Day 1 of Quantum of the Seas (Royal Carribean) Cruise to nowhere

The day started well as I was quite sleepy and tired, thus I slept in instead of doing my morning workouts. I finished packing well ahead of time and after P came home, we had a quick lunch (of maggie mee) and headed to marina bay cruise centre. It's the first time we arrived there, although we saw the huge cruise ships when we stayed garden view in MBS before. There were not many cars on the road heading to the cruise centre and when we arrived and unloaded our sole luggage, we saw a few other families arriving with us. I think overall just three or four groups of people and there were a lot of staff standing around. 

Purple for Star Class (like the royalty)

Once we identified ourselves as Star Class passengers, there was a staff holding a purple placard ushering us to all the different counters. It felt like VIP treatment immediately, but things could not sped up much as there's the mandatory ART that we have to take before boarding and the results took at least 30min. The uncomfortable part about taking the test was not the test itself but waiting in the makeshift area out of a carpark and the weather was rather hot and stuffy this afternoon. Even for Star Class passengers, there wasn't a more comfortable area but just cordoned off and nearest to the boarding area for priority boarding so we can board anytime as soon as we received the SMS. Well, I cant complain much as the staff serving us and waiting around are stuck there the whole day, it kind of reminded me of the election duty I had performed many years ago. As for the test, it's quite similar to the swab test but less invasive as the swab stick only went to the lower part of the nose for swabbing.

Other two groups of Star Class passengers waiting for us

The rest of the passengers grouped according to their check-in time

Of course, one of the perks of being Star Class passengers is that we can check in anytime, even if we did not managed to get the earliest time slot of 2pm. I've been looking out for the booking of time slots since months ago but we only managed to choup the 3pm timeslot. Nevertheless, we arrived at about 1.30pm to take the ART since we can board at anytime. We were not the first few to board as our results only came in slightly later at 2++, the staff kept checking on us to see if we had received the SMS as we were the only ones left at the Star Class area. I peeked at the list of Star Class passengers on the staff's hand and I think there are about 9-10 groups. While waiting for ART, we saw a family of six and it was a couple with 4 young gals (1-10 years old). Yeah, there was quite a few families with children so I guess we cant enjoy a holiday totally without the kids but when we spoke to the staff, the capacity for the cruise is about 500+ compared to the full capacity of 5000. Even though they are allowed to operate at 25%, I think many people decided not to go ahead with their trips. 

Complimentary Moet champagne sent to the room

Generous fruits and canapes were ready

Refillable minibar

Lots of Evian bottled water for us

Our room dining area

Masks, tracelets, Hand Sanitizers and lots of menus

Very comfy living room area 

Stairs leading to our loft bedroom

Very comfy bed but pillows too soft

After clearing the immigrations and showing many staff our passports many times, we were finally on board at 2.40pm and we met our Royal Genie once we got onboard. There were many crew and staff members lining up to welcome the guests at the entrance but we were already well taken care of by our Royal Genie Peng Yu dressed in her purple work suit. It was hard to tell the difference of being on board and on land as the cruise just looked like a big shopping mall. Being virgin cruisers, we were overloaded with information and excited to get to our suite so Peng Yu brought us up immediately. The deck we arrived on was on level 5 and there were two lobby areas with rows of elevators to get us to other parts of the ship. 

Our room was on deck 10 and Peng Yu briefed us the necessities after we finally got there, it was a long walk as our room is right at the aft at all the loft suites area. After she gave us lots of information, she left us to settle down in the room. We excitedly explored around and took pictures, it felt bigger than our home so there was still plenty of space to look at. After reading milelion blog, I thought it would be better for us to handle the luggage on our own, but they assured us that the luggage would be brought to our room almost immediately. It was a good idea as we had to go around to take the ART and wait for the results so being luggage free was really better. 

More gratitude and blessings from me and for me, we are going for the star!

