First post for 2024

I'm finally back after a long while and its already almost June of 2024. Once again, it's the school hols and finally I'm back here to do more blogging. In a nutshell, here's what went on the past few months...

Jan 2024: School reopened, P went home on new year's eve so I was just on my own the first few weeks of school. I wasnt thrilled but I think the school reopen blues this time round was not as bad as the previous year. Our Europe trip was great, nobody fell sick this time. Hopefully I'll blog more about it later on.

Feb 2024: Days went past in a blur as we were busy preparing for CNY in school. I stayed home most of the PH for CNY and I enjoyed the rest. 

Mar 2024: P's niece mica came and I didnt get to go for Nagoya marathon as I was on a work trip. Initially, I was not too happy that we did not get to celebrate my birthday and have some couple time but after that I felt like I was kicking up a big fuss for nothing. We went Aston's and Bird Paradise for my birthday weekend and I felt BP was kind of disappointing. After the work trip, the three of us enjoyed our March holidays in Penang and Batam, so I did not do any work at all and it was great.

April 2024: Another reason why we did not go far for the holidays is because we are honestly broke and P is going back home for a final trip before looking for a job to end off his almost 2 years break from full time job. He had survived well by selling his collection but things had been stagnant. We are very hopeful that things will be better in the second half of the year as we have plans to sell off our current home and move to a cheaper place. House viewing started in March and stopped in April as he went back home for a few weeks.

May 2024: Things get very hectic as the end of the term and the semester draws near. There were times I felt really tired as I was working non-stop through the weekends to clear the work and marking. It was really madness. On top of that, we are resuming school trip for the kids so it was really busy and stressful. On the bright side, P came home and we went house viewing and found a really nice estate that we are quite determined to move to once this place is sold. We really love our current home as its resort like but there are too many push factors to move and we are glad we are moving real close to my parents and our workplace.

The real motivation to get me through all the work and school term is of course the holidays! Travel! Last year, we've already firmed up the idea of having a family trip as it's been years since we've traveled together. Its five day trip for us in Bali so I still have more than a week to go somewhere else.

Somewhere in February, I already knew I would be traveling alone this June holidays as P felt that he's too broke and he might be working by June. I was bitten by the trekking and hiking bug since last year but didnt have the chance to do any trip, this is a type of adventure P is not keen about so I gotta do it on my own. I'll update about my coming trip in the next post...

Very belated post for 2024

A lazy weekend

This is the first weekend of the year when I can really say that I have no work or markings on hand to clear. I've returned everything to the kids for revision and been leisurely spending the past few days in school finding things to mark and clear or tidy up. Anyhow, I thought I better work hard at my workouts and diet plans this weekend and try to get below 60kg again before we go overseas for a month. We are now exactly a month away from the trip! 

I did get to 58.2kg somewhere in late August when P was not around, but the trip to Taiwan with my girl friends in early September left me in digit 6 again, sigh! For the whole weekend, the scale stayed at 60kg and did not budge 0.1kg less for me to reach my target, but I would say I didnt really indulge either. 

I woke up on Sat morning munching on some snacks and P finally heated up his tinola after he woke up and I ate some pieces of those chicken with a bit of rice. We wanted to do our walks since Friday evening but we took turns to nap though I got home really early and we missed the timing to do our walk on Friday night. I ended up knocking out early before 11pm on Friday although I thought I'll just take a nap while waiting for P.

On Saturday evening, we couldnt decide what's for dinner and P suggested mookata and then we'll go for our walk after. We took our own sweet time going out of the house and by the time I finished my mookata order, it was 11.02pm when I headed to the cashier for payment. To our horror, we were informed the last order was at 11pm! We were in a really bad mood and walked in total silence as we did not get to eat dinner and P was not in the mood for anything else. Fortunately, we still finished the 4km+ walk (with iced milo in my tummy) and then P made some bread later that night while I cooked half a packet of Shin ramyun (with egg and cheese for protein).

His favourite ikura gunkan

Grilled soy cod fish

$13 Venchi gelato dessert

I only slept at 4am (updating last year's trip blog) and P slept at 6.30am, so he woke up late again. I only had some snacks in the morning and heading back to bed to nap at 2pm. After waking up, we decided to head to MBS to make use of his monthly $100 voucher at Sen of Japan. We were there quite early, I think it was before 6pm and it was good that we reached before the dinner crowd as we did not make any reservations. We topped up $40 cash for the orders and then headed to Venchi to get an ice cream for sharing.

