Adventures & What’s Up – May 2023

ADVENTURES

Baby Update

As we approach Triple V’s first birthday next month, its truly amazing how fast time flies considering as I write this, I’m monetarily done with my maternity leave even though I did take an extra month to sort out some 12 month appointments next month. Triple V’s been growing height-wise quite a bit but not so much weight wise, something that we will probably need to mention at the next follow-up. With weather being better, we’ve been outside a little more and he’s touched the curious green stuff on the ground that he seems to like. He is crawling around like a champ and using everything to climb to standing position to touch whatever he can (including a few orchid tumbles which I wasn’t particularly a huge fan of cleaning) reminding us everyday of something else to babyproof that has slipped out minds. He loves crawling after me wherever I go and we’ve been starting to play around with fluctuating his routine a little here and there and seeing how much we can push the times for certain things. He can eat all by himself except when its something that requires a spoon. Its pretty great to think about how it was just last year we were waiting for him to arrive and in a blink of an eye, he’s already almost walking.

First Mother’s Day

Triple V was born right in time for Father’s Day and this month was his first Mother’s Day or well, my first Mother’s Day. I can’t say I feel very different from usual since my daily routine didn’t change much so we went and made a big deal by buying flowers for the grandmothers instead. We had a big feast with my mom, marking a little lobster tasting for Triple V and we ordered in food with my in-laws.

Gardening Update

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Much like the past years, the week of Victoria Day means a greenhouse visit and gardening. We decided to pick the hottest week to work on the garden. We’ve swapped things around quite a bit this year with the vegetable patch moving the green peppers, cucumbers changing places but two assortment of tomatoes going in ground instead of in containers. The containers now have eggplants, 4 other peppers (orange, red, sweet red, yellow) and all the zucchinis. We’re still working through the flowers as I’m still finding little time here and there to clean up the flower patch.

WHAT’S UP

Books

• The BFG
• The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me
• Esio Trot
• The Magic Finger
• Fantastic Mr. Fox
• Billy and the Minpins
• The Twits

Full steam ahead with bedtime reading of Roald Dahl book collection. So far, there’s a few that actually feel pretty familiar, some of them feel like tongue twisters and some are just a fun ride. I will be putting up some kind of review for them eventually. I’m not sure why but The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me was probably one of the most fun to read.

Movies

• Nightmare Alley (2019 rewatch)
• Veronica Mars (2014 rewatch, Review)
• Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
• Black Widow (2021)
• Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)
• Love and Leashes (2022 rewatch, Review)
• Too Cool To Kill (2022)
• On The Rocks (2020)
• Herstory (2018)

There was a nice selection. A few for Movies and Tea production, some are rewatches, some Disney Plus and then some screeners which you will be seeing the reviews pop up very soon. If there are some definite recommendations, it would probably be surprisingly the Marvel films since both films were pretty fun but Black Widow was a great back story. The screeners also delivered some great stories, Too Cool to Kill was a good comedy for the most part and Herstory was an eye-opening look at comfort women from Korean in Japan in WWII who are fighting for compensation and apology from the Japanese government.

TV

• Sex/Life (Season 2, 2023)
• Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (Mini-Series, 2023 Review)
• Veronica Mars (2019)
• Queer Eye (Season 7, 2023)
• Business Proposal (2022 Review)
• XO, Kitty (Season 1, 2023)
• Beef (Season 1, 2023)
• How To Build A Sex Room (Season 1, 2022)
• Black Knight (Season 1, 2023)

Currently binging: Who’s The Murderer S8, Light the Wild, 1899, Youth Pi Plan, Barbecue Showdown S2, Wonderland S3

As I look back at this year, I have so many TV binges in the works right now. Netflix came back pretty strong this month and released a bunch of stuff that I was interested in. If you noticed that the Reality TV roundup was missing last month, the main reason is that it will be grouped into this month’s since that will have a lot more to talk about. I actually had fun with a lot of these series, making Sex/Life Season 2 the one that I wasn’t a huge fan of, which isn’t shocking considering I didn’t really like the first season a lot either. XO, Kitty was not horrible but it was disappointing since it didn’t seem to do the character of Kitty justice or the promise of the whole South Korean exploration. As for 1899, we started it up on the dub version which affected my interest but I later realized there is an original audio version which I will probably restart in this version.

If I had to choose highlights of the month, It would probably be Queer Eye and Black Knight.

