What my Satuday can look like

I was looking back and my old handwritten diaries a couple of weeks back and thought it was interesting on how I wrote for the sake of writing – which meant that I wrote about every tiniest thing that happened for the day – what i did, what i thought, how i felt and also the funniest bit – on how i had nothing else to write. I guess I’ve been somewhat of a writer, a story teller since I’m young which somehow stuck with me till today. Many times, I am entertained by the writings of my younger self, so I guess I have to keep one writing so my even future self can continue to be amused. Hello to future self if you’re reading this =p

So, I decided to write about my day, in the style that I might have written down when I was 13. Here we go.

I set my alarm at 930am in the morning, as I was kind of soft-booking my friend for coffee after her Barre class. Well, she did invite me to join her for class the night before but I didn’t really enjoy that type of exercise as the one and only Barre class I did 5 years ago, left me with bad cramps and I couldn’t really get out of bed the next day. Thus, I decided to just join her for coffee instead, as this would give me a reason to get out of the house and not just ‘waste’ the day at home. Sadly, I am a master procrastination and after going to the toilet, reading the newspaper and having my breakfast, I could only leave house at the supposed agree time (when her class ended), but smart me – I suggested visiting a new cafe which was about 15 mins walk away for her and thankfully, the bus came on time and she didn’t have to wait too long for me. I ordered a lavender latte – something which I kind of regret cause sweet coffee ain’t my kind of thing, but somehow I always forget. I should have just stuck to the regular latte but then again, I’m also a sucker for ‘specials’. It was nice to have a short catchup with my friend (a mum of 2 kids), though I also just met her a week ago at another gathering. We were just talking about life and work in general but sadly, she didn’t have much time cause she had to join her kids for lunch so after we finished that cup of coffee, it was time for us to part.

I had another appoint at 4pm, but I don’t like the idea of going home only to go out again so.. I decided to walk 20 mins to a shopping mall nearby to utilize one of the discounted shopee vouchers I bought a week ago for this Hazlenut Peanut Pancake. It was during this long walk that I decided to just put in more concentration in observing my surroundings and people-watch as I walk. Well, I entered a supermarket along the way and I saw this caucasian man (probably in his 60s) holding a shopping list and walking around. I thought it was quite an interesting sight as I don’t see physical shopping lists these days. Most people just store the information on their phone. My guess was that his wife probably wrote it for him and he was checking it while putting things into the basket. What a sight. There wasn’t really anything for me to buy but I generally like popping into supermarket to check on whether any of my favourite expensive fruits are on promotion. Things like cherries, nice grapes and blueberries etc. Also, it was during this walk when I decided that I’m gonna do this blog post when I’m home. Impressed that I manage to keep this ‘commitment’ and that it is 11:15PM and I’m here trying to type this out before the day is over.

Upon reaching the shopping mall, instead of going over to redeem my pancake, I decided to walk past the express facial place where I had done facials a couple of times before to check the ‘queue’. Sometimes you need to wait hours but today. it was only going to be a 30 mins wait so I decided to get a queue number. Even though ‘facial’ was never on the agenda today, I did it anyway. That’s the way I am, living life as randomly as ever. While waiting for my facial, I did eventually go to get my pancake and gobbled it down while window shopping around the mall. There wasn’t really anything that I need but I ended up in muji staring at their powdered drinks as I’ve seen recommendations for it recently but before I can even think of buying, I got a call to go back to the shop for my facial. There was a new ‘selection’ today, something called pore cleansing or something so I decided to give that a try since I always like to try new stuff. Don’t really know how to comment about beauty stuff but at the end, the staff recommended me to go somewhere else for a full facial so they can properly focus on poking my nose to remove the ‘congestion’. No idea when I’ll get to it but yep, she went on to say how my face was sensitive too and oily and blah but it’s the usual stuff I hear anyway.

After facial, I took a train on the new MRT line to Orchard. I had a distant friend who opened a cafe 2 years ago but I never found the opportunity to visit it so I thought since I had some time to burn before my appointment, it was worth a visit today. I don’t know how to feel about the visit but I barely got to speak to my friend as she was so so so so super busy. I mean it is a good thing that she’s busy and that the cafe is crowded but deep inside me wished that I could have a conversation with her since I haven’t met her since she closed down her previous cafe. Okay we are kind of acquaintance in a way but yep, she was really busy so I just ordered a coffee and a cake and self-entertained for the next 45 mins, until I had to leave for my appointment.

My appointment was for a 1-hour body massage which was free because I was using someone else’s package. I wouldn’t say the massage that I did today was the type that I enjoyed or like so I guess that is likely the last time that I’ll be back (despite it being free), cause I pretty much prefer the TCM massage style from a place outside my house – which is a rather painful massage. The one that happened today was more of I don’t know how to describe it but it doesn’t give me the ‘I’m happy because I did a massage today’ feel. Oops.