The flyer at dusk

One love Asian Festival

My favorite skyline

Always loved the vibes here

We finished the ice cream and headed towards GBTB for our walk. It was a windy night and there were dark clouds, we thought it would rain but it didnt. There were lots of tourists and foreigners walking towards the barrage and we only did a short 1km+ and then headed back to MBS again. It got a bit more humid as the dark clouds cleared but I was still glad there were some wind. P went into MBS to look for his friend for a short chat while I continued my walk towards Fullerton.

Being in this area always remind me of COVID years, as we stayed more than 40 nights in MBS over the three years, the last being 31/12/2022, I think we were really lucky even though they stopped giving us the free nights after that. I'm really really glad everything is back to normal again after COVID as I still prefer all the traveling that we can do and plan now, even though it made us so so broke. I met up with P again at 8.30pm and we headed home. The ikura gunkan from Sen of Japan seemed to shrink quite a bit and we thought we would still go to mookata after getting home, but we got sleepy and and the ice cream had already filled our tummy after the walk. 

I missed my GEWR HM this morning but I'm glad I still managed to do 10km of walks this weekend. With my anemic body now, it's so hard to get back into jogging and running, but I need to buck up and start preparation for Nagoya if I really want to go back to my overseas runcation. 

Halloween Horrors Night 2023 (Visited on 20th October 2023)

This is our 7th time visiting HHN, the second time after COVID and it’s also 5th time we went with express passes, we only went without those the first two times and by now we couldn’t stand queueing for 40-50min without it especially at this age. It is still a huge splurge as it’s just a few hours of fun for a few hundred bucks but P wouldn’t hear of us not getting one and it’s already a tradition and something we look forward to every year. The first time we got an express pass in 2017, we spent $360+ and this year its a steal at $250 for two as we decided to go without the rides (been taking those rides too many times anyway).

HHN 11th edition

The first time we went was 2014 and I first blogged about it, then we went in 2016 with P’s friends and then 2017 (second blog), 2018, 2019, 2022 and this year. I took photos or gotten photos from P everytime we were there, thinking that I would do a blog after that but I didn’t really. 

Kobe first time at Sentosa

We drove using Get Go’s Tivoli last year and it was quite an experience as the car was really big and there were no dashcam in the car. We even lost our way when driving into Sentosa last year. This year we upgraded to our own ride and went with Kobe. I had dinner and then napped after reaching home from school, so we only got to USS after 9pm. We parked some distance away so it was quite a walk to USS, it was all quiet when we reached and we only saw a few people entering when we got to the entrance. After the first post-COVID HNN last year it was already very quiet and I thought we didn’t really need express pass as last year it was really quite empty when we went last year, unlike the hype of HNN pre-COVID.

The mandatory photo outside with the US signage

This year they came up with these luminous HNN souvenir watches

The streets leading in are quiet quiet

Always an actor here for photos but we didn’t stop

Our first haunted house

Once getting inside, it was still quite quiet till we get nearer to the haunted houses area, the average age of the group there being 20 years younger than we are. This year there are more people than 2022 and the express passes are still quite worth it as the queues were at least 40 min long. 

Our first haunted house depicted the scenes of the 18 levels of hell, I would say that nothing in those haunted houses really scared me anymore after the previous six times there, but it was still fun in a sense, like a tradition and ritual that we looking forward to yearly. We did miss those during the two years of COVID when all these events were non existing. This year, it was still the classics: the actors who tried to scare us by rushing out from nowhere, those looking fierce or scary or bloody, those hiding behind the moving windows and traps and unlikely statues who suddenly move and so on. There were no queue for those of us on express passes and the couple in front of us suddenly got scared about going in first and let us go through first instead. However, the screams and shouts of the young lady behind us was scarier than the actors, and it happened many times for the subsequent haunted houses too. I literally was glad to just walk in front fast and get away from those screaming youngsters behind me. This haunted house in particular had many sections so I guess the 40min wait for those with normal passes was still quite worth it and its a good warm up for those of us who visited this first.

