Best day I’ve had in ages

I went to take Kitty to the vet this morning. As I was waiting downstairs of our apartment building for my Grab driver, the skies decided to open and spew forth a whole heap of rain. When the driver arrived, I started whinging to him about how I didn’t bring an umbrella with me. So when we got to the vet clinic, he was actually nice enough to give me his umbrella. I felt sooo bad taking the umbrella, as I would’ve survived the 20 metres from the car to the entrance without it, and I knew the chances were slim that I’d need it on the way home, as torrential rain hardly ever lasts for more than 10-15 minutes in SG. But he insisted. When I got home later, I tried ringing the Grab hotline to see if there was a way to give it back to him, but the customer service officer actually spoke to him and he told her to tell me to keep it. Arghhh! So that was a very kind gesture that I received this morning, which I definitely want to pay forward one day.

And while I was on my way to the vet, the designer of my new Ballroom dress sent me his sketch of the proposed dress.

It’s so niiice! I’m so happy with it 😊 It’s simple yet elegant, and will match my Latin dress wonderfully, all of which was what I had requested from him. I’m starting to get excited about it now, after having (mostly) gotten over the shock of having paid so much for the deposit! 😂

And then the rest of my “usual” day worked out well too: I had perhaps my only good trading day this entire week; and I also had a good session at the gym later in the evening, lifting heavier weights for the most part and also still getting my dance basics done on the treadmill 👍

I finished off the day with the season five Christmas special of Downton Abbey. It was a good episode, happier than most, but it was Christmas when it was released, so I suppose they didn’t want to make it too depressing 😆

I couldn’t have asked for a better way to finish the work week 😊

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Rinse and repeat

My life is feeling very merry-go-round-y at the moment. It’s vet, work, gym, tv, house related stuff, rinse and repeat. It’s all feeling a bit monotonous at the moment, I need to spice it up with something. Dancing usually does that, but that has taken a bit of a back seat, with N travelling quite fair bit lately, so I’ve been going to the gym more frequently than usual to keep up with the fitness side of things.

And Chinese class has also been put on the back burner, that usually keeps things interesting too. I should keep up my regular study anyhow, that should put a bit more spice in my day, I reckon.

Oh and I haven’t worked on my new blog project lately. I could work on another post or two on that too.

I’m really feeling a bit out of sorts this week… I haven’t had the motivation to work on any of my usual things 😔

A Sunday all to myself

I decided to finally go get my eyes checked today. I dread going to the optometrist every time (much like the doctor, the dentist, the hairdresser…), but it’s one of those things that I know I just have to do. Luckily she didn’t find anything too worrying. She gave me the usual spiel about not wearing my contacts for too long blah blah. But I’ve been hearing that pretty much ever since I started wearing contacts, so that didn’t concern me too much. But when she didn’t find anything too worrying when she did a general eye health check, then that made me feel a little better. But I think I want to go see an ophthalmologist anyway, I think that I should really get a more thorough eye check, especially since my eyesight is so bad to begin with, which puts me into the higher risk category of getting eye related issues the older I get. So I asked for a referral, and now I’m hoping to book for an appointment sometime this coming week. Fingers crossed the results of the more thorough eye exam is just as comforting as the one today🤞

I then went to buy some cat litter, as we have completely run out. But the store had run out of the 10kg bags, so I had no choice but to buy the next size – at 20kg! So I had to lug this bag home – almost 1km away! I did consider taking a cab back, but I persevered 💪💪 I would ordinarily just get the litter delivered, but we’d completely run out, so this time I couldn’t wait even one day to get it delivered, let alone the minimum two day wait for their usual delivery. This is another one of my underbuyer situations where I waited until something completely ran out before I bought some more 😔

I’m now caught up with Masterchef Australia, so I decided to resume my watching of Downton Abbey. I just finished season four, and now only have two more seasons to go. What am I going to do once I finish the series?! I always feel so “empty” when that happens 😂