Games

Currently playing: G30, Coffee Talk Episode 2: Butterfly and Hibiscus

I’m about halfway through Coffee Talk Episode 2 right now and its still such a joy to play and an incredibly relaxing experience. I finally decided that I’d go with an annual plan for Google Play Pass since I do enjoy gaming on the phone a little here and there and there’s still some game that I wanted to check out. With that said, it brings us to G30 which is a puzzle game which is pretty entertaining so far. I’m not sure how many levels there are to the game but it does feel like it will end at some point

That’s it for this Adventures and What’s Up for May 2023!
What have you been up to?

Music Obsessions – May 2023

Welcome to (a slightly delayed) Music Obsessions! We continue on with our focused look at Cantopop as this time we turn over to a female singer, Miriam Yeung that I actually watched her step into fame when she came in as first runner-up at the 1995 Hong Kong New Talent Singing Awards. While her career started out with its share of issues, over the many years, she has garnered a certain level of professional attached to her work both as a singer and as an actress. Of course, we’re looking at the singer elements as I dive into a few songs that I’m a big fan of mostly from the start of her career but also looking up some newer songs that have caught my eye.

抬起我的頭來 Lift Up My Head- 楊千嬅 Miriam Yeung

We’re going through Miriam Yeung’s discography in order of release this time to see the growth that she’s had as well as how I’ve been introduced to her music through certain songs. The first song that hit my radar was this one which was not part of her debut album but in the Summer Story album launched four years after the singing contest. You can hear the potential in her voice and the youthfulness but there still lacks a certain polish. This song is very optimistic and encouraging in its lyrics and its one of the reasons why I liked it a lot when it was first released.

姊妹 Sisters – 楊千嬅 Miriam Yeung

To me, my favorite album that solidified Miriam Yeung as a singer to keep an eye out for was her album Miriam in 2001 which I personally own and has a lot of good songs. While there’s no doubt that the hit of the album was Wild Child and I do love that song a lot, I’m a big fan of this song, Sisters. It seems to be mentioned much less but its such a great song both in the music elements but also the lyrics.

假如讓我說下去 If You Let Me Finish Talking- Miriam Yeung 楊千嬅

Much like this song which I translated roughly but this is by far my absolute favorite song of Miriam Yeung’s. I’m not quite sure why but it might have to do a lot with teenage angst back in the day. I do come back to this song every so often and still feel like its rather underrated and do believe that it still holds up with how good it is. Especially the build-up part for the final verse, it gets me every time.

勇Courage- Miriam Yeung 楊千嬅

Released in 2002 as the theme song of a action comedy that she was a female lead, marking something of a debut to her acting career in Love Undercover, Courage is probably one of Miriam Yeung’s most popular songs and rightfully so as it delivers a positive message about courage in life reflecting the film really well but also to young women at the time it was released. Its one of the songs that has stuck around with the general public, probably only two or three other songs really meet that same level of familiarity like Kisses Everywhere and Too Bad I’m Not An Aquarius.

滾 Get Out!- 梁漢文 Edmond Leung/ 楊千嬅 Miriam Yeung

A big fan of this song which I believe is part of Edmond Leung’s discography BUT this song really leaves a strong impression since its the rare song where the song itself is a conversation and argument between a couple of a husband suspecting his wife of cheating on him. The suspicions and the doubts in a relationship all gets put to the forefront in their argument throughout the song. It has such a nice pacing to the whole song. The play on words of the title of the song is always a little tricky since it can be interpreted as “Get Out!” or “F**k Off” but is also the word for Cheating in Cantonese. I’m not quite sure how long this focused discography of Music Obsessions will last but if it lasts for a while, we will definitely get to Edmond Leung eventually.

還有事情可慶祝 There Are Still Things Worth Celebrating- 楊千嬅 Miriam Yeung

Every time I choose these singers, I always choose the last song as their latest release or a newer song that I’ve discovered recently. Despite the many love ballads about heartbreak and such, Miriam Yeung’s discography has been relatively cute and positive. Its obvious this was released during the pandemic or as the tail end of it as an encouraging song that even in the hard times, there’s always something to celebrate. Its also a nice showcase of the start of her singing career to now, she’s really polished and refined her voice into such a powerful and soothing one.

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!
What have you been listening to?

