September Photo Dump

4th Sept

Visited a close to completed project recently to take some photos of the place for my own viewing pleasure and also to keep a record of it.

I don't normally visit my sites because most of the time, they aren't really worth the visit with how much changes the clients would make to my original proposal, but this particular project is different, the clients for this project gave me full creative control and this is one of the first few projects that I have done where I felt like we had to make very minimal compromisation when it came to the general design direction of the space.

There were definitely areas where I could have improved, but this was definitely quite a fufilling project to do, it's the type that makes you enjoy doing your job as a designer.

8th Sept

Met up with my Fitstop Seconday School friend for lunch.

She has been talking about meeting up for lunch during a work day for a while now because we both work somewhat close to each other, and after I told her I will be moving to Ubi within the few weeks and won't have much time left to have a meal with her in the Novena area anymore, we decided to finally set a date.

I did my research and came across this cafe called Otter and Pebbles, so that was where we had our meal. Since it was also her birthday like a few days back, I decided to treat her to this meal.

We each ordered our own Udon, our own drinks and she got a side of fried corn to share, ( I only ate one corn because it was still on the cob and a bitch to eat), the total damage was $89.

I had thought it would probably cost me below $50, but nope, cafe prices are now insane.

We hadn't done a gym class together for a while now so it was nice catching up with her.  we mainly talked about our plans to get a BTO and I ended up taking a 2 hour lunch break, thankfully my boss didn't come into the office that day so I didn't get into trouble, not that he would really care as well to be honest.

12th Sept

Had a hangout session with Lily on Saturday.

Lily is like my new bestie that I have made from gym class after we bonded over our shared interest in perfume.

This meet up revolved around a visit to a perfume store called The Scent Parlor, which is a store that was introduced to me by Zo, and a place I had only visited with Zo. I have tried going with other Hinge dates before in the past but none of those ever came to fruition.

The Scent Parlour only opened at 12noon, and Lily and I made plans to meet up at 10.30am, so we spend the first part of the trip at this cafe called Pout Cafe Bar.

They are quite popular and this was a spot I was suppose to visit with Drew, but then back then, Pout only opened on the weekday, so it was a bit challenging. 

They decided to open on the weekend as well recently and by then, Drew and I had already called things off and we are no longer in contact with one another. 

I am glad to be here with Lily though.

If there was one thing Drew was good at, it was finding aesthetic cafes... and lying a lot. The view from the cafe is of Marina Bay Sands and The Singapore Flyer.

The whole place was such a vibe.

The items we had.

We were supposed to be joined by another gym friend of ours, but he had a last minute appointment, so he couldn't make it in the end and the entire day was just Lily and me.

It was nice though, she knows about my sexuality so I was very comfortable talking to her about my relationship stuff, and she in turn also feels very comfortable talking about things she wouldn't normally share with a straight male friend.

We ended up staying in the cafe for close to 2 hours before we decided to head over to the perfume shop.

I didn't take any pictures in the perfume place, but we were the only 2 customers there and we took our time sniffing the different fragrances.

Lunch was at this Vietnamese place nearby, I had originally intended for us to visit this Matcha cafe that was a 1km walk away, but after loitering around the perfume place for so long, I just really didn't feel like walking so far.

The food here was not bad, but the shop itself could have been cooler, I just felt really a bit sticky because of how humid the weather was and if the restaurant had been freezing cold, it would have been a really nice spot.

Popped by DOPA for Ice Cream after our lunch because I honestly didn't want the day to end so quickly, this was a spot that Zo had introduced to me as well, and I had Waffles and Ice Cream with him that time,  Lily and I just both got 2 individual cups of Ice Cream. It was really nice Ice Cream, but would have been great with the Waffles.

After this we went back to the perfume shop because I told her I wanted to go get a bottle of the cheaper perfume, she was really excited to just have the day last a little longer. I ended up NOT getting anything because I really didn't like the perfumes THAT much. 

Still, we had a fun time, Lily ended up spilling half a bottle of one of the cheaper perfume samples because she opened it wrongly, luckily the staff was nice and did not get her to pay for it.

That concluded our meet up on Saturday. 

19th Sept

Went for gym class and met Lily for breakfast after.