And I also started reading Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami. I haven’t read a book in a while that’s gotten me hooked right from the beginning, so this one is looking quite promising already. I read one of his earlier books The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which has to be right up there as one of the weirdest books I have ever read 😂 But I like his style, so I thought I’d give this book a go. So far I’m really enjoying it. This one is apparently a collection of short stories, so I’m wondering if each short story is going to be el weirdo acid trips in similar vein to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle too 😂 The first short story that I’m on right now is pretty normal, but I’ll let you know if it turns on me at the end 😊

And movie #3 that I came up with for that FB challenge: Namiya. I watched this on the same flight that I watched Color Me True (movie #2), and I really enjoyed it too. I watched the Chinese version, which was based on the Japanese film The Miracles of the Namiya General Store. I wouldn’t mind watching that film too. It would fall into the science fiction sub-genre that I like, and Color Me True would also probably be classified the same.

Now time to look for movie #4… Argh, it’s getting harder and harder!

Getting back to my level of “normal”

Kitty woke me up a few times last night, it felt like she was scratching about once every two hours. So I didn’t have the most restful of sleeps 😔

So my depleted battery wasn’t quite replenished when I got up this morning, and I was also feeling a bit like an “imposter” again, after all my socialising over the weekend. I didn’t quite feel like I was back to my usual self yet, and so I spent the morning relaxing and just trying to get back to my level of “normal”. I had to take Kitty to the vet, though, so I had to get through that first!

I turned the tv on and it was on the Bloomberg channel, so that actually helped me start replenishing my drained self. I then ended up trading for wayyy longer than I had planned, and ended up not getting to the gym as a result 😔 But by the end of the evening, I felt like I was pretty much back to “normal”, so I was just happy about that 😊

And we got to the halfway point on Masterchef Australia, twelve contestants left. N found out who won 😔 Someone posted the winner on FB and he happened to see their photo 😔 Awww knowing who wins ruins the journey, I reckon 😔

Good to not-so-good

I was having a relatively good day: FX seminar was good, and even my trading was good today. And Kitty had a particularly good appetite, eating three full meals today! I also cooked something new for dinner today, which actually turned out relatively ok:

Mince pork, mushroom and tofu with brown rice

I was happy with how it turned out. Plus it’s a relatively healthy dish too, so this is definitely going into my small – albeit slowly growing – database of simple recipes 😊

But sometime this afternoon, I started feeling a sore throat, and my nose started running 😔 Not a good sign. Ughhh I hate being sick. I’ve had such a good run this year, I’ve barely come down with anything!

So I skipped the gym today, and just watched an episode of Masterchef Australia to end my evening. Hopefully a good night’s sleep will do the trick and I’ll be all fine when I wake up in the morning 😳

Surprises everywhere

I decided to try the cafe on the ground floor of the hotel that we were staying at. I somehow stumbled across reviews of the place, and everyone was raving on about their egg tarts, so I just had to try it – even though I’m generally not a fan of egg tarts!

I was pleasantly surprised: it turned out that I enjoyed the egg tarts wayyy more than their coffee! And it’s primarily a coffee shop! I still drank what was effectively flavoured water 😕 coz I needed the caffeine. But it was pretty bad 😂

I then decided to walk around Mid Levels today, hoping to find a place to have a quick bite to eat before I flew out later tonight. It’s very hilly in that area, although I did use the mid-level escalators on the way up, so I didn’t exert that much energy 😂 They’re doing works on the escalators for the next four years though, so they’re closing down sections as they work on them. So I did walk up stairs for a bit of it, but not enough for me to really work up an appetite. So I ended up just ordering half a sandwich (you can order just half a sandwich! How awesome is that?!) from a bakery chain and taking it back to the hotel and eating it there. I love the half-a-sandwich option. It is so good for times like today when you’re not that hungry but just need a little bit to get you through.

I gave myself three hours to get to the airport, which was ample time. The longest part of the whole trip was waiting at the check-in counter! Terribly inconvenient for people like me who just need a boarding pass and don’t have any luggage to check in. I hope Singapore Airlines introduces their self-service check-in machines at Hong Kong airport soon! Given the number of people who travel to and from these two airports (I basically see it as akin to Sydney – Melbourne, with multiple flights flying between these two cities daily). They were trialling it in Melb last time we were there, so I’m surprised they haven’t introduced it in HK – a much closer destination, and no doubt a much more frequented one!