What’s Up & Adventures – April 2023

Its time for this month’s What’s Up & Adventures! Yet again, not a whole lot of adventures per se as its all pretty normal life stuff and I’m even talking normal as per the pre-pandemic life like actually going to a restaurant to hang out with friends without masks the entire time. Its a big step for me since I’ve been pretty much keeping things fairly protective especially with a baby at home. Our biggest adventure as a family which I’m not going to write an entire section about: our first power outage. I mean a legit one where it took 8 hours to get back the electricity and we all had to bundle up at home to stay warm.

ADVENTURES

Baby Update

Triple V has gone through some big developments this month. Over the course of the month, he’s been still practicing how to work and after a lot of guidance and motivation, he has started to crawl recently. He’s also able to eat his own finger foods and starting to get curious about how the spoon works whenever we use it for the puree. The baby gates have finally been unboxed. As of very recent like this morning, he’s also starting to learn to go down the stairs on his own with his butt. The crib has finally been dropped to the lowest level since he’s been able to stand up on his own in there and being a tall baby also stands pretty tall over the edge. We’re at the 10 1/2 months now and its been lots of first times and memories. Its also great that we had our first playdate after a few stroll dates with my best friend and her baby.

Brunch With Friends

After trying to get together repeatedly since last fall until now, the gettogether with my friends finally happened. My husband relieved me of the baby duties for a few hours so that I could go out for a brunch. It was a lot of fun to go out although after 10 months of being 24/7 with my baby, it did feel a little weird to be out. With that said, the restaurant’s service was rather poor although I think that it had to do mostly with lack of staff which is an issue with most restaurants nowadays. However, the chat was my friends were great as we caught up with everything between brunch and some window shopping and bubble tea at Real Fruit where I got a Jasmine Green Tea Light Sugar with grass jelly and mango jelly. Its the first time I’ve had Real Fruit Bubble Tea. Their Jasmine Green Tea is pretty good and I’m glad that I got light sugar since the mango jelly was surprisingly sweet so it balanced out the drink.

Building Blocks Puzzles

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While I probably should be writing and reading more, I find that building blocks really help clear the mind with the sheer concentration it takes to dig through these tiny pieces and put this together. With that said, they are looking gorgeous on top of my bookshelf so I decided to grab the set of the zodiac and take my time to put them together.

WHAT’S UP

Books

• My Illustrated Classics Collection

Currently reading: The BFG

I’m still spending most of my time reading books to my little man. While I’m sure he doesn’t quite understand any of it and just likes it as a means of soothing him to sleep, I’m starting to go through some books that I’ve bought for when he gets older and using this time to read through them and see when is suitable for him. We just started the Roald Dahl boxset (bought from Costco) and going through them all. I’ve read a few of them when I was a kid but its good to revisit as well as check out the ones I haven’t read before. Book reviews should be popping back soon.

Movies

• The Witch Part 2: The Other One (2022 Review)
• Monster Hunter (2020 rewatch, Review)
• A Short Story (2022 short)
• Saint Maud (2019)
• Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2018)
• The Menu (2022)
• Ride On (龙马精神, 2023 Review)
• Saludos Amigos (1942)
• Fresh (2022)
• Anita: Director’s Cut (2022)
• Disenchanted (2022)

Due to upcoming Movies and Tea season preparation, I ended up getting a month of Disney Plus so a lot of films this time are from there as I try to make the most of the month (with not a whole of success) but still managing to catch some decent titles. As I work through the titles I haven’t seen from animated films and watched Saludos Amigos which was pretty average with one or two more charming shorts, I also caught mostly Searchlight films catching some newer films like The Menu and Fresh. I’m working on those reviews so they should be posted in a few days. Disney Plus also acquired Anita but the Director’s Cut version, a film that I’ve been meaning to watch so I settled for this version and still trying to figure out where to find the theatrical version and see where the differences are. Much like the end of my MUBI subscription made me finally be able to catch Long Day’s Journey Into Night which I’ve heard great things when I was chatting up with other reviewers back when I was doing press during film festivals.

