December 2019

Finally we have come to the end of the Schedule Book series for 2019. I'm excited to start another year of Schedule book, and I've actually been preparing it for a month now. It's going to be a super unique book. I would probably most more about it tomorrow!

Coming back to December's highlight as I wrap up my year, in real-time, I am actually blogging this on New Year's Eve 31-Dec-2019. I've completed my scheduler book only today after closing off all the accounting part. The book is now sleeping nicely in my bookshelf for future reference only. 

Top highlight of the month? Quitting my job again, and this time being the shortest job duration ever at 14 months! I tendered on 13-Dec, and my last day will be 11-Jan. I didn't want it to exceed my birthday as part of me wanted to mark it as a retirement milestone, part of me have no desire to be working on my birthday, and I was tired of going to work on the other side of the country daily. When I joint the company, I thought I would have the chance to work overseas for a long period of time. But turns out, I was only overseas for 3.5 weeks out of the 14 months I work there. With the change in my family situation, I also thought it was time to put the travel bug to a rest and remain more grounded. So bye bye job. 2020 is going to be a super exciting year! (At least for the first 3 months anyway!)

2nd highlight was me making Tangyuan for Dongzhi. How traditional is that! It even comes with peanut fillings and sesame fillings! I am still amazed how a short wagashi workshop can spin off so many other cooking projects! I also attempt to make ondeh-ondeh this week, but it was a failed project never to be attempted again! But tangyuan was do-able. It's cheap, filling, and healthy for me! 

Towards the end of the year, I've also decided to slowly change my diet. When I came back from my Thailand trip in November, I weight 63kg. Today, I weight 59.9kg, and that was mainly due to the damaged done dining at 5Guys and Shake Shack recently. My lowest achieved in December was 59.5kg. And this has given me much motivation to try to achieve my ideal BMI of 57kg. After all, it's just another 3kg, right? I have big plans for 2020! To start off, I switched to chicken breast the other day and survived! It actually didn't taste that bad or dry. Nothing a little Nandos sauce can't fix! So I'm thinking of continuing on this trend and see how the weight goes. 

I've also decided to eat more salad after buying a bottle of Japanese Sesame Sauce that taste amazing on the salad! And to round it all up, I've decided to cut down on carbs and eat more fruits and vegetables instead. I've also started using my Instagram as a food diary. You can check it out if you are interested of all the amazing food creation I've come up with so far. 

2020 is looking to be good so far. From February onwards when I am back in Singapore, I plan to start fully utilising my gym membership as it will be more accessible to me then. If I keep this up, I plan to lose my tummy and start on some abs and perhaps better looking clothes! Wish me luck! Happy New Year 2020!

November 2019

November was a stressful month. My 2nd project based in Turkey was supposed to go live, but at the same time I had promised to go on a road-trip with my girl friends to Khao Yai Thailand. Since I already knew I wasn't going to continue on working in the company for long, I informed my boss that I would not be able to travel to Turkey for the go-live support. For some reason after that, nobody end up being sent to Turkey even though travel arrangement had been made. I went on my own trip as planned, and life continue as per normal.

I only have 2 photos to share for the highlights of November as I usually don't really post photos of work colleagues unless it's in a casual setting. However number 2 above was with my ex Head Of Department and my ex Managers and senior colleagues, so I decided to skip the photo for this one. It was a casual dinner at a Chinese restaurant and I went more for the experience of meet up up with people that I don't usually socialise with. Turns out it was a fun evening, and I was the most junior in the group (in terms of joining the company last). 

So number 1 highlight was of course the trip to Khao Yai, Thailand. We were initially supposed to spend two nights there, but due to some friends dropping out and some having work commitments, it was reduced to just one night. Above was my favourite moment there, bare feet, sitting by the pool in the morning before we left the resort. Sky was blue, water blue, and green trees and lovely weather, what is there not to like? Sadly I was dragged away after that to continue on our journey. If I'd been alone, I would have just sat there the whole day doing just NOTHING! My kind of holiday!

And for some reason, my number 3 highlight is related to a normal night at the gym, dancing away to great music with my favourite instructor. I think it was also his birthday session. I just recall I had a great time dancing away and was really into the flow of the music and dancing my heart out. Sometimes, normal everyday thing made it into the highlights, showing me to be grateful for the simpler things in life. 

By the time you read this, it should be 2020, and I still got December 2019 post to complete! Ketchup Cordy! Ketchup!

Happy New Year 2020

Happy New Year 2020! As you can see from the photo above, it started out quite a cloudy day. We woke up at 530am today and went to East Coast Park hoping to catch a beautiful sunrise like what we did just few days back. But even though we stayed till 730am, all we got was a gloomy grey sky....

Went back home and cooked a heavy brunch of toast bread, bake beans, fried egg and some salad. Super delicious. I can afford to eat this much cause I was skipping lunch today as we have a 2 hour zumba class today. What a great way to start of the year, healthy meal and exercise! Whoever think that retirement is boring is really lack of creativity and imagination. 

After the gym session, I went and bought a nice unagi for dinner. I already planned to have unagi for dinner tonight, but the fact that this meal was partly sponsored by Citibank passive money was just awesome. I love free money. So for dinner we had unagi cooked two ways: baked to bring out the smoky intense flavour, and steam with egg to get the creamy milky flavour. I also steamed some okra to go with the meal. The meal ended off with some nice cranberry fermented honey drizzled on some vanilla Haagen Dazs. Heavenly!

