A historic day

Today was all about the Trump Kim Summit at Capella Hotel at Sentosa. Channel News Asia had live coverage all day, so I was tuned in for some of it, either on my phone or on the Channel News Asia channel 😊 I did consider going down to Sentosa with the hope of seeing something – anything! 😆 – at the hotel. But I checked to see where the Capella Hotel is relative to the touristy part of Sentosa, and it looked like a bit of a walk, so I changed my mind and watched the live broadcast instead 😊

At the start of the day

After signing, at the end of the day before they parted ways

Kitty and I had a vet appointment this morning, and her vet is close to the two hotels that the two leaders were staying at, so I was concerned that there’d be traffic chaos. But my fears were unfounded, it was all fine. My Grab driver actually chose to drive past Kim’s hotel, St Regis, on the way back home, but even driving that close to one of the restricted areas turned out to be perfectly fine 👍

The summit was a step in the right direction.

I had vegemite on toast today at a nearby cafe. The staff member who took my order didn’t understand that I wanted vegemite as my spread, he didn’t seem to know the word at all. Apparently they had just changed their menu and he wasn’t quite used to its contents yet. But the point is, vegemite is now on their menu! So I took it as a sign to extend the Aussie feels, having just gotten back from Melbourne last night. I may have to order it again next time I’m at that cafe for breakfast 😊

Vegemite on toast! 😋 

Did I mention that we’re going to Vietnam for a dance competition next month? We’re trying to get the details sorted (visas. flights, accommodation). We’re only going for a few days, much like our trip to Melbourne, so it’ll pretty much be a fly-in-fly-out trip. I’m hoping to get the flights and accommodation sorted tomorrow. I’m quite excited about it, since I’ve never been to Vietnam. I’m hoping a few days in Ho Chi Minh City will give me a bit of an idea of what the city is like, and whether I’d want to return again. I’m glad we’re travelling a bit more for dance comps. It’s one of my goals for this year (to be more well known in the dance scene in the region), and we’re meeting this goal quite nicely so far😊

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Back to SG

We managed to get out of the apartment for a quick breakfast at around 10am. We just had something small, as N wanted to have laksa at Chinta Ria, one of the food stalls in the food court upstairs in Emporium. I couldn’t quite understand why he wants to have a Malaysian dish while we were in Oz, since surely there are numerous Malays in SG who would make excellent laksa too. But when I tasted this laksa today (despite having had this same laksa a bajillion times before), I could now understand why he returns to this place every time we’re in Melbourne. Maybe my taste buds are finally maturing?? The combination of the fresh Aussie produce and the superb culinary skills of the chefs here make this a double whammy of deliciousness.

We then headed straight to the airport after lunch. Because of the Trump / Kim summit happening in SG tomorrow. SG airspace is restricted for the next few days, so I was expecting it to take a while for us to land. But it was all good, typical Changi efficiency 👍

I watched two more movies during the flight: a Hong Kong movie called Never Too Late and a Japanese one called Color Me True. I would like to know how they come up with their English titles because they do not match their titles in their native languages! The HK movie Never Too Late has a much more colourful name in Chinese: “爱情奴隶兽” (àiqíng núlì shòu), which I would translate as “love slave animal” 😂 The subtitles had it as “butt-licking slave”, so you get the drift 😂 But where does the English title come from??

And the Japanese movie was actually really awesome. The name of that movie in Japanese is “今後、ロマンス劇場で” (kongoo, romansu gekijoo de”, which I would translate as “from now on, at the romance theatre”. Both the Japanese and the English titles make sense when you know what the story is about, but why are they so different? Even if it isn’t a direct translation, why aren’t they even remotely close??