Still felt good when we walked right to the front of these lines

Some setups to depict futuristic scary scenes

The actors here were like walking dead but not scary

Looked like some virus had taken over the world

The next haunted house was my favourite out of the 5 for this year’s edition. It’s from the Netflix thriller “all of us are dead’ and I didn’t watch it as I don’t like gore. However, I felt those who who watched would probably relate to it better, just like the ‘stranger things’ theme many years ago. The queue for this haunted house was also quite long due to the hype from Netflix. I had to eat my words when I first told P that HHN is no longer as hyped up as pre-COVID days and we probably didn’t need express passes. The queue for this haunted house was 50min and I don’t think I would enjoy queuing up as compared to just walking straight up to the front of the line.

Outside the haunted house

The very long queue without express passes

Our watch, liked these as its free

Stopped a bit to watch this but it was quite boring

After the second haunted house, we went through the scare zone (wasn’t that scary except for the screams of people behind us) and then stopped at the big stage to wait for the show. There were people actually sitting down to wait for the show but we found the theme quite boring this year (some futuristic stuff) and we moved on soon after that. Other than the average of the groups there being young, I also noticed a lot of foreigners, probably they flew in from the neighbouring countries like Indonesia just for this. I would love to visit the one in USJ someday, when I’m not working in October.

The scare zone near the main stage

Some game stalls and we saw people walking around with these toys

We came back to this after all the haunted houses

The start of the scare zone with hanging cloth and dry ice 

Had to turn off these in the haunted houses

Grimm’s Encounters was my least favourite

We moved on to the third haunted house and there was a long queue, even for express pass holders we had to queue for about 10-15min, I was feeling hot and thirsty and couldn’t wait to get over with this. I think it was a scary version of the fairy tales but to me it was not worth the long queue as the whole tour was over quite fast. 

Those superstitious Chinese might not like this

This was not too bad 

The next haunted house that left an impression on me was the Rebirth of the Matriarch as the very first scene after we stepped in was a very real set from a Chinese funeral and wake at a Teochew home maybe. I bet some of the older Chinese or even those in my age group will say ‘Choy Choy’ when they see this scene and wouldn’t like it. Anyway, it was so real that it left an impression in me. 

The Weeknd After Hours til Dawn was something about bars and nightclubs gore after all partying and stuff. As usual, all the houses had different zones with those plastic sheets covers before we enter the next area and it’s usually scary to lift those up as we wouldn’t know what will jump at us from behind those sheets. I lifted those up quickly and hung onto P’s arms the whole time. However, I realised walking in front had it advantages as the actors usually jump at people who are in the second or third group instead of the very first ones. 

We went for the gimmicky set meal 

Looked like some rotten food with blood

As I was a hot and thirsty, I was glad we went into the cafeteria to take a break and use up the vouchers that came with the express passes. The set meal was still expensive but at our age we are okay with spending some on theme park food and it cost $30+ to get this set with the special cup, matching with our bracelet and another souvenir to bring home. The burger with the double beef patty was very filling so we didnt finish all of it, however we left with our stomach filled.

Highlight of the night

In the car

Taking up space at home lolx

The highlight of the night came after our supper. P was very keen in the carnival games and in my mind I was thinking he was going to waste money again, as we had tried this in Legoland Malaysia many years ago and he attempted many tries but didnt get the toy, instead paying RM50 in the end. However, I just kept my comments to myself and let him have all the fun he wanted. The game was $5 for one game and $10 for three, it was not that expensive to have some fun. We saw the teenagers who tried before him failing as the balls were quite bouncy. Surprisingly, he already got both balls in during his first try and was also successful in the second round. 

It was already past midnight but we suddenly became so happy and excited after the game. The tiring part after that was all the photos he wanted to get with his two big fluffy furry balls, and I got tired taking thousands of photos for him. It was still a fun night overall and I’m sure we’ll be back for future editions of HHN. 

My kind of lunch/dinner

Some of these days I came home really hungry and had my favourite early dinner (around 3pm-5pm). Shin ramyeon! I’ll just have half a packet and make it more nutritious by adding runny egg/ kimchi/ seaweed/ cheese and other stuff. I’ll still lose weight this way as I only ate some biscuits with black coffee in school. 

Yummy! 

