Long Read - 2024 recap

What went down in 2024 in somewhat chronological order:

Treated to my 1st omakase dinner by my sister

Went for Exists concert

Went for Taylor Swift concert

Went for Jamal Abdillah concert (2nd time!) with parents

Parents anniversary dinner @ The White Label

Staycay in the middle of the week @ Crowne Plaza with our room opening right next to the pool

 JB entire day trip with sister and first time trying the famous Nasi Kandar Hijrah

Finally stepped onto and into Batam

Overseas family trip to KL & Mom's first ever flight

Impromptu trip to KL for Exists x Masdo concert

Another staycay  @ Crowne Plaza. This time the room is smaller and cozier 😝

Finally the Bangkok trip to end the year!

Alhamdulilah for all the rezeki and opportunities. Many more to come Insya Allah. 

Quick Read - Blogssary

Was randomly looking at my blog latest and earliest posts. 

Latest - 2024. Earliest - 2008

It's been 16 years since I kept this blog? Wow time truly flies~

Have not been diligently blogging and sometimes when I read back the older posts, it seems dry and bo-ring. 

But hey 16 years of keeping this blog ✍. Well done to me

I realised I am not as expressive as I used to be. Maybe it's just easier to bottle up sometimes and let little words express myself rather than have a long composition and getting worked up.

Separately checked my tweets and it's been 14 years since I started.

It's all thanks to Salman Khan that I opened twitter account. Years ago, it was a fun platform and I'm actively more engaging with other Salman fans and haters alike. I'll get worked up if I see unnecessary hating on him. But many many years later, I no longer have the same energy. Hate him all you want. He's someone up there, successful in his career after being in the industry for so long. Yet you want to discredit his hard work. Go ahead. 

Twitter now is like my personal photo diary. I have also stopped tweeting reviews of what I've watched and kept it personal. 

Update as of 2026 on clearing no. of followers which I suspected are just bots:

Quick Read - Batam Getaway

Finally made it to Batam, 45-minutes ferry ride away from Singapore. 

              

              

       

The beautiful sea-nery in the morning.

                           

First meal was ayam penyet, sotong penyet and ayam bakar. I learnt that they slather the ayam with cili together with the sweet sauce unlike just sweet sauce here in SG.

     

Halal Genki Sushi? Of course we had to try it! Tasted too good we ordered takeaway the 2nd time. 

         

More chicken but western style. Rice was in that white packet.

             

Prior to this meal, I had terrible back pain that I couldn't keep up standing straight. After much thinking and calculating, I finally realised it was all due to gastric pain. Felt so much better after having the food. 

      

Feels like being at Santorini but it's in an Asian country :P

     

Another day, another local food. Their nasi bakar is yummy. 

          

I missed out on all the nice yummy cold drinks to try and had to be content with hot coffee. 

Wanted to do some cafe hopping mainly for the drinks but time does not permit.

                   

The sambal ijo was surprisingly nice and not extremely spicy.

    

The hotel spread

            

I'm always curious to try out breakfast spread at hotels eventhough toast and bread section are pretty standard most of the time.

      

                     

     

At the mosque which interior is similar to Masjid Nabawi.

The entire Santori-like place.

        

                 

I was honestly worried and impressed when we were driving along some dark almost not lit up streets with only the vehicles lights to guide. This is the reason I always like my home country more.