We went to Offsite AGAIN.

Ordered the same sandwich we had the first time because it was really nice, then stayed in the cafe for 3 full hours from around 9.30am all the way till 12.30 noon. 

We had different group of gym friends coming and going because there were 3 classes that day.

This was what I had ordered during our 2nd hour in the cafe with the last group of friends. 

Total damage that day was about $70 on my side because I paid for Lily's share as part of her birthday meal.

I really enjoyed just being in the cafe and having a bunch of friends to chat with, it has honestly been a while since I had a proper gathering like this.

Oh, and Lily actually gave me 2 candles from this brand to summer because she had extra ones leftover at her house that she wasn't using, I graciously accepted them and they smelled amazing!

I really can't bear to use them though, but I will use it very sparingly.

Photo Dump Updates

 Life has been a bit dull lately.

Now that gym class has become a routine of sorts, the intial excitment that I had towards it has slowly died down and just become a norm to me, a good norm because it has given me a consistent social life.

8th August 

Had breakfast with a few of my gym friends after our Saturday class, we went to visit Offsite cafe, which is super close to the gym.

Our usual spot is actually another coffeeshop in Beauty World, but that day, I decided to splurge a little with a friend I have made from gym, whom I shall just refer to as Lily. 

Lily has very similar taste in food as me, we prefer more westernized food, so instead of visiting the usual breakfast spot that we would go with majority of our gym members after class on the weekdays, we decided to splurge a little and visit Offsite instead, along with another gym member.

It was nice to be with a smaller more initimate group, we just chit chatted for maybe 2 hours before calling it a day. 

9th August

Made plans with Yen on this day to finally have a catch up session.

We visited this cafe called Mozmoji in Chinatown.

The entrance is at the side alley, so you will have to look for it.

It's a cafe that also sells handmade cups and plates, the whole cafe is very chill and quiet, at least when I was there.

I got myself a cup of Salted Chocolate Latte and Tofu Cheesecake, which were both really really good!

Yen was unfortunately like an hour late because she had forgotten it was a weekend and actually ended up waiting for a bus at her place that only operates on a weekday, she was really apologetic when she finally arrived at the cafe and we just took that time to catch up with one another about work and life in general.

We did stay in the cafe for a bit too long and were eventually asked very nicely by the staff to leave because everyone was only allowed about 90 minuts of dining, and at that point, we were probably sitting down for 2 hours, or at least I was because she was an hour late. 

Visited a few more spots around Chinatown, she was joined by her husband midway through and I did tell them I had to get home soon because I wanted to see my nephew who would be visiting that evening. 

10th August

Visited Offsite AGAIN with Lily.

What is funny is Lily and I had told ourselves that a visit to cafes like this should only be done once every 1-2 months because it's not cheap, but then here we were again, 2 days later.

I went to the café with Lily and two other gym members. Lily and I ended up staying there for so long that the other two eventually left, and later, we were joined by another gym member who had attended a later class that day.

All in all, Lily and I spend a total of 3 hours in the cafe.

This was an expensive long weekend.

15th August

Visited ANOTHER cafe, this time with my secondary school friend whom I usually do Weekend classes with.

Unfortunately, she had overslept that day and I ended up doing the class alone, well, not alone alone, I did pair up with someone in the class for the excercise, but I don't usually attend the class at that particular time because I am not close with anyone in that timeslot, so when my friend told me she wasn't able to make it for class, I did feel my social anxiety acting up a bit.

The guy whom I did pair up with eventually was fit, so I actually felt like I was going to pass out at one point because of how deseprate I was trying to keep up with him. 

Anyways, my friend came to the gym once the class was over to meet me and another friend of hers (who had taken the earlier class) and we headed over to the cafe together.

the Ritual.

Located at Stevens, this is the first time we had to take a travel via train for food, other times when we have breakfast after gym class, it is always walking distance from the gym.

Verdict for this cafe. It's good, not neccesarily mindblowing, but it's worth the visit.

18th August

I remember having breakfast alone after gym quite a lot this week, and this was one of the shots I took from my solo breakfast. 

