It’s a Friday holiday, so Vino and I were able to sleep in longer than usual.
Luckily, it was also the first game of the NBA Finals, so the timing was just nice.
I’ve been following Tyrese Haliburton for a couple of years now, mostly because of fantasy basketball, but I do enjoy watching him when I get the chance.
This season, there have been plenty of chances, especially during the playoffs.
However, I never thought they had a chance of beating the monster Oklahoma City team. I was thinking of a sweep or five games at the most. On a purely basketball perspective, there is just no way.
Game 1 went like it should – Indiana trying to fight back, but Oklahoma getting control back with an eight to nine point buffer.
In the fourth quarter, the Pacers somehow cut a 15 point lead to six and there was enough time to make a comeback. Oklahoma put it back to eight, but it felt like the Pacers weren’t done just yet.
With under a minute left, the Pacers remained in striking distance of a win. With about 10 seconds left in the game with Oklahoma leading by one, season MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander missed a jumper he would make nine times out of 10.
Instead of going for the rebound, the Pacers decided to run with it. Four seconds left, Haliburton drives right, steps inside the three point line and launches a midrange jumper…
…it rattles in, 0.3 seconds left in the clock. The Pacers took game 1 in Oklahoma’s home court.
Good start to the day.
Che was coming home today, so I told Vino to get ready so we can head over to Jewel for an activity I booked earlier in the week.
Vino loves planes, influenced by one of his closest friends in Vietnam. I saw that Changi Experience Zone had a flight simulator that he can try, but I didn’t tell him about it just yet.
He enjoyed the pseudo-hologram interaction of the place. He lit up when he saw the flight simulator, and smiled even brighter when I told him that he was going to fly that day.
While we waited for our turn, we did the stationary bike. We did it the first time we went there but he couldn’t reach the pedals just yet. This time around, he was tall enough to actually play by himself.
Next, it was time for him to fly.
He was listening to the instructions, but he was clearly too excited to absorb everything. As a result, it was a very dizzying ride.
Dude manning the activity was cool though, he kept assuring Vino that he was doing well for his first try.
We went to try the other games the place had to offer. Vino was very frustrated by the Smile Challenge. Basically, you just sit there and smile and the computer scores your smile. For some reason, Vino’s smile couldn’t be detected.
If you know Vino, his smile is always ear-to-ear. So it was frustrating even for me that the machine says it failed to detect Vino’s face.
We danced in the forest, collected carts, managed baggage, flew a butterfly, got people in cabs, and many more. We took a long time inside that instead of us picking up Che, she was the one who picked us up.
We had a quick lunch and went around a bit before going home so Che could catch up on some sleep.
Later, we met up with James and Steph for dinner.
We learned that Vincenzo Capuano was one of the best pizza places in the world, so we wanted to try it out. Che made a reservation for this day over a week ago to make sure we had seats.
As we were seated, we realized it’s the same restaurant as Kubo, the Filipino concept restaurant from way back. James said Vincenzo was the third restaurant in that same spot since Kubo.
The menu was mostly pizza, a few pastas, and a couple of desserts. Of course we were going to have pizza.
We had the “world champion” Provola E Pepe and the Domeniche Lontano, the carbonara, and the Guanciale Di Manzo. We also had a salmon appetizer that was more salmon than salad, which was a good value for money, but felt a bit short on the salad part.
The pizza dough was rightfully hyped. It was good enough to be a starter bread for a meal – soft and light. The guanciale was full of flavor, and the carbonara was just right. For the hype that the restaurant got, the price was not bad.
We spent the night catching up and talking because we haven’t seen each other in two weeks. Took a picture of the receipt, but we weren’t able to take a photo of us together.
It’s a huge departure from days where we need to take a photo of the food first before we eat. At least now, we get to spend a lot more time talking than pictures and phone.
Except Vino, who spent most of the time on his tablet during this dinner.
We got home late, but it will be a good night’s sleep as we’re all in one home again.
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