The Road to 40 Day 147/365: Washed Sports Day

Today was supposed to be Vino’s sports day in school, but we were greeted by a battle of clear and dark skies.

Based on last year’s sports day, I thought I needed to wear a sleeveless shirt and bring a fan for Che. Sadly, both of those were unnecessary as the dark clouds won the morning battle.

After dropping Vino off at school, Che and I were somewhat trapped in the school because of the heavy rain and our small umbrellas. We soon got a message that sports day is postponed to Monday.

We thought about just waiting for the rain to stop, so Che had some coffee while catching up with some work stuff.

When the rain didn’t look like it would stop at 9:30am, we decided to just leave and head to her office.

As she went off to work, I decided to walk around Vivo for a bit. The rainy weather felt like it called for some ba kut teh, but as we approached Che’s office, the sun came out. I thought about exploring the Bukit Merah food centre, but Vivo seemed closer to home so I just went to the top floor food court.

Vivo has been a staple mall for me ever since I arrived in Singapore. It’s always been close enough to where I lived, and with Che’s office right beside it, it’s our go-to mall to walk around in. Over the years, it has had plenty of changes.

The top floor food court, for instance, has had some renovations done, and a lot of shops have also changed. We don’t usually go here unless we have visitors because it’s usually crowded with people going to Sentosa. Plus, it’s kinda tourist-y priced for a food court.

But I thought instead of eating at a restaurant, this would be better. And it’s still early, so it actually has a good selection of shops that was already open even if the mall still wasn’t.

After going around, I chose to get some fishball noodles. It said it was a Bib Gourmand awardee from 2022 to 2024.

I got the top offering they had and asked it not to be too spicy. It’s okay, but I’ve had better. When I worked at Iskina Cebu a few years back, I had the opportunity to eat at Fishball Story by Douglas Ng. He’s a young hawkerpreneur who opened up a fishball noodles stall at Timbre+ at One-North.

It has since been the standard of fishball noodles for me. Sadly, his shop isn’t there anymore. A few years back, he expanded and eventually sold his franchise. Now, he has partnered up with a few more people to bring Singapore flavors to Indonesia.

To date, I haven’t had fishball noodles as the ones Douglas made, but this will do for now.

I had a bit of time because Che was going to pick Vino up from school. I decided to walk a bit and explore Telok Blangah Rise, which feels like an alien location for me despite it being so close to where we’ve always lived.

When I got home, I put some clothes in the washing machine and waited for the cleaner to come. Later, Vino and Che would arrive as well.

We planned on going out, but Che felt super sleepy and eventually just agreed with what Vino wanted – stay in the house and order in.

While Che was working, Vino and I stayed in the room. I thought he would want to play Roblox, but he asked to wrestle and play with his ball-pillow.

Che came in after she worked and slept for a bit. We had some Japanese food because we wanted something light, but Che didn’t eat much, so I ate a bunch of the rolls we had.

Apart from my short walk, this was a pretty indoor kind of day. We’ll aim to get moving more tomorrow.