A lot of the usual breakfast people either didn't come for class or they went for 5km runs after class, it's a bit crazy. I thought me joining them once or twice for a 1-2km run after class was already crazy, but then to go for a 5km after is insane.

But this week, I think I also wanted to take a social break and just have some quiet time during breakfast, so I went for my usual spot at TOMORO Coffee, which was the cafe I would frequent when I first started attending Fitstop back in December last year.

22nd August.

Had breakfast with Lily at another nearby cafe again after our Saturday gym class, she had just returned from her Malaysia trip, so she got me peppers and we talked about trying out Strawberries and Black Pepper together, thus the presence of strawberries in the photo.

She even brought a plate from home, as well as bottles of balsamic vinegar, it was very extra, but we had a good time.

This time it was just the two of us, so we really chatted a lot about our personal life and work life stuff, after breakfast, we went to an ice cream shop nearby to have ice cream as well because one of the other food combination we wanted to try was Vanilla ice cream with Olive Oil and Sea Salt, the latter 2 items we actually got from the supermarket after class, it was actually a really good combination, much better than the strawberries.

29th August.

This was the same day as my shitty interview that I had blogged about previously.

Went on a date with someone I met on Hinge in the afternoon.

Things with Bee are currently an enigma, like I don't know what the fuck is going on between us, so I have been matching with people on Hinge and going on dates, I did go for one the week before, that one was really awkward, this one on the other hand was a lot better, that being said, I don't think I will be seeing this guy for another date because we have stopped texting each other since then date and I also don't feel very compelled to want to reach out for more meet ups after this so there is that.

But back to what's going on with me and Bee.

We haven't really met up for an entire month now and our text messages to one another have been extremely sporadic, like maybe 2 -3 messages a week and they are super short messages that don't carry any sort of conversational weight. Things have definitely tapered down between us.

He did tell me we should get a meal together soon during our last sporadic text to each other and I told him we could meet on his next available day off from work.....he just left me on read. 

I will be honest, I had been thinking of calling things off with him for a while now because I have been struggling to find any romantic attraction towards him,  he is someone who is great on paper, has his own business, owns a place, drives his own car, and he is genuinely a very nice guy, but everytime we meet up, it feels like I am hanging out with a friend, not even like super close friend, but just a friend, much less a romantic partner. 

I guess him leaving me on read also proves that he probably feels like whatever we had has ran it's course, so a bit of me feels relieved as well, but the whole lip service aspect of bringing up the idea of meeting up again, and then not following through after I agree to it, it's very iffy. 

2nd Sept.

Met up with Zo

Zo had went to KL a week prior and offered to help me get Niko Neko Matcha from there, naturally I accepted his offer because the Matcha that I had gotten from Naoki and Crafti really cannot make it anymore after I had tried Niko Neko.

Another reason why I accepted his offer is also because it would present as a perfect oppurtunity to meet again, we had made plans to meet before this a few times but they just never materialize because neither of us ever followed through, but now that he has something that he has to physically pass to me, it makes the whole idea of meeting up feel more concrete.

We met at Bugis+, had Chick-Fil-A, he passed me the Matcha and we just chatted for the entirety of our time together, even after we were done, we just made rounds around Bugis talking non-stop about releationship stuff, work stuff, gym stuff, etc. 

Zo is a very thoughtful person, so it's just nice to chat with him about stuff, and also the reason why he has sort of become my benchmark for how thoughtful I would like the people I date to be.

Shitty Job Interview

Just went for a job interview earlier this morning, had to miss out on my Fitstop class for it, and it was not good.

The co-founder of this company is someone I had matched with on Hinge about a year back, we did chat a little then, found out that we were both IDs, but the conversation didn't sustain long enough to warrant a meet up, so for us to actually meet up in the capacity of a potential candidate and pontential boss almost  a year later felt really really weird, and it was really uncomfortable during the actual interivew because none of us really acknowledged the fact that we knew one another through the dating app (or maybe he might have geuinely forgotten who I was, who knows)

 I didn't enjoy the dynamics of the interview, it was extremely uncomfortable, I think I had a bit of an inferioirty complex as well because this guy is almost my age, is running his own ID firm, and here I was, applying to join his company as an employee. 

