Wednesday, April 15, 2020

[Life Updates] Circuit Breaker in SG, ... etc

Day 9 of Circuit Breaker in Singapore

Its been a crazy crazy time with the Covid-19 situation in Singapore. I've been caught up with life and mostly maplestorym (a.k.a msm) the past months, -that I pretty much threw my blog under the carpet-, and the endless backlog of my blog posts just keeps accumulating (LOL to all my backdated posts).

So, its day 9 since Singapore went into Circuit Breaker, which is a measure to minimize the community spread of the Covid-19 (first known as the wuhan virus). The whole situation is pretty crazy, there's legit no other words that best describe the whole thing. This is, hands down, the most disruptive virus in the century, since I was born, even more so than SARS.

Being in an essential services line of work, the past weeks have been pretty usual for me, with the exception of split teams which did bring some level of inconvenience to work in general. Currently, the workplace is ever-changing in their employee arrangements as the government introduces more  and increasingly strict measures to fight against the Covid-19.

That aside, I really wanted to document how productive my long extended weekend was, hence, though very reluctant, I'm about to break my streak of Travel Logs for this.

I took the past 2 days off work in extension to the good Friday weekend and it was the best long weekend I have had in a while as I got so many things done, including getting back into posting my travel logs which are now exactly a year overdue LOL.

But before that, just to document what went on before Circuit Breaker happened, as our community progressively introduced safe distancing measures:

At some point badminton courts looked like this - empty:


And lifts are limited to 4 people, in the respective corners:



Haha. So, back to my very productive weekend. I finally got rid of one of these wooden shelves and made some space for my chair to roll about -it has always been very cramp πŸ˜‘, been wanting to throw that out for quite a while now, so I'm really glad I finally did just that-. I spent pretty much the whole day thrashing and moving things about from the shelves, and the storage under my table. Even then, I can hardly say that its done because I still have a pile of blank notebooks which I have no idea where to stash them. My brain is telling me to thrash them out because I'll probably never use them but, my heart is saying no. *internal struggles so lets just leave that hanging for now, LOL*.

I managed to squeeze that hanger to clip on the side of the shelf which now houses the ukelele and I really like the feel of it (will I finally pick it up and practice again πŸ˜‚)


Who would have expected, my first ever shake shack (from SG branch) would be through delivery?!
(FoodPanda has them though limited deliverable areas)


Also, after weeks of procrastination, I finally shipped this out.
(Yes, CircleDNA, I had been going back and forth on this for quite a couple of months before my curiosity took over when I saw it in the stores of Watson's (CircleDNA x Watsons collaboration). I bought it online during the International Women Day sales which costs SGD 680.99 for their premium kit. Its a hefty price to pay for curiosity but if its for a lifetime then.. why not. lolol. Product review to come soon once everything is done)


And the random moments, 
Prawn Mee take out for brekkie, yesterday!  


AND, I baked. Jole forwarded me an Insta-story a couple of days ago by @taytay_xx which showcased her Crispy Ribbon Roasted Potatoes recipe. 
I wasn't gonna end the perfect long weekend without trying these. I love LOVED the potatoes. Rosemary with salted butter and garlic is da bomb and I think this sauce might go well with button mushrooms too (because rosemary x button mushrooms is a thing)!  



And that's all the updates, signing off to a new week of uncertainty in the office, 
Its mid-week! Stay safe, Mask up, may Covid-19 end soon. 

Peace out. 😎

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

[Travel Log - Japan] In Spring: Day 4 - A Day Trip to Hamamatsu

Click here to read from the 1st post of this travel log! 😊

Day 4: A Day Trip to Hamamatsu
14 April 2019, Sunday

This part of the trip, was one that I felt the most apologetic about. So.. in Japan, there are several railway lines operating from different companies, and so many types of trains that ranged from rapid express to local trains.

Even the JR railway has two types - the more known Shinkansen (bullet train) and their local JR railway trains. So prior to the trip, we were sourcing for options to make our travel from around Shizuoka (and to Mt.Fuji) easier and we found that there was this Mt.Fuji-Shizuoka pass which covered quite a range of places.