TV

• Veronica Mars (Season 2 rewatch, Review)
• A Love So Beautiful (rewatch, Review)
• Come Sing With Me我想和你唱 (Season 4)
• Veronica Mars (Season 3 rewatch, Review)

Currently watching: Light The Wild, Who’s The Murderer S8

As you can see, everything got affected. I decided to rewatch A Love So Beautiful before it left Netflix, a series that still holds up and is a lot of fun. Of course, you can still catch the Korean version of it which I have yet to watch. I’m mostly focusing on rewatching Veronica Mars with my husband who is watching it for the first time. We caught up to everything for the original series so that we can experience the first watch of the “Season 4”. I’m basically trying to catch up and finish all the stuff I’ve started so first up is Chinese variety show, Who’s The Murderer Season 8.

Games

Currently playing: Coffee Talk Episode 2

I had tons of intentions of what to play this past month but a few things occupied my evenings so only recently I’ve been able to start playing Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly. While its not for everyone, I loved Coffee Talk (review) since it was such a fun little experience set in an alternate Seattle and the only thing to do was just making coffee for the clients who dropped by for a chat and share their stories. The second Coffee Talk happens after the first one and I just started so just met two new characters. So far, its still really fun and I’m looking forward to mixing and discovering some new drink mixes.

That’s it for this month’s Adventures/Updates and What’s Up!
What have you been up to?

Music Obsessions – April 2023

Welcome to April’s Music Obsessions! Keeping up with the theme this year, I’m going to highlight another Cantopop favorite of mine. Since he recently released a new single, I decided to dedicate this one to Jacky Cheung, one of the 90s Big Four/Four Heavenly Kings who dominated the music market back then and also accompanied a good part of my growing up (granted I did end up listening more to another one of the Big Four because my cousin loved him). Jacky Cheung has always been a little less public and its hard to see him out and about unless its a concert or some promo for his new music. He also has one of the most distinctive voices. Without further ado, let’s go!

屈到病 Hold It In Until Get Sick – Jacky Cheung 張學友

Excuse my very stupid translation of the song name but Cantonese has a lot of rather “slang” sort of sayings that are very complicated to do an exact translation but the gist is there. Regardless, this song is a fun one to start off the Jacky Cheung selections. I’m picking some more popular picks but since I love so many of his songs, its very hard for me to pinpoint but I wanted to start on a fun and energetic note. Jacky Cheung isn’t particularly known for his energetic songs but more his ballads but he does have a few that really stand out.

我等到花兒也謝了 Wait Until Flowers Wither– Jacky Cheung 張學友

Wait Until Flowers Wither is one of the classics for Jacky Cheung. It was a really popular song in the 90s and still is one that is both appreciated for his Cantonese and Mandarin versions. Its representative of the love ballad style popular with Jacky Cheung. A lot of them are very romantic whether its just waiting for someone for a long time or loving them forever, etc. It helps that the songs themselves are representative of a time in Cantopop when the lyrics told a story with beautiful similes and metaphors.

頭髮亂了 Messy Hair – Jacky Cheung 張學友

Another energetic pick for Jacky Cheung that I actually didn’t used to listen to a lot but recently, I had seen a modernized rendition and went back to listen to it again and have gotten a great appreciation for it. Messy Hair is a song about seeing a girlfriend come home after suspecting her of cheating with her messy hair. Despite the lyrics itself and the whole story of the song, it has a really fun rhythm.

我真的受傷了 I Am Really Hurt – 張學友

I Am Really Hurt is a love ballad that really dials down on a simplistic rhythm itself and focuses a lot on the emotions. Its a slow song about heartbreak. This song caught my attention the first time I ever heard it and since then, I believe the version that he sings in concert with the then newly promising songwriter Ivana Wong who wrote this song is also a popular choice as he really supported her work a lot.

又十年 Another 10 Years – Jacky Cheung 張學友

The newest single to drop for Jacky Cheung and the reason why I chose him as this month’s focus, other than the fact that I think he truly deserves so much praise and is a singer that I truly praise a lot. His songs are still great to this very day whether it was released in the mid80s or nowadays. With this latest song, its about aging and coming to terms with health and friends, etc. Its a heartfelt song. While I’m not his age, the song has beautiful touching lyrics. Plus, Jacky Cheung feels like he is not in the public so much that its nice to hear him singing again.

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!
What have you been listening to lately?