Introducing our ride - Kobe

After we bought our new home here in Kovan, I realised the journey to school is really long and started going for driving lessons to get a license. I enrolled in Ubi driving centre in Dec 2021, but the theory lessons and practical lessons took longer than expected (we can only book 10 sessions per month then) and after failing my practical test once, I finally got my license in May 2022. For the whole of 2022, I took Grab to school in the morning and I realised the cost of such private hire is going up, inflation on the whole post-Covid is really no joke! My record was a $32 one way trip to school on a rainy Saturday morning. To save money, I tried to walk and take public transport home after work but it was a long long journey.

We also rented Get-go vehicles ( one of the ad hoc car rental services here) from July 2022 onwards to get our stuff home from storage and to drive ourselves around, we found that it’s a great convenience to have a ride. We started thinking about getting our own ride as it’s tiring and costly to pick up Getgo vehicles if we’re going to use it regularly. On top of that, we were worried about the cost of repair from such rental company if we were real unlucky. We went for one car viewing before we left for the month long Europe trip last year and it was a second hand Volvo, but it did not have a wow factor so we did not do anything after the viewing.

After our trip, we continued to rent Getgo almost every weekend to get around and run errands and suddenly started viewing second hand cars on SgCarMart and other platforms again. On the eve of CNY, we went to Ubi and saw a A180 Mercedes that we really liked. We were disappointed when we called my bro-in-law to take a look and he found many issues with the car. P scoured through the second hand cars platform looking for a mini after that and we only found two at that point of time, but we really liked Kobe colour and the price was also just right (with about 30 months left until Sept 2025). I was busy with work after that so P contacted the owner and viewed the car with my bro-in-law. It was love at first sight for him and we finally became car owners on 02/02/23. On the first day he picked up the car, I drove it home from work and really loved it as it’s so easy to drive. We became fans of mini cars after that. 

Kobe is one with wow factor! (For us at least) P named it Kobe after Kobe Bryant as Kobe is the same colour as his Chicago Bull jersey. He also became fans of the mini Union Jack logo and all sorts of mini accessories. 

Kobe has been with us for 8 months already.

Can do without a car nowadays, we love Kobe!

Met up with other mini fanatics at an awesome event.

Minis are awesome and cool, we would stick to one

A mini version of our mini

Another random post

 

Attended colleague's wedding last sat

It reminded me so much of our wedding 6 years ago. How time flies! It had been a long time since I've attended a colleague's wedding, think the last time was a Sat wedding lunch 5 years ago. 

Photo with the couple and the photo-bomber after the dinner

The bride was nice to send us the table photos

Just a random post

Something weird happened recently, my eye suddenly got infected with a stye and it was a pretty bad one, which forced me to take two days MC from work. It started when P finally came back from PH after a long 5 weeks vacation. 

My eyes got tired easily and it hurt to keep it opened

After a few days of the infection, it got worse instead of getting better and I finally decided to see a doctor as it got very tiring to keep my eye opened. Doc put me on antibiotics and gave me some cream. I decided to take the day off from school as I was finally going for my KKH appt to start looking into something that had been bothering me this year, but that is again another story. 

Got worse instead of getting better

I really thought I would get better after a day of staying at home, but on Thursday night the swollen part got worse instead and I had no choice but to enjoy the unintended long weekend. Luckily the doc offered to give me 2 days MC and I decided to just take it for such just in case situation. The antibiotics, ointment and the hot compress that I was putting on my eye was not helping. 

Ugly :(

The next day was Mid Autumn festival and we celebrated with the folks. The stye swelled and the bump got even bigger, I got worried when I saw that it was so big and painful, and there seemed to be pus inside. I decided to go back to the doc the next morning and hopefully he will do something about it. There was a super long queue when we went to the clinic at 10 am so we registered and asked the clinic assistant to give me a call when it was near our turn. We also had to go back to KKH to collect medicine for my monthly condition so we headed there while waiting. Just as we were getting back home from KKH, the clinic called and I went back to see the doc. He kept saying that it didnt look good (which was obvious) and he gave me a jab on my butt plus stronger antibiotics. 

There is a belief that we should try to get the pus out as it's a sign that infections are getting better when the pus appear. P was against the idea but it kept haunting me so much that I tried poking with needle though it was still quite painful to do so. Over the next day, the pus finally ooze out slowly and the ugly eye finally got better. Phew! 

On afterthought, I'm not sure how the blocked gland and infection came about, but I had lash extension forcefully removed by my itchy hand just a few days before it started so that could be the reason. :(