o v e r f l u o

Gluten free . Coeliac . It was when I came to Australia that I first heard those words. And then I kept hearing it, and hearing it. People who have coeliac, or celiac, have immune systems which don't react well to gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, barley and oats. Many restaurants here cater to people who require a gluten free diet because it is that common. Over time, I started hearing about more people with different allergies. A story of a kid who can't have nuts or peanut butter, another story of a kid who can't have nuts, dairy, gluten and some other stuff, and schools which decide to ban things like peanut butter and nuts altogether because some kids have allergies so bad that if you touched peanut butter then touched the kid, the kid would go into anaphylaxis. This is serious and can be threatening. This happens every Spring here – everyone talks about hay fever. Of course people in Singapore have allergies – nut allergies, shellfish aller...

Yesterday while chewing on dinner, I felt something on my teeth and tried to get it off. I couldn't. And I realised that something had not been added; rather, something was GONE. LIKE. SRSLY? So yes. Part of my tooth crown got broken off. I wasn't even chewing anything hard and I must have swallowed it because I didn't bite into anything hard ie, the crown (so yea, got some porcelain in my tummy now). As a result, I made a trip to the dentist. I don't dread visits to the dentist like some who find it a painful ordeal. However, I almost always come out sighing because there are always problems and no small costs. The dentist confirmed replacing it wouldn't be covered by private health insurance (but why), and would cost well over a thousand bucks. Sigh. She also cleaned my teeth and told me I take too much sugar. It's funny (not in the funny haha way), because my colleagues at work eat a lot of sweets too, but they don't seem to have the same teeth issu...

Soooo yesterday, e got the chance to test drive the Mazda MX5 – which won Wheels Magazine 2016 Car of the Year – and we made the most of it!  We planned a date all the way to Mornington Peninsula. About an hour from home, it's not actually that far, but for a weekday evening , it's considered pretty far. For the drive there in the convertible, we had the top down which was pretty cool (and a little cold, heh), plus we let some jazz tunes ring to match the feel. E was gushing about the specs and the way the car handled.  At Mornington Peninsular we had dinner at The Rocks, which was a little fancy. We aren't ones to make something special about 14th February but since we had that car and were driving all the way there, we thought we'd dinner at a nice place. Loved the view there, on the second storey overlooking the ocean and it's colourful boats. As it turned dark, the pier lit up and the houses across the water were really pretty with their orange ligh...

Okay, I was trying to find something that rhymes with "brunch" so I went with "punch"... which does make sense because it was pretty yummy. Anyway. It was nice making an effort for homemade brunch: Mushrooms and chives, stir fried with butter and garlic Toasted garlic bread – La Famiglia is our go-to Bacon and eggs with a sprinkle of salt and pepper, baked at 200 degrees for 15 minutes in oiled muffin trays Fresh cherry tomatoes

1. City loop My journey home starts from Flinders Street station. Whenever I take the city loop route home and reach Richmond, I feel sad because I would have been on the train for 12 minutes and yet I'm still only at... Richmond (it takes 2 minutes to get to Richmond if you don't go through the loop). But it's okay because taking the city loop train means it's also a limited express train so the train will skip a few stops to get me home in the same amount of time. 2. If I don't wear shoes in my home, you don't wear shoes in my home An agent came to inspect the property we rent and we guessed they used the toilet because there was soil (from shoes) on our toilet mat. Not cool. You can use our toilet but no, you can't soil it with your shoes. 3. Work to rest or rest to work I enjoy my work but seriously, weekends. Thank God for weekends, for rest. Someone once said we don't work so we can rest. Rather, we rest so that we can work. We rest so tha...

Didn't miss home related things much in my first 2.5 years here but I'm feeling it a bit more now. Facebook is flooded with photos full of red; happy smiles and pretty cheongsams, mandarins and ang pows, family and friends. I remember looking forward to this time of the year which meant extra days of holidays and also visiting relatives we might not be close to but at least keep in touch with once a year on this occasion. Funny thing, traditions. Especially when we are young it seems like just good fun. But as years pass by and you grow up a little, you start to see the significance in them. Traditions on purpose, traditions which make for some of the best memories, traditions which give you a sense of "this is me". To make up being away from my traditional sort of Chinese New Year, a nice thing is e has two cousins here so we had a "reunion dinner" with them, albeit a non-traditional Peruvian one (at Pastuso in Melbourne city – highly recommended btw)...

  Yesterday and today's exploits. Yesterday's – a copy of Viktoria Astrom's work, copying to learn and try. Today's – a part copy and part adaptation of Anada from A Piece of Rainbow's watercolour flowers, trying to paint with more saturated colours and mix to get different shades of green.

Yesterday I watched a documentary about the world's busiest train station – Shinjuku station in Japan. Wow. It was amazing. Actually, at first I was amazed and told e,  can we go can we go? And as I continued to watch and saw how they literally squeezed people onto trains during rush hour and there have been cases of broken bones (the squeeze shown on the show was worse than the picture above), I said,  so stress. I don't want to go anymore. I just want to go see the station but not sit on the train.  And he said,  no space to sit. Shinjuku train station has hundreds of dedicated and well trained staff who understand the importance of their job. The station sees five times more commuters than London's busiest station, and with such crazy numbers, even things like flow of traffic is monitored and redirected when necessary so people don't clog up the area and cause a stampede (like, wuddd). The crowd sometimes gets so massive that one staff described it as, ...

Today, I went for a networking event of sorts. At my company we're having a challenge to get as many leads as possible, from companies who might be interested in hosting interns. When I heard of the challenge my first thought was, hey that's a smart way to get the whole company involved – a form of gamification.  Then I thought, uh oh, I'm not great at this whole networking thingamajig.  Well, we were not left without help. The good thing is that we got into teams to complete the challenges and everyone around here is really helpful with giving tips and doing stuff together. So today, I went for my first networking event of sorts with a colleague. It was at Hub Australia as a lunch/tea party and... it was great! People were really friendly and easy to talk to and I guess people who go to these events in the first place are ready to mingle. The party format was smart – people were required to change seats every five minutes. That way, we had to meet many new people but...

On Sunday we welcomed a new bub to the family! My parents are now grandparents of six. Wow. It's really "balanced", actually – 3 boys and 3 girls. It must have been really exciting for the older siblings of the new baby too as they're at an age where they can understand lots :)