So I was on my way to my parents place yesterday, checked my email and saw an email from Royal Carribean sales team, they are offering us an upgrade to the Grand Loft suite, we'll just need to top up $400 ($200 per pax/ $50 per pax per night). Although there's only one bedroom, it's a loft and it's Star Class with royal genie! I wouldnt say it's a no brainer upgrade as it's already a lot of money spent on this holiday, it's still reasonable compared to what we would spend if we were going to Japan but still, there's the restrictions on food and no dining out so we cant take full advantage of the unlimited food and beverage privilege. However, I got tempted after I did a quick check and saw how grand and luxury the room looked. We will also get complimentary iFLY and VOOM so the actual cost to top up from our original balcony stateroom to this Grand Loft is still few hundreds per pax. 

The previous upgrade we managed to secure to the Grand Suite was already a huge huge room, so I checked with P and see if he is keen. He is in a really good mood lately as he finally managed to get an offer at his 'dream job' so he even offered to pay for the upgrade. We decided to go for it as this is really once a lifetime experience, never in our dreams I had imagined we'll get to be on Star Class on our very first cruise experience. 

I was negative! 

After P got home from work, we went to Swissotel Stamford hotel (where we got married!) to get our swab tests done. I've heard lots of horror stories about how bad it is and people left with teary eyes after getting poked etc. To my relief, I only felt that it was ticklish, like someone used a cotton bud to dig my nose so it was pretty alright, and my virgin swab test went really well. I did not feel the long swab sticks getting too far back into my nose at all, thankfully the lady was really skilful. The whole place where we took the swab test was really quiet, there were many staff standing around and it seemed that we were the only passengers they were serving so the whole process was really quick. In fact, we walked through Raffles City to take the train home and the whole mall was just scattered with some people here and there. About seven hours later, we got the notifications on the app that the test results came back negative and we were all cleared to go. 

My regular manicurist did this nice design for me

 

 

What I'm up to these days

Last night, I was watching a video of my first and only ultra marathon at Hakusan Shirakawa-go, cant believe that was already five years ago! It's already the second consecutive year that we're stuck here in SG and we cant travel during the holidays. As I watched the video and read the blogs of my traveling, I kept feeling the pangs of wanderlust. Sigh. Usually I have no problems falling asleep, but I could not sleep until 6am in the morning, therefore I did the previous post and update.

Well, other than looking forward to the cruise trip, I'm trying to get back to a healthier routine, making good use of these six weeks to get myself into better shape. Other than going to school last Thursday and Friday, I didnt step out of the house for a solid four days until last night when I took a walk with P to St Andrew's village. 

Clear sky with bright moon

Somehow, I've lost the motivation to jog or run for now, but I've been doing Chloe Ting's workout again and I've only skipped one day out of the past five days. P and I started taking these walks for awhile but we havent been going to St Andrew's for a few weeks already. Last night happened to be this super flower blood moon lunar eclipse night and we spotted the big and bright moon when we took our walk at 9pm+. We ended our walk at almost 11.20pm and there were still many runners, cyclists and people taking strolls at such wee hours. I've enjoyed the walk as it cleared my mind and there was also a warm breeze. Surprisingly, I didnt sleep well last night despite the walk so I did not go to school as planned. I woke up at 9.30am, did some urgent work and started my home workout routine so at least I feel better after that. 

Back to Phase 2 (Heightened Alert)

Something happened the past two weeks and our term was cut short abruptly. Community cases in SG went up from 0 to 30+ last week. It started around two weeks ago, when many primary school kids became Covid positive after a tuition centre cluster infection broke out. It was already announced that we are going into a heightened alert Phase 2 period whereby only groups of 2 are allowed outside and there is also no more dining in. A few days later, due to the Covid cases in schools, we went into FHBL once again in the middle of Term 2 Week 8 and finished off the remaining few days with HBL. 

Well, it's not supposed to be good news but in a way, holidays had started earlier for us and the kids as we are all just staying at home and completing our work from home, thus it is less hectic than normal school days. This turn of events caught me off guard to be honest as I was just expecting the rest of the world to deal with Covid, while we wait out in the safety of the country. For the coming holidays, the mood is certainly not as festive as last year December as movement is very much restricted these few weeks and kids are not out and about. (Silent hurray for us though) 

P and I had decided to go ahead with our staycation last week and we'll also head out for our first cruise trip next week. Even though dining is affected, we are not so much of a foodie and we figured out the whole place will be much quieter without the kids and families. Plus, we are really dying to get out for a trip, to international waters, even though we're just heading to nowhere. 