Anyway, I’m glad I watched the Japanese movie. I mentioned in my post when we travelled to Oz how I always seem to choose the el weirdo Japanese movies 😆 Well this one I totally got, and I absolutely loved it. I loved it so much that it could be one of my favourite movies. The storyline, the cinematography, the music, the way they used colour, the costumes. I thought it was all brilliant. I loved it so much that I watched it again a second time on the flight! I didn’t get to watch the full movie second time ’round, but I watched as far as I could. Maybe this could be the movie that I watch over and over again, as per that idea that I mentioned before, to work on improving my Japanese 😊

And to end the day, we got to be with Kitty again. She is all sooky now, so cute. I’m glad she is happy again, she’s looked so sad in the photos these past few days. It’s all back to normal once again, for all of us 😊 Except I may be a bit of a morning person for the first few days back, while I start acclimatising to the SG time again 😝

DFO, Pasta and Kitty

I went to DFO at South Wharf in the morning, to visit my favourite activewear store, Lorna Jane. I only buy this brand when we’re in Oz, coz they mark up the prices ridiculous percent in SG. And there is no way I’m paying the inflated prices when I know how much they are in Oz. So I just hold off until we’re back here. But I couldn’t walk around the rest of DFO because 1) I was running late to meet a friend for lunch; and 2) I don’t have much room in my luggage for shopping anyway, because half my suitcase is all my crap for the dance comp! But I did find a present for N’s birthday in a few weeks, woohoo! ✅

I went and had lunch with my friend after DFO. We went and had Italian. And then N and I had Italian again for dinner. And note that we had Italian for dinner last night, and also dinner the night before . Omg I’m all pasta’d out! 🍝🍝🍝

We have someone coming in to look after Kitty while we’re overseas, and she sent me these (slightly blurry) photos of her.

She looks sad 😔 She must be feeling a bit lonely at the moment. I just want to go back and give her a big hug 🤗 But we still have a few more days here, with a comp thrown in as well. So we’ll see her soon. Poor little one.

Weekday reality

I suffered a bit from the Monday blues this morning, always hard after a very good weekend.

I took Kitty to the vet in the morning, and got a crazy-ass cab driver on the way back home. He was tailgating other vehicles, so he was constantly breaking and accelerating, and was weaving in and out of traffic as if it was a race to some non-existent finish line. When we got close to home, there were a bajillion cars and trucks surrounding the driveway leading up to our apartment complex, so he missed the turn. I said that I’ll just get off at the bottom of the driveway, and I walked the 100m up the driveway myself. I really didn’t want to be in that cab for any longer than necessary.

And later today, I fought with myself again about whether or not to go to the gym. It’s quite moot, really, since I’ve already made the decision to go on non-dancing days during the week. I kept trying to convince myself that I should just take the day off, that I haven’t had a day off from either the gym or the dance studio for over a week now, and I need to give myself at least a day for my body to recover.

I did end up going, but perhaps I do need to reconsider this new habit. We don’t normally practice on Saturdays, which, under my original plan, was going to be my one day off. But now it’s looking like Saturday practice could become a regular thing now… So if this does continue to be our new routine, then I think seven days is a bit overkill. I will have to give some more thought to this, to make sure I give myself one or two days off each week.

And then my meals today didn’t quite work out as I had planned. I was planning on making myself a (smoked) salmon and egg wrap for lunch today, using up the last ingredients from last week. So after boiling the eggs, I went to take out the rest of the ingredients from the fridge – only to realise that N had eaten it all last night! 😩 So I ended up having hard boiled eggs for lunch. Not quite what I had planned, but it was tasty nonetheless 😂

And then for dinner, I left the salmon cooking in the oven for a tad too long. N described it as being “a tad extremely overcooked” 🤣 I knew I should’ve left the cooking of the fish to him!