The interview itself didn't go well, there were a lot of questions being asked about my past job experience, a lot of scrunitinzing and I think a lot of my responses weren't what he had wanted to hear, so he kept probing and probing to the point where I was actually getting quite uncomfortable because it made me wonder if he was asking me because he genuinely expected a better answer, or if he doing that because he is just being a bitch (my inferiority complex kicking in), looking back, I think it might be a bit of both.

I came into the interview expecting it to be awkward, but what I did not expect was to feel like shit about myself afterwards. The sad thing about this job is that if the boss had been someone else who was much older with much more experience, I would have been really excited to go further, but alas, I really didn't like the guy after how the interview went. 

 

He did propose to "test" me by giving me a task to do, to prepare a space planning proposal with 3D included and send it over to him because he wants to see how I design and plan spaces, which in all honesty is fair, this is something I had done for another company before.

The other company gave me 1 week, this guy is only going to give me 1 day, and that was after he had commented and told me how he knows I don't have a lot of time because I am working working a full time job.

Huh?!

That's like a barista telling the customer that they are aware they are lactose intolerant, and then proceeds to prepare for them a latte made with full fat milk.

Anyways, I left the office feeling not so great about myself and my current career trajectory, met up with a friend for a meal after and throughout the meet up, the interview would just keep replying in my head for the rest of the day, which really affected my mood a little, so I did eventually email the ID firm this evening and told them I was going to withdraw my application due to personal reasons. 

It's now time to go back to Jobstreet and MyCareerFuture to look for more job openings. 

Client from Hell.

Work hasn't been going well lately.

There is this really difficult customer who has been really challenging to work with, and I have expressed to my boss how uncomfortable I am to be working with this guy because he is just a very unplesant individual.

Let's call this customer Justin.

Justin is a single 60++ year old guy who was referred to us by a previous customer, upon the first meeting back in March, I already knew he was going to be difficult, he had a lot of expectations and some of them were not realistic, when my boss tried to manage those expectation by offering some disclaimer, for example, expecting tiles to be 100% align and the grout line to be perfectly filled, which I will have to say are standards that we will of course try to achieve as much as possible, but because laying of tiles is ultimately still done by human hands, there will be some minor imperfections here and there, Justin was not having any of it and told us his expectations are very high and that we should be aware of it and esentially deliver that standard that he is expecting. 

It was a major red flag because of how stubborn he was about it, so I wasn't keen to work with him and I had told my boss how much I didn't like Justin, my boss agreed that he was difficult to talk to and I had assumed we were on the same page and we won't entertain Justin anymore, my plan was to offer him a simple space planning proposal and we would prepare a quotation for him, just as a gesture of goodwill seeing how he had come down to our office to meet us.

Fast forward a few weeks, no news from Justin, I thought he was gone, but for some reason, my boss decided to reach out to Justin and ask him if he had any feedback, and suddenly Justin was back in our lives again. We had a second meeting and it was really not going anywhere, my ideas were presented but he wasn't very keen on it, and we went thorugh that whole "expectation" and how he has very "high standards" chat again, it was exhausting and this meeting just reinforced my disdain towards the idea of working with him as a client.

Weeks go by and my boss decided to reach out to Justin again to check for any updates. Justin replies, but because he was going to be travelling, we didn't have a third meeting  but Justin would ask some questions and at that point, I just could not be fucked and left my boss to do the replying. After a while, the chatgroup just went dead, and it stayed dead for weeks, so all of us just assumed Justin is no longer interested and we all just moved on.

Well, Justin came back 2 weeks ago and now my life suddenly feels like shit again.

He was texting in the groupchat asking about a bunch of new things, scruntizinig the last quotation we send over and the way he worded his mesages were very unplesant and extremely entitled, writing certain words in captial letter to emphasis his point, so he would write this like...

I would EXPECT you to know where to find this materials because YOU are the expert, not me.

...everything is laced with a very passive aggresse energy and you can't help but just get extremely upset by them. I actually lost my cool and one point and replied to him the same way he replied to us, highlighting certain words in CAPITAL letter, but I don't think my anger was conveyed successfully because my boss didn't realize I had send that particular message in anger.