FIRST post of 2021

Looking at the first post I posted in 2020, it would be an understatement to say that the year did not go as awesome as I had hoped for. 2020 is really an unforgettable year for many reasons and there were many firsts for us. Anyway, I have no clue when this will be over, I can only hope that the coming year we're going to survive and have a better time. 

People lined up across the street waiting for fireworks

We were blessed with the VIP view for another round of the community fireworks to welcome 2021. The initial plan was only to have a friend over and we will have some simple dinner to celebrate the new year. However, some of P's friends invited themselves over quite last minute to enjoy the fireworks. Once again, I'm super glad and happy that my biggest purchase in life turned out to be such a good investment. Honestly, we did have some fun and a better atmosphere doing the countdown together. 

Earlier that day on 31st Dec, I woke up super early at 7am to go to Mt E with mum for our scope medical appointment. That took longer than expected as we spent more than 2 hours waiting for the doctor, consultation, doing our pre-admission admin stuff and then a blood test. I rushed off for my manicure appointment after that and my tummy was a warzone again. After that, I rushed home to use the toilet, rested for a short while and went out again to meet my friends for coffee. 

I hope my ordeal will end soon with the colonoscopy and gastroscopy scheduled next week. Out of four days of having meetings in school last week and this week, I was suffering from the wind and bloating for three days. I guess I cant sit down for too long as my tummy will create a storm out of nowhere so walking around and going to classes is actually much more comfortable for me now. Hopefully the scope procedure will prove to be worthwhile and I can get rid of the nagging pain soon. 

Long long time ago

The empty pool

The empty cinema

On Saturday, I did something I've not been doing for a really long time. I went for a quick 10 laps at the swimming pool on the 7th floor since the weather was holding up and it was not rainy. I was surprised that the pool was empty, it was rather cool as the sky was overcast with dark clouds. As I was finishing my 10 laps, a group of uncles appeared and I quickly got up and left the pool to them.

We rested a lot during the day and decided to go to the cinema to catch Wonder Woman 1984. The last movie we watched was many months ago in February and I guess this will be the only two movies for us this year. The cinema looked empty when we got in, in fact we hardly saw anyone on our way to the cinema as we booked a 12.20am movie. There were actually two other couples but we did enjoy a lot of space to ourselves. 

My first and only blood donation this year

 

Snapped a few photos since the opposite seats were empty

Finally! 

I've been trying to donate blood earlier this year even before COVID officially hit us. I was even obsessed with it and went 3 times in a row once my deferral period was over. Anyway, I was deferred all 3 times due to low iron count, it even went as low as 10++ and my deferment got longer and longer and I gave up. 

I stopped my digestive acid medication and booked an appt online a few days ago. Bloodbank usually have low blood level in December as half the country is overseas but this year its different, they even told us there's no hurry to donate as blood level in the country is healthy. As I have a pending endoscopy coming up and will not be able to donate for a few months after that, I decided to go ahead. Anyway, I was not having high hopes of passing the iron count test but at least I try.

My stomach was queasy after fire ramen dinner last night and I know I have to eat something and not exhaust myself before the donation to increase my iron count during the prick. I decided to put off taking the medication till the blood donation trip, but I was breaking wind the whole night and ran to the toilet first thing in the morning. I was glad I didnt put on weight after the the ramen dinner as I had a lot of carbs yesterday, I also ate kway chap (including the kway) for lunch. I did not have much appetite and made myself the golden keto smoothie (with tumeric ginger cinnamon etc) and that was a mistake even though it was quite delicious. Once I alighted from the MRT, I had to find a clean toilet in PS and apparently, I was having diarrhea and losing water.

Surprisingly, I was able to pass the iron test by 0.1g/dl and found myself waiting on one of the beds in the donation room. The crowd control inside the bloodbank was quite good compared to pre-COVID period when people were crowding and rushing down to donate then. There was no queue as I've made my appt online and I breezed through the stations quite fast. There was a short wait on the bed as there were only 3-4 nurses working in the donation room. The one attending to me was young and I was worried as I have tiny veins and usually only those very experienced nurses were able to find it. As expected, the thick needle went under my skin and went around a few times before she gave up and asked a older nurse for help, thankfully my blood flowed well after that. 