After the massage, I went to the various shopping malls to window shop here and there. I dropped by Marks and Spencers to see if there’s anything I could look out for when I do visit UK in a few months time. I also went to Daiso, trying to look for this plastic crochet ring which I’ve failed to find it for a while and left empty-handed. Pondered over what to eat or takeaway for dinner but had no inspiration so I proceeded to my next planned destination – the bookshop Kinokuniya. A couple of weeks back, my friend was sharing with me how it was a good feeling to browse and buy books from an actual bookstore. For me, I’ve been just reading/listening to eBooks/Audiobooks on my phone and even if I needed to buy a book, I would have shipped it to my house anyway. So, the visit to the bookstore was with an agenda to buy a book. I did have one book that I intended to buy. I read the first chapter (on eBook) and felt that it was promising, thus I wanted to buy the book. Guess what, I spent an entire 30 mins in the ‘Literature’ section but I couldn’t find it. To give context, I don’t visit the book store often so I have no idea how things are arranged. Of course, I could have reached out to the staff for help but somehow I wanted to leave it to ‘fate’, as to whether I could walk out of the book store with a book or not. Despite not being able to find the book, I was having a fun time reading the summary of other books and going into the Libby app to borrow/waitlist the book. I decided to move on to another section of the book store and finally, I saw this section called ‘Asian Literature’ and yes, the author I was looking for was Japanese. As expected, the book I wanted was there, staring straight at me. Yes, I was excited, like this is it, I’m finally going to buy it.. until I saw the price tag. I mean, it is not THAT expensive but it was a price 3 times higher compared to the cheapest price I could see on google. Many many many years ago, I used to buy my books from book depository but that site has since shut down. I haven’t bought any physical book since a long time ago. $24 – it is not that expensive right? But somehow I struggled to justify that purchase and decided to put that book down. I moved on with life, and noted down on more books/authors that I wanted to explore next (the eBook and audiobook way). I can’t understand myself but I struggle a lot to spend money on things I can get for free (borrowing from Libby, via my country’s library network) and the rationale of buying a physical item which will belong in my already cluttered room. Years back, I concluded that I was a hoarder which means that things I buy are hardly ever gonna be thrown away so I need to think twice and thrice before buying anything physical as it might just be stuck with me for life. Story of my life.

I left the book store and went down to the basement to buy this mini mochi bread thing that had been quite popular online. Upon reaching, I saw a long queue and decided to walk around before coming back. Spent a long time considering what to eat for dinner – should it be finger food/snacks or should I sit down somewhere to dine alone looking like a lonely person. Then, I suddenly recalled that there was this tonkatsu place that I tried once which was pretty decent. Walked all the way in and AS EXPECTED OF MY USUAL SELF, I got distracted and saw this other shop selling unagi. I have a strange obsession with unagi/eel/anago after eating a really good (and expensive) one in Korea back in May. There was a queue, so I queued. I felt bad hogging a 2-seater table when there’s only me but oh wells, these are some discomforts I need to accept since it is likely my future. I wasn’t really hungry so I chose the smallest portion which was pretty uncommon for a greedy me. I gobbled my food down quickly as I wanted to free up my seat as there was a long queue of diners waiting in line. After I was done, I went back to the bakery and there was still a queue but gosh, the number of ‘mini mochi bread’ left on display was dwindling and I guess I was lucky? I managed to buy the last 100g, and the next batch was at least a 30 mins wait. It was a win for me that day. Despite being full, I insisted on eating one ‘fresh’ and gosh, it was so delicious and chewy. There are 2 ways for me to get home – the longer bus ride (likely with seats) or the shorter train journey (usually standing). Given that I had the luxury of time on my hand, I chose the bus option and listened to an audiobook called ‘inequality’ on the way home. Gosh, it was such a heavy content on social issues in my country ><

As always, my mind cannot be fixated on one thing at a time. On my bus ride (which was pretty packed but I could get a seat on the second level), I was scrolling twitter and yep, my favourite Korean singer was participating in a music festival in Korea today and videos were slowly being uploaded while I was on the bus ride back so, while I’m trying to absorb the heaviness of the audiobook, I’m also smiling to the pictures and videos. As much as I would say this is multi-tasking, my friend would otherwise say that I am just not concentrating on anything at all – and about how the brain is in fact incapable of multi-tasking effectively but I guess that’s a story for next time. As you can tell, I can hardly ever do one thing at a time.

Upon reaching home, there was a parcel waiting for me (some skincare from VT I bought a week earlier) and gosh, it was time for me to watch f1 qualifiers. It started at 9pm. It was pretty thrilling and yay, the driver I support is no.1 on the podium for the race tomorrow. While watching the f1 qualifying race, I was multi-tasking with.. my crochet. I started on an ambitious bag project 2 days ago and I couldn’t let my day go by without multi-tasking. I went on to also do my ‘Duolingo’ practices for the day (to keep my streak and not to drop level from the league) and chatted with a friend on Telegram who had dinner with the barista from a cafe (she’s overseas right now) and I can’t stop teasing her even though it is just for the fun of it. After all of these, I logged into WordPress and started typing this entry. The time is 12AM right now. I am so apt with the timing.

Yep, that’s what my Saturday looked like today. This is not the norm as I usually don’t do so many things on a weekend but somehow today happened and somehow I decide to document every single bit of it. Thanks for reading and I hope I didn’t bore you with my day.

Happy weekend, it’s still Sunday tomorrow!