Anyways, I express to my boss once again how we should drop Justin and not entertain him because I didn't want to work with him as I felt like the project is just not worth the mental anguish this guy is putting us through , plus I also didn't want to waste Justin's time, I want him to quickly go search for another ID. 

But my boss kept replying back and apparently he had a call with Justin last week where the both of them were essentially shouting at one another on the phone, at least that was what my boss told me.

Upon hearing how unpleasant that call had been, one would then think that the toxicity of this client and just the way the call went, it is a pretty clear sign we should drop it before it gets to that stage.


This early design stage is SUPPOSED to be the fun part, it's where the client and the designer / contractor exchange ideas and work together to come up with the final design, the painful part only starts when the renovation begins, but with Justin, we are already experiecing that level of difficulty at such an early stage, the Project Manager is going to be dealing with a much more unpleasant version of Justin and if our one and only Project Manager quits in frustration, the company is essentially screwed because most, if not all the projects that we have on hand right now are single handedly being managed by that one Project Mnager..

So what does my boss decide to do?

Set up a Zoom call with Justin, and for me to be present so we can run through my proposal together. 

Fucking Hell.

This meeting happened yesterday and it was probably one of the most unpleasnt design meeting I had to sit through, it was 2.5 hours long of Justin just being extremely condescending, questioning every single advice we were offering him, I was literally shouting over the mic at him at the start because he kept debating my design choices, then when I realize how pointless the whole conversation was, I just switched off mentally and let my boss handle the rest, my boss was ALSO shouting in the mic because of how upsetting the covnersation was going and by the end of the meeting, I was just done.

I looked at my boss when I ended the call and asked him rhetorically...

"This type of customer you still want to take?"

... never have I had a design meeting where we were spending more than half the time debating with the client in such an aggressive manner, like the entire meeting is 

And my boss's response.

"I think we are making progress."

what.

the.

actual.

fuck.

...like what the actual fuck, I couldn't believe THAT was the fucking conclusion he came to. We literally sat in silence for like a minute because I just couldn't believe my boss still thinks this project is worth taking, that it is not going to become a complete shit show.

His judgement is completely messed up, why in the FUCK would you choose to work with someone who is going to be a complete fucking nightmare, we are only at the early stages of design discussion and both the boss and the designer attached to this project are already having an argument with the client over a zoom call, and my boss thinks "we are making progress".

For the longest time, I have been planning to find a new job, but this current job has always been so comfortable  (despite the shitty pay) that I just never really found the need to actively pursue a new company, but the way my boss is willing to put the team through this abusive collaboration with such a toxic customer has shown me just how fucked up his sense of judgement is and if there is a second Justin that appears in the future, I would rather not be here to deal with that shit anymore, I am not getting paid enough to deal with this shit.

June Updates...

Attemped to bake for the first time in a long while and it was to make Sticky Toffee Pudding after the delicious one I had at PS. Cafe.

Looked for a recipe online and decided to make the one that looked the easiest...

... I should have known the recipe was going to be a disaster when the poster wrote how you could prepare the toffee sauce using the microwave, and so many steps were not explained in detail. 

This pudding was really moist, and not in a good way, the cake was not crumbly at all, it was actually mushy, the toffee sauce was fucking disgusting, the whole thing was a fucking mess, it looked so fugly. 

Decided to do more research and watched more videos of people actually doing the Pudding the proper way, not using the microwave...

... and it came out so much better.

My sauce was closer to Caramel than Butterscotch, but it was definitely leaps and bounds better than the first attempt. Nothing close to the one at PS Cafe, but it was a very decent bake.

7th June.

Made a batch for Bee, replaced a few ingredient because he can't take dairy, so the caramel sauce had to be made with Coconut Cream instead of regular cream, which was not bad, but it doesn't set the same way as regular caramel.

I also left the cake in the oven for a little too long, so it ended up becoming really dry, the difference an additional 1-2 minutes of overbaking makes. I brought the bakes over to his place and he got ice cream, which I told him was a requirement because we needed the ice cream to moisten the cake again.

It was still dry.

He didn't complain about the dryness and just kept telling me it was good.

We headed out after lunch at his place to look at more plants, I was so worried the weather would be very hot, so I met him in my Dry-Fit clothes that I would normally wear for gym class. The last time we met, I remember how sticky I felt and I didn't want a repeat of that. 

