The Road to 40 Day 237/365: Relax and Mall Tour Day

If the first day of the year was any indication of what’s to come for the rest of 2026, then it’s going to be a really fun one.

Since we just had champagne and wine the night before, I was able to wake up way before my 9am alarm. I took a bath and got the blog done before proceeding to have breakfast at the hotel. Steph and James were on their way down, so we got a table together.

Che usually sleeps in while Vino would not usually eat a lot, so I feel like it’s my “responsibility” to eat their fair share of food in the breakfast buffets.

The bacon was a bit too crunchy, but the rest of the food was nice, especially the beef noodles. Che soon followed, with Vino opting to sleep more in the room. She told him to message us if he needed anything, but even as we got done, he was still sleeping in the bed.

We brought him some bread from the buffet and got ready to leave the hotel for our 12:30pm massage schedule.

The place was about 12 minutes away by car, but what we didn’t take into account was the fact that there were not a lot of drivers available due to last night’s festivities. Waiting times for rides would be 16-25 minutes.

While we were trying to figure things out, time was passing. Ultimately, we decided to walk towards the train station and pushed back the appointment to 1pm.

When we reached the mall, we had to take a couple of minutes to figure out where it was exactly. It wasn’t too busy, so we guessed that’s why it was easy to adjust our schedule.

We got two couple rooms and a single room, with me taking the latter so that Vino would be with Che. JM had recommended the massage franchise to us, and it delivered.

After the massage, we were treated to some mango sticky rice and some tea. Vino devoured that thing quick.

Despite the multiple locations of Let’s Relax Spa, we opted for Central Park because it was one of the newer malls in the city. We looked for a place to eat and apparently, the basement food court had a diverse offering that included 17 Michelin-recommended spots.

It was weirdly full even at almost 3pm, but I guess people have woken up late. Luckily, we found a table for us all.
I had pad thai wrapped in egg, Che and Vino shared a plate of egg fried rice, James got green curry, and Steph had this shredded chicken and chicken feet soup. We also had fried bananas and some chicken skin. Everything was nice, save maybe for James’ green curry. Later, he got some basil pork rice and he was happy.

We went around to see some stuff, but Vino can get a little restless while the adults take their time to choose things, so I said I’ll take him with me while we walked around elsewhere. We went to Adidas and New Balance while Steph and James accompanied Che, who was looking at a couple of shops.

Instead of finding something for her, she got something for me. We then went for a coffee break where I got this hard-to-drink latte with boba pearls that were stuck together.

From there, we took a Grab ride heading to Terminal 21. This was a familiar place for me, as we enjoyed this mall when we last came here. As we were walking around, Vino saw this shop that sold shirts with amusing duck designs. I asked him if he liked it, and he began choosing on his own, from colors to design.

It’s nice that he’s at an age where he wants to choose things for himself. He’s been choosing his own “drip” when we go out, and now, he’s just straight up choosing what he wants.

He got this Starducks shirt and wanted to wear it already to show off later.

As we were heading up, we saw inflatable mascots going down the escalator to the ground floor. He asked if he could go see it, so I went with him. We followed them as they danced and he got a couple of photos in.

There was a game corner where he got to play a couple of carnival games and won a scented candle. From there, we just played around with whatever we came across.

Vino has been a soldier when we go out. But he does get bored when the place doesn’t interest him, so I let him explore what he wants to explore so that he won’t dread coming with us on trips like these. It’s nice that I can do it without leaving Che alone this time around.

After our Terminal 21 adventure, we took another Grab ride to EM Tower. It was apparently also one of the newest malls around with a vibrant and youthful theme. It had a vibe that felt like Funan Mall in Singapore, and I learned from James that they actually applied similar design concepts – it’s just that Em Tower was bigger.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t too much to see because a lot of the shops were closed this day. After going around, we had dinner at Charbon because we were drawn by their oysters. Vino had hanger steak, while we had padron peppers, asparagus, sausages, sliders, fries, and oysters. Everything was nice. It would have been better if we were able to sit comfortably, but it was still nice to sit by the bar and watch how they cooked.

After dinner, Vino asked to buy a drink at Starbucks, mainly to show off his shirt.

We then walked to Emporium, but there wasn’t much to see anymore as it was closing time. We got wine for the room and Steph got mango sticky rice.

Once we got to the hotel, we freshened up and had a nightcap. We wanted to finish the bottle of Bordeaux we opened last night, but it had a weird aftertaste, so we opted not to drink it anymore and opened the new bottle we bought.

Steph’s mango sticky rice was amazing. We loved the consistency and flavor of the sticky rice that we almost could have it even without the mango.

We all agreed to start the day early tomorrow, but we finished the night at a little past 12am. I’m aligned with that plan, but it’s a whole different matter when it comes to execution, so we’ll see how it goes.