I was unwell right up till dinner due to the diarrhea, took my meds and dinner and slept super early even though it's Friday. This is my first and only time donating blood this year even though I made so many trips down to different HSA branches (I even tried Outram once) and I hope next year my blood donation journey will be smoother. 

Yearly meetup with the JPY-Z ladies

The vinegar drink and starters

Our very colourful starters and salad

My very big portion main course

The star shaped pizza with cream crust was really good

The mandatory wefie

 

I think the photos say it all. We always meet up yearly around November (Z's birthday) and sometimes June too when we are able to coordinate the time. I'm glad the girls I met the first few years of teaching are still in touch with me and we can catch up yearly.

This year, we met up at Sufood, its all vegetarian but the menu was more of fusion western fare and not what we expected of traditional vegetarian food. We met up on a Friday afternoon at Raffles City but it was quite crowded with shoppers and the restaurant was actually full at lunch time. We had the 8 course lunch set meal and the price was really affordable with big portion, most of us couldnt finish our main course. I would totally recommend friends to try out Sufood again. 

Staycation #9 & #10 at MBS

After checking out from Park Royal Pickering, we only stayed at home for a night before checking into MBS again. For our last two staycation at MBS this year, we had dinner at Lavo and Oscar's. I did not take any photos at Oscar's though as I was fighting another war with my tummy that night. 

Just outside the restuarant

Complimentary starters

The awesome view after sunset

Many people taking photos at the deck

LAVO is also on the 57th floor of MBS like Spago, but it was at Tower 1 and Cie La Vi is another restaurant at Tower 3 (which we did not manage to book this year). These restaurants take full advantage of the height and good view on the top of MBS and setting up their roof top bar/restaurants there. Honestly, before this bout of staycation, I did not notice there were three different restaurants. 

Our booking at LAVO was at 6.30pm but we went down slightly earlier as we were quite hungry. Unlike Spago fine dining setting, this was more casual american italian place. I have to say the setting was casual but the service was really good and the view was superb so I dont mind visiting again. It is also a good place just to get a drink with friends at sunset. 

It was warm when we just arrived as the sun was setting, there were a couple of girls drinking on the deck but most people were sitting indoors to avoid the glaring sun. As time got closer to 7pm, it got cooler and more people gathered on the deck to view the magnificent sunset. There were many people taking photos as well, so we finished our food and went out to snap some pictures. 

Staycation #8 Last day at Park Royal Collection Pickering

P looked happy with his food

 

The rice made the difference for P

The spread

On the last day, we went down to Lime restaurant for breakfast and the service there was really better than in the lounge. For our hotel package, we were entitled to late checkout at 4pm, so it was just a day of more napping and nuahing and watching Netflix since its staycation and my stomach was still giving me issues. In the end, we checked out at 1.30pm as P was expecting a parcel to arrive at home and I also decided that it was time for me to see a GP to treat my digestive issue. 

There was a short queue at checkout as the process was not as fast and painfree as the keydrop at MBS. Anyway, we charged our dinner at Lime to the room so we also had to do a proper checkout at the counter. 

December shenanigans when we cant travel

 

Our cosy home with xmas tree

I should say xmas is our favourite season as we're usually overseas and having our little adventure. This year, we bought a little xmas tree to light up our home and bring us some xmas cheer even though we can't travel. 

We meet at the Patio for D's birthday

Since we entered Phase 1 after post CB period, there is a restriction during gatherings and we are not allowed to sit at a table or hang out with more than 5 people. Since there are more than 8 people in our close-kitted group, we had to either meet twice or sit at separate tables and pretend not to know one another. My birthday in March was the last time all of us could gather and sit together, enjoying HDL. During CB when it was not safe to go out, we celebrated birthdays using online apps like HouseParty. 