Once he got his plants, we went to this vegan cafe around the Dhoby Ghuat area called Lilac and Oak, I was worried it was going to be packed, but thankfully it wasn't too bad, probably because the location isn't the best and vegan spots don't always scream good food.

The plan was just to have ice cream and waffles, but we ended up sharing a main...

Rose Pasta but instead of Tomato Sauce, it's Gochujang, so this one was throwing me off because I kept expecting the pasta to have the same bounce as tteoboki, but it doesn't, it doesn't even have the same bounce as regular pasta because this is a vegan version.

Pulat Hitam Ice Cream with Waffles.

This was pretty good. It was a great pairing with the pasta, everytime I ate one, I would suddenly have appetite for the other, so they were acting as appetizers for each other.

Bee then suggested we have a slice of cake as well..

So Lemon Cake with Black Seasame it is. Not bad as well, but their cakes are on the drier side, and by that I mean it felt like the cake was pulling moisture from my mouth, maybe it's a vegan bake thing, the flavors were great, but I just wish it was lighter and more moist.

After this, Bee walked me to Plaza Singapura and we called it a day.

13th June

Saturday Fitstop class with my Secondary School friend.

I went for the 9.15am class with her, but if I am alone I will usually book the 8am one. Anyways, the 9.15am class is actually Competition Training, so instead of being just 50 minutes long like the 8am class that day, it was roughly aboout 75 minutes. I went knowing it was going to be longer, and I was quite worried if I can handle it, thankfully I did survive. 

We would usually have brunch after, but because this class was longer than the usual classes, I think it would be more apt to call this an early lunch. 

I opted to take a shower before heading over because the session was long, I was sweaty and I knew my shirt will start to properly stink up once I am dry.  We were joined by another gym member and headed over to Bukit Timah Plaza for sarnies at this shop called HunBun when I was done freshening up. 

The walk over was hot, which wasn't really surprising, and I normally wouldn't think to walk to Bukit Timah Plaza from Beauty World in the past, but I think being made to run around the area for cardio class has made me realize that the distance between the two places isn't as far as I thought.

Anyways, here is what I got, it's called a Caprese Diem and it's mainly just cheese and marinara sauce, but we added an extra chicken breast inside for some protein, I shared this with my friend, and we also got a side of fried Cauliflowers as well, which was equally tasty. Her friend got his own portion of another sandwich that was a lot more sustainable looking. 

20th June

I did not attend my weekend Fitstop class on this particular Saturday because they were having their Games Day at their other outlet and it was going to be a culmination of members from all 3 gym locations. Just the thought of being surrounded by so many unfamilar faces in what I know would be a very crowded event was enough to turn me off from attending it.

That Saturday would have been extremely lazy if I hadn't made plans to meet up with Bee for a very late dinner, since he had work, we could only meet after his work ended, which was at around 8.30pm, it was really really late, I remember how odd it felt for me to be heading out for dinner when the sky is already dark, the only time I would usually do that is when I am on a solo overseas trip and wanted to maximise the trip.

We met at Great World City and had a meal at P.S Cafe.

Had a chat about work and stuff, then had Ice Cream at Kind Kones, which was actually quite nice before calling it a night and headed our seperate ways.

27th June

Went back to my regular Saturday Fitstop Class in the morning, and since my friend wasn't able to join me, I decided to go for the earlier timeslot, which isn't Competition Training, so the class was not as long as the previous Saturday and also not as intense. 

One thing I have noticed about my body ever since I started going for gym classes is that it is perpetually in pain, if it's not the back, it's the shoulders, if it's not the shoulder's, it's the wrist, and if it's not the wrist, it's my thighs or my calfs, there is always just this constant ache somewhere and the odd thing is I actually enjoy the ache.

The lower back ache and wrist one maybe not so much because those are due to bad form.

Anyways, I decided to get a new pair of shoes for gym class and headed over to IMM to take a look at the selection. 