Adventures & What’s Up – March 2023

ADVENTURES

BABY UPDATE

Triple V is 9.5 months old now. This month did see a lot of fun times and some rough ones. Teething being a big one since he got his upper front teeth which felt like it took eons to actually erupt so the fussing and sleeplessness was pretty sporadic. He also is obsessed with walking about with support and sits with really good balance and has become much more creative in his mobility to pivot, army crawl and roll himself to wherever he needs to go. Plus, baby babble is in full power when he feels like it. The weather warming up also means daily strolls as long as the weather is decent. The exercise is doing good for both me and him. We did just have the 9 months follow-up, it was a pretty good time as he sticks to the higher percentiles in height but a more moderate one for his weight. Apparently, he’s still sticking to his curve so all’s good.

HYDROPONIC & INDOOR PLANTS

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37

With the end of March means my birthday just swung by and I hit the lovely 37 years old. Honestly, I stopped counting a while back. Especially with a baby nowadays, my days all just kind of blend together in some kind of routine of feeding, changing diapers and play time. Not exactly the most exciting birthday since I started it bright and early at the clinic for Triple V’s routine check-up and treated myself to some lovely delivery of soup noodles. I do feel the age a lot but then it might just be the postpartum weight still sticking around that makes me feel not quite as active. Luckily the weather is getting warmer so we do have plans to get back to hiking when the trails open up and doing more daily walks, who knows, maybe I’ll even get some weights going to build up some muscle mass although carrying a 20lbs baby everyday is quite the exercise. Probably should look into some yoga instead.

WHAT’S UP

Books

• Stephanie’s Ponytail
• Paper Bag Princess
• The Adventures of the Get Along Gang

Currently reading: My Illustrated Classics Collection

With the sporadic sleep schedule for a little while in March, my reading included mostly nighttime reading for Triple V. I didn’t bother to write the rereads since we cycle through his books on regular basis but just shared the ones that I hadn’t read or revisited until the past month. We are reading through a book I picked up during Boxing Day called My Illustrated Classics Collection and we’re going through some of the abridged classics like Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Treasure Island and The Wind in the Willows. Its a pretty fun read for myself since Triple V doesn’t really know what I’m reading, he just likes the reading to mellow him out for bedtime.

Movies

• The Witch: Part 1 The Subversion (2018)
• Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)
• Scream 4 (2011 rewatch, Review)
• Scream (2022)
• White Snake (2019 rewatch, Review)
• Green Snake (2021)
• Enola Holmes 2 (2022 rewatch, Review)
• It Comes At Night (2017)
• I See You (2019)

Suffice to say that I have a lot of writing to catch up on. Lacking movie review writing inspiration can do that to a person. Luckily, it seems to be coming back a little more since I pivoted to working on game reviews which you can check out below.

I do have a really fun themed month coming up that will clear out some of these titles which is another reason why they haven’t been released yet. I might do a few of these rough guidelines to just do a certain number of a certain theme of films since writing everyday isn’t exactly feasible right now. I do choose sleep over writing nowadays.

Highlights of this month definitely goes to The Witch Part 1: The Subversion which was a pretty crazy ride of a film and Scream (2022 aka Scream 5). I’d say even Green Snake is a fun animated film. I See You also was pretty well executed which helped with delivering a shocking reveal.

TV

• Gilmore Girls (Season 5 rewatch, Review)
• Next in Fashion (Season 2, 2023)
• Gilmore Girls (Season 6 rewatch, Review)
• MH370: The Plane That Disappeared (Limited Series 2023)
• Gilmore Girls (Season 7 rewatch, Review)
• The Last Of Us (Season 1, 2023)
• Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life (Limited Series Rewatch, 2016)
• Cheat (Season 1, 2023)
• The Glory (Season 1, 2023 Review)
• Veronica Mars (Season 1 rewatch, Review)

Currently binging: Come Sing With Me S4, The Forbidden Flower, Infinity and Beyond: Bao Dao Ji,

Seeing as I’ve already mentioned my lack of writing inspiration, I continued on to rewatch the rest of Gilmore Girls. I can’t say it helped with the writing but it did make me very relaxed and happy. Its just so much fun to watch and I always notice something different, plus I’m listening slowly through Scott Patterson’s podcast I’m All In which talks about a lot of the little details about the show and its production which makes it all the more intriguing.