Wawasan 2020 is finally here! The first day as been awesome so far. Although I've already quit my job, I still have to go back to work tomorrow and until end of next week. After that I'm taking a break from work and just relax for 3 weeks or so. I am quite hesitant about going back to work. There is this lost of freedom that I felt so strongly whenever I am at work. I can't just go out and eat whenever I want to, or go travel whenever I want to. It's just so restricted. And although technically I can survive without working these days, I still like to travel more, and travel cost money! So if I want more quality travel, I may have to go back to work for a little while longer. But all in all 2019 was an interesting year. I travelled so much, and experienced so many new things. Work was new but boring, but it did gave me a chance to travel to the other side of the world. And for that, I am truly grateful. 2020 will be a slower pace year with probably less travelling. The focus will be mainly on health and fitness. I am training to ground myself so that I can slowly cure myself of my travel bug :P

Happy New Year readers! Thanks for dropping by!

October 2019

October seems to be a month of food, both making and eating. Seems the 3 highlights below are all about food. I must have been really hungry! 

After attending a wagashi making workshop in March 2019,  and after coming back from Japan, I have bought back some wagashi making ingredient, mainly red bean paste. And for some reason, strawberry was really cheap in October, like two punnet for 5SGD? So I decided to make some Ichigo Daifuku, which is strawberry wrapped in red bean paste, wrapped in mochi. Above was there result of the first batch. It was delicious! And so easy to make than what I expected. I normally don't buy or eat this outside cause I think they are rather expensive and not really that nice anyway. But those that I make fresh from glutinous rice flour was so soft and chewing and absolutely delicious! This will become a common dessert I make at home. I love the fact that you attend one single class, and a thousand ideas start forming in your head! You will get what I mean when I reach the December 2019 post in just a few more days :)

I also invited my high school friend and family to my house in October. Her son for some reason, love meeting me, and I've been putting off this meetup for the longest time due to my hectic travel schedule. I think it was my time to cook as we usually just visit each other's house and take turn cooking. I actually prefer such meet up as its a lot more easier on the pocket, plus you can experience something totally different. Above was what I made on that day: Japanese vegetarian curry, tempura prawns, and chicken karaege, and salad. Lovely meal. And we played board game and talk through out the night. This is my kinda gathering. I wish more Singaporean would go for such meet up instead of always gathering at some generic mall and eating at some generic restaurant. How boring.

I also celebrated my 15th wedding anniversary. After being married for 15th years, there isn't much we haven't tried. So for 2019, we just decided to dine at my favourite South American restaurant that we discovered accidentally during one of our morning walks in Jewel. We initially just went in for the view since they have a great seats facing the waterfall. But the food there really surprised us and we've been back a few times every since. I've always knew I'd loved South American food even before ever tasting it. I used to watch Anthony Bourdain's travel show and the way he describe how the food was cooked there just make my mouth waters. That was one reason I was so interested in my current job anyway, to be able to work there. Sadly, or not, depend on how you see it, I will be leaving the company in January 2020 and venture into the new year with more adventure planned ahead! Stay tune!

September 2019

September was an awesome month. Travelled so much and had such a wonderful time. Both were unplanned travel, but awesome all the same. I don't know how I managed to travel so much while still having a full time job sometimes. But I guess if you love something that much, you will eventually find a way. I used to laugh when reading about this guy who was semi retired and travel every 2 months. Apparently that is a very manageable target after all! 

So here are my top 3 highlights for the month. This blog is starting to resemble a family blog, what with so much family photos!

Number one highlight is of course visiting my favourite country - JAPAN! I didn't actually planned for this trip. My husband happens to just be going there for a fermentation workshop for 3 days, and since the accommodation are paid for, I just needed to pay for my air tickets and voila! Kyoto and Osaka! I've been putting Kyoto off my list of places to visit for a long time now after hearing so much horror story about it. It's all true! Especially if you don't plan your trip properly and only visit the famous places. For me, I'm happy to walk the other way if I see a crowd of tourist before me. I'm also happy to wake up at unearthly hours to visit a place if it means I can avoid the crowd. Will for sure dedicate a few dozen post on this soon! 

The 2nd highlight was celebrating my Mum's birthday with her. Now my Penang annual trip has been shifted to September. And since I was going to be back for only a short weekend, and prices for E&O seems affordable, and I've always wanted to stay there, I decided to have a one night staycation in Penang with my Mum at E&O hotel. We did nothing at all but just check in and spend the whole time at the hotel. No regrets. It was lovely. For me the room was super elegant, and I especially love their music selection which was so classic. Top notch one of my favourite hotel to stay in even if I don't speak to a single person. It was hauntingly beautiful.

Last but not least, again I went to the theatre, and again watching a play I've seen before. Actually, this was the first play I've ever watched when I first landed in Singapore. I love Ivan Heng. If he is in drag, for sure I would go watch. And it's not just a gay thing either. I just love how elegant he carries himself as a lady. And most of the play I've watched him in always brings a tear to my eye. Lovely performance. 

Pardon me if I overshot my journal blogging as it seems I will overshot the new year at this rate! But someone once told me, Get it Done is better than Perfect! 3 more months to blog about and I can finally go back to easy going days! Gotta be discipline people! Shape up!