Dental crowning + Tarot, numerology and bazi reading + “How to make millions before grandma dies” + hosting Potato, Ian & colleagues @ STC + badminton & coffee-making workshop + bro’s 33rd birthday zi char dinner

31/8/24 Sat: Attended Kay’s Aerial Yoga (Beginner) class this morning and damn the warm-ups itself got my sweat dripping like mad already! We worked a lot on the legs. Final pose required us to hook our legs and hang in mid-air. Managed to do it a few times but I think it could have been easier for me on the other side. Met a new student, Cheryl, and we hit it off quite well.

Met Potato for lunch at Yuhua market and we had the yuan yang carrot cake ($6), jja jiang noodle ($5) and 10 pan-fried dumplings ($8) for lunch. I personally liked the dumplings and the carrot cake was quite nice too.

Took some time to revise Japanese in the afternoon and Potato cooked seafood army stew for dinner~ very delicious! Also had a good laugh watching two episodes of “The Zone: Survival Mission” on Disney+ at night~

1/9/24 Sun: Had to wait an hour for my assam prawn and squid rice set at Three Embers, which was not bad, but I thought the reason of “server error” given by the manager was just an excuse for their bad organisation in the kitchen.

On a happy note, Potato cooked dinner for me~ I had potato slices, celery, carrots, cabbage, black fungus mushrooms and egg with boneless chicken leg meat~ so nice and so thankful!

2/9/24 Mon: Vinyasa Flow class this morning was cancelled so I took the time to revise my Japanese instead. PotaTOHs had lunch at Blk 150+ and my mhk price increased to $5 now. Sadly, I don’t find it as nice anymore. Potato’s kway chup tasted better.

3/9/24 Tues: Potato went to JB with his colleagues today so I headed back to my parent’s for dinner tonight. Mum cooked assam curry fish and粉葛汤tonight. *Yay she said she would cook mhk for dinner someday hehe~* Hatha Yoga tonight was the most relaxing class I had here since the start haha. Good stretches!

4/9/24 Weds: Treated Janet to lunch at Feng Food at Woods Square mall. I had the lu rou fan ($16+) and she ate some shrimp noodles. We shared the三杯鸡腿肉together too. It was expensive and overall a bit too salty for me though.

MIL came over this afternoon and we had dinner together. Potato stir-fried black fungus with celery and big red chilli and cabbage with duck meat for us.

5/9/24 Thurs: Met Ian and Potato for dinner at Jem’s Tsui Wah. I ate the prawn noodles Potato had before and it was as nice. Potato had their curry pork cutlet while Ian tried their mala noodles. Bought frozen oden set and some snacks from Don Don Donki before we headed home to have the 10-pc warabimochi as dessert haha! *The free matcha drink that came with it was not bad.*

6/9/24 Fri: Had some fun in Bungee Fitness class this morning with Nicole as my “training partner” haha. Potato cooked the pack of oden we bought from Don Don Donki yesterday for dinner and we added soba, hard boiled eggs and Chinese cabbage in there too. He also stir-fried sausages with onions. The oden set tasted nice and the taste of the soup reminded us of the one we ate in Kyushu, but oden itself was not satisfying for a meal and having other dishes would be better.

7/9/24 Sat: Had buffet lunch with Mike, Iris and Diana in Elite 2 room but the food was no good. I’d rather eat ala carte at Trophy Lounge. Soaked in the atmosphere since it was Queen Elizabeth II Cup meeting but I don’t think there were as many people at level 1 as compared to Singapore Derby meeting.

Potato cooked minced pork collar meet with celery and crabsticks with spaghetti in tomato sauce~ yummy!

8/9/24 Sun: PotaTOHs played a level 1 "Unlock" game from the latest release and it was quite fun. 

Random. One issue I saw from work sparked this thought: the world has lost its patience. For the sake of viewership and our so-called “high efficiency”, we almost always compete to see who is faster, especially on social media. Why care for accuracy when I can grab my audiences’ attention asap? People anticipate short new snippets than detailed and accurate stories. *At times, I found myself rejecting social media too.*

The world out there now is filled with “shorts” of all sorts and though we might not notice it, but bit by bit, we’re “engulfed” in the sea of information. Because new things come so fast, we can only keep up or risk losing out. But have we got time to discern what’s right from wrong and analyse the issues from deeper within? No. We are now superficial in a lot of things (hey, I’m guilty too).

By proving to our bosses that we’re “efficient” and “fast”, we get numbers from outside and probably also better money in time to come for being a “competent employee”. But aside from gaining financially, what are you losing? Health. Time with love ones and yourself. Peace. Integrity and even yourself, maybe?

But ironically, people are just afraid of losing in this rat race. *Many times, I think to myself “why should I be in one?”*  I’m not yet sick of the world till the point of “quiet quitting”, but I can see why the emergence of that trend.

Why the hurry? Slow down. Breathe. You’ll be fine.

