Happy Halloween!
Happy Halloween! Halloween isn't massively celebrated in Singapore, but in recent years there've been more Halloween spirit around, especially among the businesses with Horror themed sales/restaurant menus, Halloween parties at cafes/night clubs etc. With Daiso it has made getting Halloween themed decorations easy to get too!
Dog Playschool!
I sent Bao for his 3rd class at Doggy playschool where they Halloween Themed Pawties for the week. We furparents provided costumes if we could, or the school could also spare a few for the doggos to have fun! It was really nice. Bao seemed to enjoy it. Bao's brother Cookie has been joining in the classes too, but he doesnt really enjoy it as much being a very shy homebody who prefers to laze aound at home.
I do find the playschool useful for Bao given.. Bao has always been very shy around other dogs, and always seemed to want play with other dogs but wasnt sure how to. He would freeze when other dogs smell him or chase him for play. Since going to school, he has started initiating play with other dogs, and really gone around happily chasing and being chased by other dogs. He also seemed more confident. So I'm really happy with the results. I'm looking foward to his next session! For now I'm letting him go to school once every 2 weeks!
Bao's Furry dates!
We arranged for a quick meetup for Bao and his two brothers, Cookie and Teddy at a dogrun today. Bao and Cookie got to meet the dogschool, but we havent met Teddy in a long time, so it was good for the boys to catch up while we furparents also catch up.
My mom and sis brought Yuki to join us too. Yuki has improved alot in the last few months to be more social with other dogs. And it was so sweet when I saw her allow sweet shy Cookie to kiss her. Both of them are very similar that they dont really mix around with other dogs. Cookie is shy and timid while Yuki will growl and bark if dogs go near her too excitedly, so Cookie was a perfect fit for her, approaching her really calm and slowly.
Yuki and Bao are getting along better these days, with Yuki being less sulky (but still sulky)
I brought Bao to my parents' last weekend. My sis and I made Bao with minced meat, cabbage and mushroom in it! Bao was interested to eat some Bao too, we gave him a little bit of the bun
Then we had some fun dressing Bao up in Yuki's clothes. Bao looks soo pretty in them, but you can tell he was getting more and more unhappy as we kept making him put on dresses. It seems like he knows that it is clothes for girls.
3 Years of Marriage!
彼 and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary at Wheeler's Estate! It's a 2 acre, dog-friendly, alfresco dining. It was our first time there. We ordered a lamb steak, pork jowl and fried squid. All were really good except the pork jowl and lamb steak were very fatty and flavorful so it felt really jelak after eating them for a while. If we do visit again, it would be better to be in a bigger group to order more different food, or if for 2 maybe just pick only 1 meat dish, a pizza or pasta and 1-2 sides.
The place is really pretty at night, with fairylights and I love the Colonial settings. It was also cooling as the restaurant had pavillions set up and huge fans. The only downside is mosquitos!! I'm not visiting again without insect repellents.
New Work table
I have a new work table! 彼 ordered it during 10/10 sale. I've been using a small table... for the past 1.5 years of WFH due to Covid. No idea how things are going from now on. I've gotten pretty used to WFH but I do miss days in office where I can easily talk to colleagues, monitor my team's workload, emotional/physical well-being, vent to my close colleagues over lunch about work etc.
Living with Covid
Singapore has moved into a phase of living endemically with the virus. Which pretty much means getting all of us vaccinated and infected. The idea is that with vaccination, the symptoms of Covid would be somewhat similar/on par with seasonal/common flu so few people would suffer serious consequences/deaths from it.
With that, we are now doing ART self-testings if we feel sick and just self-quarantine at home until we test negative instead of the old flow where we had to get a PCR test and get sent to hospitals or hotels for isolation. Now we could just self-quaratine at home unless we have elderly or people with vulnerabilities at home or situations that make self-isolation at home difficult.
With that, the number of daily infection cases has pretty much jibaboomed from the usual double digits into 4 digits... and from the one death per month to 41 deaths in the past month... The unvaccinated elderly make up up the majority of the death count and ICU cases, so i would really urge the elderly to get vaccinated.
The government is now pushing for Booster shots for those who took their 2nd shot 6 months ago. My parents and sister qualified and had since gotten their booster shot. 彼 should be getting his in December while I'll get mine in January.
Maybe some time next year if most of us have gotten infected with Covid at some point, we will have reached herd immunity and life will go back to the pre-covid norm where we can live without masks and go to work etc? I wonder what will become of WFH at that point now that many companies have moved to WFH permanently. My company being Japanese is unlikely to let us WFH permanently but it might be a irregular opton for some.
Singapore now as Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) with some countries, such as Germany, Korea, UK, US, Canada... but honestly, the only place I'm waiting for is Japan!! I'm hoping some time next Mar-April, we will be able to travel to Japan again!~
Gamescom Asia
Attended Gamecom Asia! We were given the option to attend online or in person, so I decided to go down take a look.. I was thinking Tokyo Game Show, but I was definitely overthinking it ^^;; It was still quiet interesting, though most of the talks/seminars were actually all available online, so there isnt much to miss out attending online only, except perhaps the networking, if doing any.
My Balcony
Weather's been hot and wet. My plants are getting so sunburnt I decided to buy this plant netting from Daiso to protect from the sun, and it has worked pretty well!
Food
Missing Japan lots! Discovered this gem Tempura Makino, it tastes soooo good it's almost like I'm back in Japan!
It's been raining more which makes it a good time for steamboat.. so I had steamboat twice in the last 3 weeks. With 彼 and mayu, before Bao and Yuki's grooming session. We had haidilao tomato soup base.
Another session with mayu and her frriend Nafaid. We bought Japanese chicken stock soup but it got bland quickly after we added water a few times, so we added Tom yam cubes, lemongrass and chilli and turned in into a spicy pot~
Home-cooked chicken curry with Primataste curry curry paste. It's my first time cooking Singapore style curry in Singapore. I've cooked a few times in Japan, but never in Singapore. Tasted great! But somehow still not as good as in Japan? I have to guess it is because Japanese ingredients are really nice and fresh compared to Singapore's ingredients which are mostly frozen and imported from overseas.
Japanese egg sandwich! I followed this recipe which included a pinch of salt.. which made it really salty no matter how little salt I put I ended up not putting any salt at all. Simple, good and easy to make!
Stir-fry spinach and baked Honey Chicken! Honey chicken is like one my favorite food to cook coz it is so easy to just marinate the chicken the night before and just pop it in to the toaster oven the next day before lunchtime!
Katsu Sarada Udon (cutlet salad udon) is something I ate and always remembered from 6 weeks of studies in Kyushu University. The canteen serverd Katsu Sarada Udon and Katsu Sarada Soba, which is basically hot, freshly fried pork cutlet over cold, thinnly sliced cabbage and cold soba/udon. Then add soba sauce/katsu sauce or any other sauce, preferably cold, making it wonderful for a hot summer day.
Shoygaki (Ginger pork) with lots of cabbage. Another easy to cook meal, doesnt even need to marinate the meat. Just needed to cut up some onion and ginger and cabbage!
Home-cooked Okonomiyaki! I'm getting better with getting the batter to the right consistency (not too watery) and flipping the pancake over!
Tuna sandwich! Just canned tuna with bread and butter~