Anyway, it was D's birthday last week and it was the first time we were all not overseas, so we met up at a ulu coffee-shop like place to have a meal. It was not the best arrangement as we had to sit at two separate tables (we were lucky to get it side by side) and tried to keep to the strict rules and not get caught. That was the best we could do for now. 

Happy National Day Singapore (55 Years of Awesomeness)

The flag that came with the fun pack

Each household received one of this, very apt for COVID days

Love my place so much, with fireworks right at the door step

Viewing the mobile column earlier in the day

Showing the sunset view from our balcony

 

National day was over a week ago and it was a long weekend, however the we did not get the school holiday off this year since the actual day was on a Sunday and we only had the Monday off in lieu. We did not get a half day off after the school celebration either since the eve of National Day was on Saturday this year. It was no biggie since we could not travel this year, I realised we had been spending most of our National Days abroad and this is the only year we have so many Singaporeans celebrating National Day in Singapore. The National Day Parade was scaled down to a small morning parade but many people (esp those with kids) were excited with the mobile column segment and the fireworks segment in the neighbourhood. I was lucky enough to see both from my balcony. 

Fitness goals and the taste of success!

Another one for the record again!

I promise I'm not that obsessed with weight. But I'm excited to realise I've lost more weight this morning. I seriously have not seen this number for years, a quick check on MyFitnessPal showed that the lowest I hit was 53.5kg when I just started keto 2 years ago. I had religiously tracked and followed the recommendations for my macros then, while now I'm just lazier and trying to stay on track as much as possible. I would say for most days I'm certainly dirty ketoing. Sometimes, when I have a few mouthful of rice, my diet is not even considered doing keto, but just low carb diet.

There's nothing much I can post about at this moment, as I've not been to places even in Phase 2 of post CB days. Many people were out and about for the past 10 days since they announced the nation entering into Phase 2 on 19th June, but I still try to keep to what I've been doing during CB period. It's been almost 2 months since I even go to Junction 8, which is just ten minutes walk away. I think the last time I've been there was to pick up dinner and get a new yoga mat for my workouts in May. Other than that, I've been to only three places the past 2 months. The first is of course my workplace. And I've visited my parents and celebrated Fathers' day with my family two weeks ago.

Last Monday, it was the first time I've dined out after months. The school is a nomination centre for the upcoming GE2020 so we could get off early on Monday afternoon and out we went for afternoon tea. On top of that, I've been taking Grab around and I've not taken public transport since March.

Chloe Ting rocks! 

Unbelievably, for the month of June, I only missed one day of not working out. It's crazy, I've always been quite active but I've never worked out for so many consecutive days before. It is easy to keep to this routine after I switched to home workouts, but nowadays I frequently do it late at night like hours after dinner and we dont really do together as a group on Zoom anymore. I'm now into Day 6 of Chloe's latest Intense Core Challenge and boy, it's really quite intensive and challenging. 

The month of July

I really missed Italy and traveling. We got so used to eating gelato daily during our trip then, we even had special missions hunting down gelato shops those days. I was delighted to see a post selling keto gelato last week and ordered these two tubs. Now I'm having these daily and I love the avocado chocolate one, the taste is really authentic. I've just put in my second order as I've finished the first tub of these.

Yummy Keto Gelato ice cream

Honestly I love rice and noodles, and probably noodles even more than rice. I'm able to cut out rice totally except for the occasional one or two bites of rice I pinched from P's plate. Other than that, I'm fine without rice and been doing okay with cauliflower rice for my occasional aaroz caldo dish. For noodles, it's hard to create dishes without them so I tried out different keto alternatives lately. I've been whipping up dishes using Lokarb and I've made my second purchase with just the fettucine. I also bought kelp noodles from iherb for my korean army stew, to replace the glass noodles as the texture is similar. Recently, I saw a post on facebook selling oat fibre noodles and these are now my favourites as the taste and texture is really similar to normal mee. The best thing is it does not need preparation unlike the other two options. I have shirataki noodles lying around but I had bad experiences with its taste so I've not touched those for ages. 

Different type of noodles while on keto diet 

My atas skincare collection, new routine daily

I've been buying stuff online a lot and that's the only mode for my purchases these months. Many shops are also having sales to clear off their stuff and I bought some skincare products that I've been eyeing for quite some time. I had not bite the bullet due to the price previously, but these were having such great discounts that I could not resist. 