I really needed to get a better pair because I have come to realize that the current Nike shoes I wear is more for daily wear and short jogs, it doesn't really provide the best support for Functional Training.  I got ChatGPT to recommend a few options and it was either Nike Metcons or ON Cloud, both are around $250, which is more than twice the price of what I paid for my current shoes, and honestly so much more expensive than any shoes I had gotten in the past, because most of the sports shoe I had were free pairs that I got from the Army. 

A lot of the gym members wear ON and most of the coaches wear Metcon, I was defintiely more interested in ON, I did went to the Nike shop and Addias one to take a look at what they had, but it was so crowded and I was really confused where the shoes I wanted to look at were, so I just gave up and headed straight to Running Lab to look at the ON shoes.

Original price of the shoes were $240, Running Lab was selling them at $175, it was a really good deal, so I looked at the colour I wanted, struggled to find a place to sit because the store was also really crowded, found that they fit pretty well and got it after maybe just 5 minutes of being in there. 

Funny thing is I have seen this brand before when I was getting my first pair of Nikes for my very Fitstop class back in December last year, thought nothing of it then because I haven't personally heard of the brand before and it was so expensive, and then now that I have been with the gym for more than half a year and been seeing so many people there wearing this brand, suddenly I am getting FOMO and decided to splurge money on it ot get myself a pair. 

They do look really nice and is very light as well compared to my Nike, but I have read not so great things about their durability, so we shall see if it can withstand the test of time. 

Since I was already at IMM, figured I would have lunch there before heading home, so had a solo lunch date at Yuen Kee Dumplings, then bought some sour plums at a nearby food stand which was super expensive, 300g of plumes cost me almost $30, granted they were pretty good but I felt like I got scammed because they charge by weight and the shopkeeper was definitely overselling by constantly telling me add more because it didn't look like it was enough.

That's all for June.

Hari Raya Haji

Had my Fitstop session in the morning of Hari Raya Haji, it's a Wednesday class so there was a lot of running invovled, and since it was a holiday, the class was busier than usual and there were a lot more unfamiliar faces.

I really enjoy going for the class, but I always have a mini anxiety attack when we are told to group up on our own, the coaches will do a final check at the end to make sure everyone has a group, but there has been once when the coach didn't make sure and I ended up doing a session that needed a partner alone.

It was a good session, had my sweat out, then had to rush back home because I was going to meet this guy whom I shall refer to as Bee, I went to his new place earlier this month after he prematurely called things off with me last month, but after our last catch up session at his place, I decided to continue keeping in touch.

Got myself a cup of iJooz on the way home, saw this green colour orange inside the machine, not sure if it's unripe or mouldy, but thankfully it wasn't part of my juice.

Left for Potong Pasir at about 10am and headed over to Folkyard for brunch, I found out about this spot on TikTok and thought it would be an interesting place to visit. 

They are known for their sarnies and I think they got quite popular online, so there were a lot of diners that day, I thought going for brunch would save us from the lunch crowd, but this place is clearly a brunch spot so I was an idiot for thinking that it wouldn't be as crowded as it was.

I got to the place first and was told that I could either get an outside seat within a few minutes, or join a 15 minute queue and get a seat inside the air conditioned space, I thought about it for a while and opted to take the outside seating.

BIG MISTAKE.

There was no fan outside, so I was given a handheld fan, it was not very useful because the weather was fucking insane, it's not a weather for people to be dining outside because not even 5 minutes after I got seated down, I could already feel sweat trickling down my chest in my shirt, it was so fucking uncomfortable.

I did contemplate asking the staff if I could just rejoin the queue and wait for an aircon seat instead, but the queue had already grown to at least 5 groups of people long, so I just sucked it up and endured the heat.

Bee was about 10 minutes late because he got lost, so I decided to order my food first, I felt a bit bad just sitting there and not ordering anything while the queue of people were literally on the left side of my table just waiting and potentially judging me for wasting time. But then again, majority of the people who were queuining probably also had common sense and were actually waiting for a seat inside the cafe.

Overall experience, it wasn't great, the food was actually pretty decent, albiet a bit expensive, but that's to be expected for cafe food, the thing that made the experience not great was the fucking weather! I was hot, I was sweaty and worst of all, I was feeling so fucking sticky, and this was just the start of the day with Bee.

