surprising was I actually saw my primary school friend Nolly around! Didn’t know he’s working at their corporate planning department for more than three years already. *I’m clear about the pros and cons and made my choice. For once, I’d like to take a risk, since probably not everyone have the means or ability for options like I do now.* 

Came home to Potato’s home-cooked pork belly and enoki don and butter miso corn soup~ the pairing went so well together! Received the bedside lamps and book ($141) from Bob and Lele too~ so pretty! *Will give the one regarding determination and studying to Luke and Liv as an encouragement to the little ones!*

Watched “Wonderland” on Netflix.

Loke's daughter went to study in the US but died in an car accident. Tan, his neighbour, could not bear breaking the news to him so he pretended to write letters to Loke on behalf of his dead daughter, little did he know Loke'd already knew and tried to commit suicide before. 

With the story set in Singapore in the late 1980s, there was the Catholic and Taoist religion differences between Tan and Loke, the typical "white lies" family members tell each other to hide their own struggles and also the dilemma between telling the truth to Loke or hiding it from the already despaired old man. As a Singaporean, I can totally relate to their point of views and why they choose to do things the way they did.

Thoroughly enjoyed the cinematic effect in the movie. Mark Lee and Peter Yu acted great in their respective roles. Hearing almost 80% of the dialogues in Hokkien also made me realise how much I have not or have forgotten about the dialect my parents used to speak a lot at home when we were younger.

Rating: 4.25/5

4/1/25 Sat: Met Jess, Ahna and LL at Umai Udon Bar for Jess' belated 36th bday lunch. Tried their Hippari noodle with seared tiger prawns in thick prawn broth ($19+) but although it was flavourful at first, I got sick of the taste towards the end. The three prawns were not big either. Shared about my Bhutan and Malaysia trips with them while Ahna talked about her family too.

Both Ahna and Jess recommended“一家人”for dessert, so we walked over to their Tan Quee Lan branch. There were lots of grass jelly and mangoes for mine ($5.50), but the mangoes tasted a bit off probably because it was not in season. Jess shared about PH and her job too, but LL was only listening most of the time. We thought she had something on her mind and true enough, she let in something happened at home but she still came because she needed some air outside.

*Ate the matcha and lychee tiramisu from L’Atelier but I think we shall stick to to original from now on haha.* Took a while for Ian, Potato, Linh and I to find the entrance into Jurongville Secondary for our badminton slot at 6pm, so we began only 10 minutes later. Both Linh and Ian were playing badminton after a long time but we had a great session. Had dry mhk ($5) at Blk 496 after years and it’s still not bad. Went back to ours and we caught two episodes of “Squid Game 2”.

5/1/25 Sun: Attended WL and WS's son YR's 1YO bday party at The Lakefront this afternoon. They had a nice Snoopy theme and the chocolate cake tasted quite nice. I liked their buffet food too like the spicy cuttlefish, brocolli with mushrooms, curry potatoes and sea coconut dessert. Spoke with WH, YB, Jess, PH, WL and WS for a bit. YR also did his “抓周”but he caught so many things lol. *drank too much sugary drink and I had sugar crash at home in the afternoon lol~*

6/1/25 Mon: Tried deep stretch yoga with instructor PL for the first time this morning. There were very deep stretches that I felt were good but not easy like those stretching my neck, right forearm (aching a bit due to badminton) and hips. Glad I could “hold out” for most of the poses though haha. Wanted to have lunch at Bukit Timah hawker centre but it was closed for washing these two days, so I had chicken thigh rice ($3.5) at a coffeeshop nearby. *Enjoy the “freedom” I have to myself, as usual. Cannot imagine losing the control over my life because of a “full-time job”, so I’m taking a risk now!* 

Potato experimented with kong-guksu aka Korean soybean broth noodle for our meatless dinner tonight! My broth was made with soy bean milk, tau pok, peanut butter, water, salt, sugar and miso paste while his looked a bit more orange-y and mildly spicier because he added gochujang in his. After boiling somen and adding sesame oil, sesame seed and sliced Japanese cucumber, our homemade kong-guksu was done!

The peanut butter and soy milk broth was fragrant at first, but as it was thick, it got jelak halfway through, even if we had kimchi on the side. Potato thought he can halve the amount of broth blended and also the amount of somen. Adding boiled eggs, mushrooms or even meat are also possible.

7/1/25 Tues: First pilates reformer class with Monica this morning. She was clear in her instructions and also used many terms related to the body and the moves, of which some I didn’t understand fully haha. There were a few challenges here and there but it was overall a do-able class. *我对家人可以再有耐心、再亲切一点的。不要再自觉别扭就行的！*

8/1/25 Weds: *JD Sports group chat is a scam on Telegram. Beware.* Went for hip opening and back relief class this afternoon with Kaylor because I thought it would be beneficial to me. It was similar to the deep stretch class, but I did not sweat here. Comparatively, I preferred the previous class because the stretches were more intense. 

Potato cooked shimeiji and cabbage bolognese with Spaghetti tonight~ yums.

Went for Aerial flow (intermediate) class at night taught by Anna. I tried hammock handstand for the first time and  I was so glad my foundation is quite “solid”, so much as it was difficult, I still managed my posture correctly as I did my best to hold the pose and trust in the straps while I was ipside down haha. We did a short flow which I could manage after a few tries but was still tiring on the wrists because of unnecessary force exerted when I was unsure of the steps next mid-air. *Saw some other students just “brute-forcing” their way through the poses because their foundation were not there. It could hurt more than it would benefit them I think.*

9/1/25 Thurs: Impromptu cycling practice since Potato mentioned it yesterday and I thought I should get some revision since it’s been a while. Wanted to cycle downstairs but the seat was too high and I could not adjust it, so in order not to “endanger anyone’s lives”, I practised my turns and slope runs at the mscp. It was only about half an hour but I was sweating already haha. *Here’s reminding myself not to spend $ on birth chart/bazi/ziwei readings again. Much were inaccurate. Tsk.*

I followed a recipe on IG and made stir-fried pork belly with onions and spring onions, and also a plate of bok choy with mushrooms. The pork belly slices were a bit saltier for me, even if I tried to add mirin (sweetness) towards the end. Potato found it okay as long as there’s rice to go with it.