The Road to 40 Day 217/365: Welcoming the Weekend

It’s Vino’s last day of the term and Che had her monthly well-being day, so it was going to be a chill day.

The kids are already in a festive mood, and since it was the last day of school before the holidays, kids were allowed to come to school in casual clothes.

Vino woke up super early again, very excited for the day. He had some gifts to give to his closest friends, which he put in his bag. He also got to choose the clothes he wanted to wear.

After dropping him off in school, I went back to Che, who had coffee, but went back to bed – a well-deserved extended rest for the day. We wanted to take this chance to go out on a date, so I booked a place for lunch.

We headed out a bit early for a light breakfast, but she wanted to check out a store in Suntec. After a quick Ya Kun Kaya Toast brekky, we walked around a bit in the mall.

When we started dating, walking around malls would be a good date for us. We get to do window shopping, and we stay in an air-conditioned place. We didn’t need to buy anything, but it was nice to look at things we can aspire to buy in the future.

I’m happy to see Che getting to a point where she can afford to make impulsive purchases when she wants. She’s always taken pride in working for everything she has. She’s always been a hard worker, and no matter how big or small she earned, she has always found a way to enjoy it fully.

Her life stage has contributed greatly in how she manages her finances, and I think stepping out of her comfort zone and taking a risk by flying out to Singapore really started it all.

After the quick window shopping session, we went to Um Yong Baek for lunch.

The store was hailed as one of the best Korean restaurants here in Singapore, and I think it deserves the praise. I’ve enjoyed gukbap and solleongtang when we were in Vietnam and learned that it’s really close to the Korean tastes when we were in Korea.

When we went back to Singapore, I searched for the best gukbap here in Singapore and saw Um Yong Baek as a top suggetion. I’ve tried it twice, and told Che that she should try it as well.

She doesn’t enjoy gukbap as much as I do, but she liked this one. We were served by a Filipino staff, who took care of us well.

It was a little too early still to pick Vino up, so we went back home first. Che decided to sleep a bit while I went to pick up Vino from school.

For dinner, we planned to cook something, but decided to just go out with Steph and James. I told Vino that we were going to MBS for dinner, and he requested to eat “some salty steak” again at Wakuda.

As the afternoon went on, it felt like the rain wasn’t going to stop, so we decided to just eat at home and order some delivery. When I told Che about Vino’s request, she suggested to order some steak for me to cook.

Che cooked some pasta to pair with the steaks. I initially thought about cooking it with sous vide, but we thought we didn’t have enough time to cook it right. I’ll try that method next time.

I still know how to cook my steaks, at least, and everyone enjoyed it well.

We never run out of things to share when we’re together, and I don’t even know if I already told them some of the stories i shared. Nonetheless, we still enjoyed talking about it. We looked back at some of the experiences we had during college, which James might not have heard of yet.

The Ngouple brought some dessert, which we ate together with the remaining wine until just before midnight. Che was already on the sofa trying to entertain herself to avoid sleeping, and once Steph joined in, James took it as cue that she was also ready to go home.

I told Che to join Vino in the room as I cleaned up a bit. So when I fold clothes, I usally leave the clothes I need to hang. For washing dishes, I could wash plates and everything else, but I usually leave out glasses. I did the same for tonight’s mess.

It was a nice way to open the weekend – our last for the year before we fly out to the Philippines next week.