After this, I told Bee we can go visit an Ice Cream shop nearby for dessert, I needed to cool down, so we walked over to this place called Rise Bakehouse and I got myself a cup of Mint Chocolate Ice Cream, he didn't get anything because everything was diary and he is allergic to diary. It was a nice respite from the heat. 

Bee drives, so we headed over to a Nursery next to get some plants for his new place.

It was so fucking humid, the Sun was being a complete fucking bitch, there was barely any wind, I immediately felt sticky the moment I got out of the car, it was really really bad. We actually stayed at the Nursery for 2 hours.

Thankfully, the Nursery had this Orchard section that was air-conditioned, it was such a godsend! I hid here for most of the visit while Bee was going around looking at the plants, he ended up getting 3 different pot of herb for his place, so it was a relatively fruitful visit.

We then dropped by Dempsey, which in hindsight, probably wasn't the greatest idea because Dempsey is an open area, to walk from place A to place B would require us to walk directly under the Sun, which we did a lot of. 

Visted a few different shops, and I was getting more and more uncomfortable as the day went on because the fucking weather, my gawd, I don't think I can express how much I fucking hated the heat and the humdity, it was so fucking bad!

We finally settled down at PS Cafe for a mid-day snack, place was also crowded as fuck.

Each of us got a cup of Kombucha and shared a small serving of Truffle Fries and this super delicious Sticky Date Pudding. 

It was so fucking good! 

The cake was moist and fluffy, the toffee sauce tasted very much like the caramel coating on Garret's Popcorn, and the cold Ice Cream itself offered such a nice constrast to the warm cake. I am actually very tempted to attempt this at home because this cake ain't cheap, the total bill for the 4 items came up to almost $60.

After that afternoon snack, dinner plan was to have Samgyetang at MODU, which is located along Amoy Street, but before that, he had to go Eu Yan Sang to get some herbs, so we did that and it was a long and sticky walk from where he had parked, which was literally a few meters away from MODU, 

The problem with Singapore's weather is how quickly you start sweating and feel all sticky again the moment you get out of an air-conditioned space because that walk to EYS got me feeling so uncomfortable I wanted to go take a shower somehwere immediately, and then when we went to EYS, Bee told me the store was usually a lot colder, but for some reason, the aircon was pretty weak when we were there, the staff working that day told us she couldn't do anything about it because the aircon was already at full blast.

Sigh, so his herbs took 30 minutes to prepare and during that time, I decided to go to the toilet and just clean my arms, literally took hand soap and clean my arms as high as I could to get rid of that stickiness and it worked for the arms, but the rest of me was still feeling really tacky.

Herbs were done, walked back to MODU, of course got sticky again, and when we approached the store, we were told that there was a queue, so we joined the online queue and decided to have Tofu-G next door...

Soy Softserve. 

The last time I had Tofu-G was last year with Zo, back then it was just a pop up located in Mandarin Gallery, and now they have a permanent store in Amoy Street.

It was $8 a cup, can't remember if it was this expensive during my last visit at the Pop Up but it's quite a pricey cup of ice cream. 

We managed to finish our ice cream just in time because not long after, we got seats, Bee had originally requested we get a table to ourselves because they had offered one initially but it was a sharing table, well, we ended up sharing a table with another couple anyways.

It was fine in the end, I would have preferred a table to ourselves so we can talk a bit more freely, but alas, we had to settle with what we got. 

Appetizers. 

Tomatoes, Ginseng and Eggplant. The serving size is making the dining experience feel very atas.

Can't remember the name of the dish, but it's essentially Kimchi, Fried Tofu and Buckwheat wrap, it feels healthy and since I am a sucker for Tofu, this was enjoyable. 

The main dish, Samgyetang, I got the scorched rice meal, so it came with a layer of scorched rice on the chicken, this is on top of the glutinous rice that is also stuffed in the chicken itself and that that extra side of rice at the side. Needless to say, I did not finish the side of rice at the side because it was way too much.

Dessert is Honey Biscuit and a sweet drink that was very cinammon forward, it was actually spicy.

Total damage for this meal raked up to $140 for 2 people.

Hopefully this won't be the norm because I cannot afford expensive meals like these all the time. Had a great time overall, only thing that ruined the experience was the fucking weather.