To make use of the pass, we thought ok, lets go Hamamatsu since it was a 3-day travel pass. What I didn't know was, this is a very different pass from the JR pass that I was familiar with (the Shinkansen). This pass only worked for the local/rapid trains which meant longer than expected travel time between the two cities. 😭




Hamamatsu Flower Park (はまま぀ フラワーパーク)
Map: 195η•ͺ地 Kanzanjicho, Nishi Ward, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka 431-1209, Japan

How to get there: take bus #30 from the JR Hamamatsu station (about 30 mins travel time)...











Definitely a crazy array of flowers. The whole flower park is pretty huge, and you can get on a tram ride (which is payable) to tour around or stop at specific tram stops to enjoy the flowers in any particular area that might interest you.


Sesame-based Ramen 
(The problem with blogging the experience only a year after... you've pretty much forgotten the details 😭)



At the train station before heading back to Shizuoka... Taiyaki!!!


& Macca's to end the day with (after super long train/bus rides, so long that we only managed to visit one attraction in Hamamatsu *sobs*)



Next post: [Travel Log - Japan] In Spring: Day 5 - Off to visit Mt. Fuji 
Previous post: [Travel Log - Japan] In Spring: Day 3 - Nagoya to Shizuoka

[Travel Log - Japan] In Spring: Day 3 - Nagoya to Shizuoka

Click here to read from the 1st post of this travel log! 😊

Day 3: Nagoya to Shizuoka
13 April 2019, Saturday

Off to Shizuoka! We got our bus tickets the night before (@ 2880円/adult). I definitely think it is safer to purchase them ahead of time rather than on the day itself as it is highly dependable on availability and consumer demand. So, buying them ahead of time would give a slight flexibility in terms of e.g. bus timings. 


Before we head off, we got our Lawson fix for our asa gohan (ζœγ”ι£―), fried chicken & a sushi roll for me πŸ˜, while waiting for our bus departure timing.



Normally, I get terrified when I'm seated at the back (thanks to my motion-sickness). But somehow, I always managed to fall asleep on long-distance bus rides while in Japan. πŸ˜‚ γ‚ˆγ‹γ£γŸγ­。



The journey from Nagoya to Shizuoka took about 2 hours, and the 1st thing I saw on arrival was that their macca's had this: BACON POTATO PIE.

Anything potato is 🧑.



松屋牛丼 (Matsuya Gyudon)
Its a gyudon chain, so its very common across the country... (hence I won't be putting a specific  address since its everywhere). Orders are through a ticket machine and you pass the staff copy of the coupon to the staff. 



We were walking through a shopping center when I spotted these doughnuts!! 

These unbelievably cute doughnuts produced by Shiretoko Factory, I got to know about them through my friend, hm (whom I visited tokyo skytree with in my Nov 2018 trip) and during that time, the store was already closed and I didn't get the opportunity to try it there. 

And so, imagine my surprise when I found it so unexpectedly. 
(but they did feel like a pop-up store, I cant find the exact location from their site anymore πŸ˜”)




Random stuff we saw along the way... imagine doing self ear piercing. 😱😱😱



A NEW BAG that I haven't got to use it till date πŸ˜­



静鉄ホテルプレジγ‚ͺ (Shizutetsu Hotel Prezio)
Map: 13-21 Minamicho, Suruga Ward, Shizuoka, 422-8067, Japan





ι™ε²‘γŠγ§γ‚“ (Shizuoka Oden)
Map: (somehow, I cant seem to find the exact location for this, but it is in the vicinity of the hotel😒)

This, is the highlight of the day. The meal was so perfect, and we were given a table on the 2nd level which was overlooking the restaurant. I'll just let the pictures do the talking.








It was the best... one of our most memorable meals throughout the trip. We had a bit of beer to go with the meal and we ended the day feeling satisfied (but there's one problem, iirc, there wasn't a non-smoking zone. But I cant exactly remember anymore πŸ˜…).


Next post: [Travel Log - Japan] In Spring: Day 4 - A Day Trip to Hamamatsu
Previous post: [Travel Log - Japan] In Spring: Day 2 - Nagoya