Hello, I am down with the annual start-of-the-Melbourne-Winter flu and feeling like shite, but my Virgo brain doesn’t allow me to skip this post, so here I am updating you on the happenings of my life in the past thirty days.
But first, Happy Taurus season, y’all! Wishing you a grounding month ahead.
Highlights
💯 ━ If there is a theme I get to associate with the month of April, it has to be: “never-ending”. It felt like both my personal and work tasks kept piling up. More and more, no matter how much I worked and how many I cleared off before. I am glad I sat and am done (for now) with the exam. Phew!
🍻 ━ The weekend after the exam, we did Melbourne Comedy Pub Crawl in Brunswick (shout out to George Zacharopoulos, the Greek comedian – his part was the best among the lot), followed by k-bbq dinner at Goon BBQ with our friends. It was so much fun and completely recharged me.
🥠 ━ Liz’s parents are in town and invited me for the most elaborate home-cooked dinner. It was delicious, but more so, I felt the love (and later the high from gulping two shots of strong AF Nanjing spirits).
🍴 ━ We have finally figured out how to use the dishwasher after moving two times and having three dishwashers that, before this, have been used for additional storage. #WeAsian.
Read, Watched, And Browsed
📚 ━ I went to the book club without reading the book: The Whitewash by Siang Liu ━ but the discussion on the day made me want to read it, so I’ll include it in case you want to/have read it.
📚 ━ I read Artemis Made Me Do It, The New House and Too Good to Be True ━ all three to avoid studying for my exam. Meanwhile, I am currently reading Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow. It’s so good! I honestly can’t remember the last time I read an unputdownable fiction book before this. I 100% recommend it.
📚 ━ I have The Mindful Photographer on my bedside for weekend reading, which, unfortunately, I have yet to find the time for.
📺 ━ Really loved The Diplomat, Succession and Yellowjackets. I also liked Nurse and The Tunnel. I re-watched The Hell House LLC 1, 2 and 3, free on Youtube, at least thrice this month – it helped me cope with exam stress.
I have been reading up on food stations in Antarctica. Now I want to go there – mostly to eat at those food stations ♥ I am binge-reading Austin Kleon’s blog – here is a sample of it: A journal is a magic space to hang out ♥ I don’t usually give a song recommendation. Still, I am trying to break my belief that I don’t enjoy music, so here is Bells for Her by Tori Amos ♥ Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa making meaningful changes.
Foodie Guide-y
🍸 ━ We went to Rare Hare in Jackalope Mornington Peninsula to celebrate Fafa’s birthday. We did a wine tasting and cocktail drinking, followed by fine dining.
🍸 ━ Fafa took me to Hai Di Lao for a post-exam hot pot. I am so ready to explore hot pot restaurants with him (and Liz) this winter.
🍜 ━ Fafa and I are currently addicted to Kottu Mee, Sri Lankan instant noodles. We have had it on our weekly meal rotation for the past month.
👩🍳 ━ I successfully cooked Paneer Pollichathu, Indonesian Prawn Sambal, and Egg Curry – making it to one-third of my cooking goal this year.
🧆 ━ Miznon, an Israeli restaurant in the CBD, is my office’s current fave place to go for team lunch.
🧆 ━ One hundred years of Vegemite.
Meanwhile, on Kulture Kween:
I wrote about eating Japanese Nattō for the first time ♥ Participating in Fiji Kava ceremony while visiting Fiji Cultural Village ♥ Eating Peranakan Cuisine in Singapore ♥
Tiny Joys
Midweek PH ♥ Thu’s Baby Girl ♥ Road Trip ♥ The Bank On Collins ♥ Sparkling Wine ♥ Melbourne Hipster Pockets ♥ Getting an unexpected text message from my loved ones ♥ Midnight Birthday-cake feast ♥ Brown Women Comedy ♥ Just Because Card from Fafa ♥ Apple pie+ice cream ♥ Musubi ♥ Yoga ♥ Rose Tteokbokki ♥ Wendie Cao Rebellious Chinese Daugther comedy show ♥ Work friends ♥ Bali arak ♥ Melbourne tram ♥ Stumbling on random wall arts during my runs ♥ Issan Thai takeaway ♥ Piccolino ice cream ♥ New lipstick and new house plants ♥ Dig Emporium ♥ Autumn colours ♥ Fafa got me a beautiful Amber ring from Qi Crystal ♥
In My Mind…
Is eggplant an underrated dish??
I miss ordering food through the actual menu instead of using the QR code. I wonder whether we will ever go back to the pre-COVID booklet-sized menu way on this eventually?
Time Machine
🌴 ━ The happenings of this time last year.
Thank You, Next!
🧘 ━ Post fiery Aries, I am ready for some earthy indulgence this month with yet another k-bbq with Aina and the gang this weekend, followed by dinner dates peppered in the calendar throughout the month. And I don’t have an exam to study and stress about anymore for some time, so that’s already a big win in May.
📘 ━ I’ll be attending two Melbourne Writer Festival events in person next weekend, which I am uber excited about and will write all about it here.
🍲 ━ I am travelling to Wondonga for work next week and looking forward to ticking off another Aussie town experience.
🚶♀️━ I am working on writing 365 post drafts this year for fun. So far, I have written five drafts in my journal. Three hundred sixty more to go in 245 days. What do you think? Doable?
🚶♀️━ I am trying to convince myself to do the 1000 Steps Walk with Fafa this month as I want to do more outdoor activities for mental health.
📷 ━ Related to the above point ━ To GoPro or not to GoPro is a question I have been toying with for the past couple of weeks, as an action camera could be a motivating factor for the activities since I enjoy photography. However, when I messaged my K2Gadget cousin to get his Tech Youtuber approval, he suggested Insta 360 X3; But it’s more expensive, more fragile and needs more post-recording work. Well, I think I have answered my question, GoPro it’s.
Follow me on Instagram @KultureKween for more recent updates.
Keep Kultured! ━ KK.