I wanted to watch Stranger Than Fiction during the flight, but I started writing a new post for my blog project. I just got carried away with that, and I didn’t have time to return to the movie. I’m getting a little excited about my new blog, actually. I’m surprised I have had quite a few things to write about. I was a bit nervous that I wouldn’t, especially given the topic, but I can’t keep up with my ideas! Sorry, that was all rather vague, but all will soon be revealed! I just need to come up with a blog name, and it’ll be good to go soon after that, I reckon. Fingers crossed!🤞

Dinner on the fight was really nice. I haven’t been that impressed the last few flights, actually, tsk tsk to Singapore Airlines 😆 But they redeemed themselves today 👍

Anyhoo, flight was fine, no issues, but the taxi ride home was a different story. I had a maniac driver who seemed to be using the speed limit as a minimum number, braking and accelerating every five seconds. And he preferred to take up two lanes whenever he could. He was tailgating and trying to overtake whenever he got the chance. I was totally freaking out the entire time I was in the cab, holding my breath at times, muscles tensed. But once we got to our apartment block, he helped me take out my luggage from the boot, and he was this nice, gentle older man, smiling and being all pleasant! Where was he when we were driving home?!? 😲

But I got home in one piece (just!), and I got to see Kitty again 😊 I always miss the little one every time we go away. Leaving her is always the worst part about travelling 😔

An ordinary Thursday, with a flight thrown in

I went to bed really late last night (about 3am 😲), because I was all keen bean and full of energy. But maybe it was more nervous energy, because I just wanted to get stuff done last night before I flew out today 😂

And then the fire alarm went off just before 6am. Whether it was in our building or the building next door, I couldn’t tell. I was half asleep! All I could think about was hoping that it was a false alarm because I really didn’t want to get out of bed and evacuate, if it was indeed a genuine fire and that it was in our building and not next door. But a few seconds later, it switched off and I breathed a sigh of relief 😅 I could go back to sleep and get a few more hours’ sleep this morning.

I woke up once every hour, though, until my alarm went off at 9am, so it wasn’t the most restful of sleeps. But I knew I had things to do today, including cleaning up the last few things around the house before I flew out later tonight, so the energy still magically came from somewhere.

I did go to the vet and to the FX seminar, so it was as normal a Thursday as I could make it. Except all the house preparation and final packing. And the worst part of travelling: leaving Kitty. I was actually late to the airport because I didn’t want to leave her all alone. I was hoping to sneak out when she was asleep, but that didn’t work out as I had hoped. Instead, she watched me leave the house, looking all sad and forlorn 😔

So I didn’t have much time at the airport this time. I bought some Irvin’s Salted Egg chips for N’s colleagues, entered a competition currently being held at Changi, and then it was time to head to my gate already. I didn’t get the chance to shop or visit the Butterfly Garden. But that’s ok, I wanted to maximise my time with Kitty, and I accomplished that 😊

I discovered on board that you can now link your seat to the SingaporeAir app! How cool is that?! I was wishing this exact same thing just a few flights ago, being able to access your playlist just by knowing where you’re sitting on any Singapore Airlines plane. I have to figure out how to use it properly though, as it wasn’t quite syncing for me on this flight. I compiled a playlist on my phone, but I couldn’t access it from my seat. However the playlist I compiled on board, I could control on my phone. So maybe it’s only a one-way street at the moment, seat monitor to phone, and not vice versa? I’ll link again on my return flight home, and see what happens then.

On the flight, I watched this Chinese variety show to help improve my listening. I chose this particular one coz Dwayne Johnson was a guest on the episode that they were showing on board! 😆 He was promoting his Jumanji movie, but it was good to see him mucking around and joining in the challenges and activities on the show. I couldn’t really follow what some of the challenges were, which made me even more determined to get my Chinese to a level where I can at least get the gist.

I landed safely, albeit a little late. I still managed to get to the hotel by train, as I think trains operate until 1am in HK. Freaking awesome! I hope I can get a good night’s sleep tonight, as I am feeling rather spent right now!