我知道世界不会随着我的步伐走，但我还是很努力不被这漩涡卷走。

该有的坚持我有，愿我不失去自我。

Potato cooked seafood miso udon for dinner tonight! There were prawns, scallops, clams, celery and sweet corn. It was a bit salty but tasted okay after I added some water to the soup. *Weird how both of us had headaches while watching “The Zone: Survival Mission” at night and so he slept earlier. I rarely experience headaches and I wonder if it has got to do with dinner though?*

9/9/24 Mon: Went to Koh Dental to remove my temporary crown, which apparently was so “glued” onto my gums so Dr Ting had to crack to remove it. He glued on the permanent crown, which should not fall off at all, and I had an x-ray taken just to ensure everything’s clean and proper. The whole procedure took about 45 minutes or so and was a simpler one compared to the three previous appointments. This just goes to show that we should take care of our teeth from young, otherwise it’s really costly and troublesome going through the root canal, crowning and my previous implant procedures just to get one tooth in place and everything in the mouth “normal” again.

Cooked meatless for tonight with the new mushroom dumpling in soup~ quite nice. My dried mushroom and black fungus were burnt though and Potato explained to me they’d burn more quickly because they had been soaked in water, so I need not have kept the lid on for two minutes to cook them before the lady’s’ fingers but instead cook them altogether.

10/9/24 Tues: Had the XO fish head bee hoon soup at Marsiling’s香港街珍达记 and it’s now $7.50 but still shiok!

Did a lot of exercises on the legs before deep chest opening on our back in Hatha Yoga tonight~ it was not easy pushing and lifting myself up as I lie down with both feet on the wall and the hands grabbed interlocked behind my back. But I felt very tight in the back as JE helped me stretch further. Kind of reminded me when I did similar poses in wheel yoga but it was definitely easier with the assistance of the wheel.

11/9/24 Weds: Had hokkien mee ($6) at Albert Centre after half day of work and damn the chilli was hot. Visited Kwan Im Thong before going for my tarot, numerology and bazi reading with Tarot and Jonio.

I thought it was rather true when I asked about my current work environment and the tarot readings revealed that nobody appreciates me, bosses are controlling and colleagues are not helpful. The tarot readings said I can handle media jobs in future but mentally, I'd have to cope with stress better. *Sounds good about a sideline~ time to go for new course soon!* Jonio analysed my handphone number and said it wasn't that good, but other than suggesting a change of the number which was an expensive service offered by them, he did not really talked about how to improve the bad situations he foresaw. 

Japanese class tonight went past in a breeze~ made some mistakes in class but it was also a good chance for me to improve on the current grammar topic we were on.

13/9/24 Fri: Sweated in Car-Streng-Dio class this morning. Potato made hamburger for us using minced pork collar meat from scratch in red wine, ketchup, black vinegar and butter sauce with air fried potatoes and broccoli as sides~ delicious!

We watched the Thai movie, “How to make millions before grandma dies” on Netflix.

A story of a universiy dropout who volunteered to take care of his dying grandma in the hope of pocketing her inheritance at first, before he realised kinship and her love for him was beyond his imaginations.

“The only thing the elderlies want from us is our company.”

Touching.

Rating: 3.5/5

14/9/24 Sat: Hosted Ozan, Ian and Potato at STC’s Trophy Lounge thanks to Shelley. Ozan was “studious” when it comes to form haha~ the most “hardworking” guest I ever hosted here I think lol. He had $100 to spend and well luck wasn’t on his side so he lost it all by Race 6 lol. Ian stayed till the end but he didn’t do that bad as compared to Ozan… albeit still a net loss after all. Oh, I tried their laksa but found it too salty but the mid-wings and gyoza were nice.

Ian drove us to “Ah Jie seafood BBQ and Vietnamese cuisine” at a coffee shop in West Coast for dinner. Damn their kang kong, stingray and sotong were very spicy but yummy, especially the stingray. I had some soon kueh and yam which were not bad too.

15/9/24 Sun: Played badminton with Potato, Jess and PH at Jurong West Sports Hall. It was a good one hour+ and I thought we all played not bad despite not knowing the rules well lol. Then, we had lunch at Jurong West market centre and I tried the fried fish bee hoon ($5.50) which was meh. It’s nice meeting PH for the first time and I can tell they’re still in their “honeymoon” stages la haha.

Went for the coffee and tea demonstration session Andre, MM and their church friends held in one of the function rooms at a condominium in One-North. Well, I ended up forgetting to watch either but had some tea, mooncakes, chicken wings and fruits FIL and MIL brought.

Had prawn dumpling noodle soup at Canton Paradise for dinner with my in-laws at Star Vista but the soup tasted bitter towards the end. Their prawn dumplings were only so-so too. As usual, FIL treated us to dinner~

16/9/24 Mon: *Damn my right hand is sore from yesterday~* Potato cooked meatless curry udon for dinner yay! The lady’s fingers, potatoes, king oyster mushrooms and carrots went so well with the curry!

17/9/24 Tues: Ordered zi char dishes from Ming’s Kitchen for bro’s 33^rd birthday since he chose that on Grab app. We had cereal prawns, seaweed and minced meat soup, pan fried Japanese style spareribs, 鱼香茄子and braised beancurd and seafood with XO sauce. Except for the spareribs which were rather sweet, the rest were quite salty. Not going to eat again.