Spontaneous catch up

From Technoedge to Yakun, how we've evolved from wide eyed youngsters to avancular men with eye bags 🫣

Spontaneous meet up with Frankenstein Fab and Irritating Ivan today. The topics we chatted during that 2-hour lunch window  covered watches, condos, cars and career (as expected); but more importantly it was good to learn that each of us are doing reasonably ok in all aspects. Now we certainly lack the vigour and enthusiasm of typical uni students, but gained real work experience and ambition in return.

Hope to keep up the frequency of meet ups for as long as it lasts. 

Kite

When my kite took off 

Fluttering in the sky 

The southern winds keeping it aloft

At this moment there are no whys

An unexplainable feeling of freedom

This year had been a trying term

Happy to end and welcome the new

As long as I've got my health and my family

I am ready to embrace life and its frills.

我是三八!

🥺🥺🥺

Sadly bade 3-8 away and officially celebrated 39 years on this planet.

I cannot bring myself to admit in a few days' time that "I am 40 this year". Unimaginable. It's an uncle's age. I am turning into one? ALREADY?!! It's a thought I decline to entertain.

I hope to be able to do this way into my sixties:

Anyway, my girls drew me beautiful cards with touching content that made me go awww. Love my girls so much.

Dad's stir fry beef with special sauce

When my siblings and I were younger, when mom was away, my dad would at times take over the kitchen. Granted he's not as good a chef as my mom (whose standards are sky high for the record) but he dished up yummy meals (usually 1 pot meal for convenience) and being health conscious, dad would usually ensure there is lots of vegetables. One of our favourites is dad's stir fry beef with kailan flower (芥兰花）, its gravy we would never fail to savour with whatever rice is left in our bowls. 

Context: Mom and sis are at Penang for holiday. This afternoon my phone beeped:

NO WAY I WAS GONNA SAY NO TO STIR FRY BEEF! And "special sauce", LOL 😂

----

Later, served promptly at 7pm:

Interestingly, dad did 3 dishes:

1. Stir fry beef with french beans 

2. Stir fry kailan (according to mom, this is Cantonese style as there was both ginger and garlic); and

3. Fried egg (should have taken a pic).

We contributed ABC soup that was very delicious too!

It was a very hearty and wholesome meal. Needless to say, I finished all the rice with the beef gravy. 😊😋 I'm glad my dad at 73yo is still able and capable of whipping up a decent meal, and I am glad my children got a taste of their grandfather's cooking... :)

Edit: After dinner, my dad also cut orange and served it to the girls! 

It's mid December!?

This time of the year... My favourite month. I would so much like to take time off work and reflect on the year, my achievements at work, the learning experiences... Enjoy the chilly wind and relatively slower pace of work... Plus it's a couple of days to my birthday but I have been unable to let go of constant nagging worries of my project. It's been a massively challenging year. 

I look forward to having a relaxing good time at our family vacay over the weekend. Rest and recharge!!!

Cycling at the void deck

Our house isn't well connected to parks or sorts so there isn't a good place to pick up the bicycles and cycle. In a bid to have the girls more practice, we only have the (quite limited in size) void deck to make do. 

This evening I brought them down and we played the "打油" game... Where the girls would stop by and refuel at the vertical plumbing pipes. They were initially just contented to stay within that small plot so I expanded the "map" by coining the adjacent void deck as "new town" and there is opening promotion for the new petrol station 😂. The girls eventually got curious of the different red numbers labelled on every pipe, they got off their bikes and ran about the void deck, exploring and pointing them out. At the end, I think we succeeded in getting them to be familiar with the environment so that they begin to be comfortable hopping from pillar to pillar, turning around and peering behind corners, at times by themselves.

Cycling practice has now evolved into a game of mini towns littered with petrol stations lol... "Welcome to Uncle Ben's new petrol station opening!" 😄 

So cute to observe my kids playing, talking and laughing to themselves!

Prepping dinner with Ye

A few days ago, wifey was out to pick Yx from ballet lesson. I prepped dinner and Ye offered to help.

And so she did! She opened the drawer and whipped out the child-safe Toddlr knife. I showed her how to slice the skin off carrots, and she tried her hands on it. Later, I tasked her to chop the carrots whilst I busied myself with other things. It was followed by cracking two eggs and mixing it up with salt and pepper. When that was done, I told her she could exit but she wanted to stay on and watch me fry the veges. Eventually, Ye hopped off when she heard her sister coming home.

Later that night, in bed (she asked me to sleep with her), she uttered out of the blue  “刚才晚餐菜很好吃。”

That was the best moment I could ever ask for to end the day. ☺️

It's December

I love December. 

It's supposedly the month during which most people are clearing leave, going on holidays, work should slow down abit...

Not feeling it, yet. But I will. I aspire to. Going for a holiday with the fam next week!!!