Yippie! Another new low for my weight

With daily exercise and almost OMAD most of the times, I hit another new low for my weight, I think the whole of 2019 I did not see this number at all. I'm in the 55+ ish weight range now and I think it can hit 54kg soon. Ganbatte! 

New workout bench

P bought another addition to our home gym. He did not mention anything and just bought it offline so I was surprised when the bulky item was delivered. I was worried it will take up a lot of space but we managed to cleared up the boxes lying around and it's quite foldable. 

Last weekend before CB ends and BTS (BACK TO SCHOOL!)

CB is coming to an end in a few day's time though things are far from normalcy in the coming one month, except for the fact that we're going back to school. I guess life will take some time before it return to normalcy. Even though we're going back to school, it will be quite different from the times pre-CB period. The greatest challenge for us and students is to get used to having the masks on at all times once we step out of the house.

After a 40++ days hiatus, I was back in school yesterday. It was definitely the first time I was away from school for so long. I was at home the past two weeks and did not even go downstairs so now I'm slowly adapting to life out of the house again. 

Anyway, I'm back blogging about some of my culinary adventures the past week. Diet. Exercise. Happy life during COVID-19. 

On Friday (21st May), I cooked another round of the cauliflower and cheese. It's still yummy but I was not craving for it, only cooked it as I only use half the head of cauliflower the previous time and I need to use up the remaining half before it turned bad. 

This was my fast breaker on Saturday, my version of the big breakfast. That was the last half of the tiramisu left (made 3 portions in total) and that was also my third try cooking the cloud bread, could see that I've not given up. Although it looked odd shaped and not too presentable, I was making some progress there as it can be finally considered some kind of food and bread. For a few days, I did not have dinner after workout and only drank dalgona chocolate with almond milk. I managed to lose more weight doing that. 

However, on Saturday late night, I started craving for food and weirdly, it was korean food with the kimchi taste. Watching Youtube videos to learn how to make those late night did not help as I was trying so hard not to succumb to the comfort food of instant noodles, luckily I do not have those at home anymore.

The next day, I got busy making army stew using the recipe I saved the previous night. Most of it are veggies and quite keto friendly although carrots and tomatoes can be a little carby. The stew was so satisfying that I finished the other half in the evening even though I intended to keep them for the next day.

 I have been doing the group buy for some exotic stuff on SHC facebook group and those scallops are part of those. We had decided to do a BBQ using the instant grill over the long weekend and P enjoyed grilling those scallops and yakitori even though it left our place with some BBQ smoke. I had to keep on diffusing my essential oil in the living room to get rid of the smell. The instant grill worked amazingly well though.

I gained back some weight after the day of feasting so I continued with my workouts and very light dinner for a week to get rid of the weight gain. For Monday and Tuesday meals, I had tuna and unagi as my main meal and for dinner it was just the almond milk. 

I'm proud to say we kept up with our zoom workouts daily for a month and it's sad that we have to stop after next Tuesday. I'm determined to continue with this as its easier to get things going unlike going for a jog when I had to wait till the sun goes down and sometimes I became too nuah after work. So far for the zoom workouts, I only missed two days of not working out at all as I had tuition sessions last week and got too lazy after that. Now, I've decided to wear my workout tee for tuition and start immediately after that before I get too lazy. I'm amazed by my own discipline though, sometimes I add on more workout videos to my routine after the girls had signed out from zoom.

On Wednesday and Thursday, I cooked the remainly Iberico Secreto and split it into two portions. Unfortunately, I forgot to salt and pepper those before cooking so it tasted a bit bland. I'm really proud of myself as those cloud bread finally turned out much better at the 4th try. Nowadays my appetite is really small and I dont really feel hungry even after the workouts. 

I made the lemon mug cake again this morning and grilled a piece steak. I added on the unagi as I had forgotten about finishing those the past few days. I'm hoping to keep up with the fasting and good diet plus daily workouts after I'm back in school next week. There's no time stamp on this picture as I've already gotten used to the hours of IF and dont really need the app to help me already.