So back to weekday reality, it is… 😳

Slight changes

I was feeling a tad indulgent this morning, so I went and had a traditional Singaporean breakfast after taking Kitty to the vet. It’s not the healthiest of breakfasts (a very sweet coffee, and the toast is slathered with butter and kaya toast – basically fat and sugar 😆 but the eggs were probably ok…), but I figured that we just finished a comp, and the next one is in a few weeks, so I can afford to indulge a little 😊

Normally after the FX seminar on Thursdays, I go pick up a few buns from Bread Talk for lunch. But because I was still quite full from my indulgent breakfast today, I ended up skipping lunch and just got a Boost Juice instead, so breakfast unexpectedly ended up being brunch 😳

And we normally practise on Thursday evenings, but N’s leg was feeling a bit sore, so we decided to skip practice tonight. And as per my new habit, if there’s no dancing and it’s a weeknight, I go to the gym 💪 So even though I was really tired and I really didn’t want to go, I made myself go. I felt like I was disappointing myself if I didn’t go. It’s all very strange. I can’t believe I’ve adjusted to this new habit so quickly. Just making this one change of removing the decision making has eliminated what was obviously my biggest barrier. Total amazeballs. I wonder what other obstacles I can remove just as easily… eg how can I get myself to collate my tax papers?? (Which I still haven’t done! 😩)

And afterwards, we watched another episode of Downton Abbey. When that finished, it felt like it was at least 11pm and I was ready to call it a night – only to discover that it was only 9pm. And I’m not a morning person! Man, how tired must I be?! So I decided to write my blog post for the day and get ready for bed, then if I still have any energy left afterwards, I’ll watch another episode of Downton Abbey.

And somehow I got a second wind. So I’m off to watch another episode now – ciao!😆

Positive way to end the work week

I finally decided to ride my electric scooter to the vet today. And from that ride, I have concluded that Kitty won’t enjoy the ride as much as I would. It’s quite far, and I ride like a little old lady 👵🏼 so it took me aaages to get there. I can’t make Kitty endure a trip as long as that – and not a very comfortable one at that! So unless I find a better route, I don’t think I’ll be making the trip with her any time soon 😔

But riding the scooter is sooo much fun! 🛴 I want to take it up to that walking / cycling trail that I did last weekend. Cycling that trail was fantastic, so I suspect riding the electric scooter around it would be just as fun. Maybe during the next public holiday, in a few weeks’ time 😊

I did my Oompa Loompa tan this afternoon, for our next comp on Sunday, and so in order to let it dry, I ended up trading standing up the entire time. And I had a good trading day! Maybe I should trade standing up more often, I wonder if that’s the trick 😂

And then we went to the Friday night social to get some last-minute practice in before the comp. Now I’m paying for it: my legs are throbbing and I’m totally exhausted! 😩 This is normally a good thing, but what I’m scared of is not recovering in time for the comp! Surely one day of no dancing will be enough? Surely?? It’d be fine if we were still in our 20s – heck I’d probably still practice the day before. But now… 🤨

So an easy day is on the cards tomorrow. Perhaps a few episodes of Downton Abbey? I wonder if I can get N to watch the series with me… 😉

A mixed bag of Tuesday goodies

I had a marginally better night’s sleep last night. I woke up once, which was better than the bajillion times the previous night. Last night it was Kitty who woke me up – vomiting. Isn’t that lovely. Apparently cats with kidney problems tend to vomit more, so unfortunately I am quite used to her throwing up around once or twice a week now. It just so happened that this time around it was at 3:30am! 😔 So I got up and cleaned up her mess – which actually isn’t all that much, usually just liquid that looks like a puddle of saliva – before heading back to bed. Apologies for the visual 🤮

And then I had a really bad trading session. Makes me wonder if I am really cut out for this. Sighhh… I think I’m getting into another funk, and I need to get my priorities back in order. I might go take a walk tomorrow, perhaps around Marina Bay or Clarke Quay. Somewhere (anywhere!) that will let me clear my head a bit.

N is back tomorrow night, so hopefully that will mean a better balance between work and play for me, as I tend to focus too much on my trading whenever he’s away. And so I may make a trip tomorrow to one of my favourite places in SG: Changi Airport! 😄

And while he’s been away, I finished season one of Downton Abbey! Very good series! I’m thoroughly enjoying it. It’s very different to Game of Thrones, and definitely not every second person dies 😳 Maggie Smith’s character has some of the best lines in the show, I get excited with anticipation now whenever she enters a scene, as I know she’ll probably have some funny remark or snide comment to make. Her character has become one of my favourites as the season progressed 😊