Its a no brainer than Gilmore Girls will always be a recommendation from me, I did finish some fun shows. The Last of Us is a pretty good video game adaptation. The few success ones that happen probably. I did think the ending of the season was a tad abrupt but it did leave some space to ponder I suppose. Review for that is in the works as we speak. I did want to get it done before this post went up but obviously that didn’t happen. What did happen was that I did get The Glory’s review out and also a big recommendation. I wasn’t a huge fan of the first few episodes and thought it was a little too heavy handed but it justifies itself really well the further the story dives. You can check out my pretty extensive review with probably some mild spoilers but mostly spoiler-free. I’ve also moved on to rewatching Veronica Mars from the beginning and that’s because the out of date person that I am didn’t realize that there was a revival season in 2019 so we’re working ourselves back there, plus I wanted to see whether it still held up which it definitely does.

Games

• Far: Lone Sails
• Paradise Killer (incomplete)
• Guardians of the Galaxy (incomplete)
• Chinatown Detective Agency (Review)

Currently playing: Norco

As mentioned above, other than TV, I did try to put some time into gaming. I played Far: Lone Sails which is a lovely little game. I won’t talk too much about it here but we recorded the discussion over on Game Warp. It will come out eventually. You can follow out podcast or the blog and you will be able to listen to it when it comes out, if you’re interested.

I did give Paradise Killer and Guardians of the Galaxy a test run before it left Game Pass. Both of them were pretty fun. I had a little health scare issue in the middle of that so the first person gave me some motion sickness for Paradise Killer. Love the game but I just had to stop and by the time I was feeling better, the game had already left Game Pass so I have my eyes peeled on a discounted copy probably after I get through some of the game backlog. I’ve started a few games that need to be finished as well so, not really a top priority. I do think the concept is pretty fresh and fun.

I did get the review for Chinatown Detective Agency out which I’d recommend to Carmen Sandiego fans like myself. Its a tad buggy which is its main flaw because everything else is pretty well executed. You can check out the in-depth review over on Game Warp.

I just started up Norco even if I should be finishing The Gunk but you know, the awards shows just went by and I wanted to check out Norco which I feel like I’ve only heard a lot of good things. As this post goes up late, the next batch of games leaving Game Pass is already here so I’m going to be wrapping up Life is Strange: True Colors before it leaves mid-April!

That’s it for this Adventures/Updates and What’s Up for the past month!
What have you been up to?

Adventures & What’s Up – February 2023

ADVENTURES UPDATES

As you can see, February was not a whole lot going on. I had a few personal things that happened which I don’t plan to discuss. Things like dentist appointments and financial planning, fun grown-up things, right? I do have a big dental work coming up which will cost a bit of money so yay, I guess. Anyways, positive vibes here only even if I’m so tired, I don’t even have the energy to write as much as I used to. I will address all that in this segment and some little changes.

Baby Update

Triple V is growing and learning new things every day. February had a lot of things from figuring out how to drink from a sippy cup with a valve to starting to move towards drinking independently from a sippy cup for his snacks and meals. We’re working towards getting rid of the actual baby bottles so he can drink on his own. He’s still figuring out how to tilt the bottle when its the sippy cup without a valve. Work in progress, right? He also finally started baby babble and is continuing his teething journey. At the same time, we’re in the lovely 8 month sleep regression as of recently so its just waking up and doing some babbles or trying to get himself on all fours sometimes. Nighttime baby monitor sometimes can be pretty cute and funny despite feeling so tired. We are currently starting up a second cold thanks to some wonderful cold weather that we got but definitely not as worse as what we caught at the beginning of the year.

New Monthly Segment

While I’m not writing a lot lately, I’ve been still watching a lot of random stuff and its starting to dawn on me that I’m going to temporary need to change things a little around here to keep up a decent production. Although January and February lull is usually fairly normal around here, its been incredibly low and I’m not too happy about it since this is an outlet for myself that I really do love. With that said, I think the best course of action are monthly segments, they have a rounding up effect for the things I’ve seen but don’t really feel I have enough for an entire post dedicated to that one thing and lately, its about anything that I can put in the background and take care of my child or just relax after his bedtime or when its time with the husband, nothing too violent. All that basically leads to a lot of reality/competition/variety TV.

The new segment for each month is going to be a Reality TV Roundup which will include all the stuff I watch which involves real people in whatever context it may be and focusing mostly on Netflix and Chinese shows. Obviously, I’m starting a tad late so you will see the January roundup very soon and then after that it will be released on some time during the second weekend of each month. Music Obsessions releases the first weekend so we’ll spread it out a little.

Not sure who it will interest but I think it’ll be a nice change of pace for myself and will be a lot of fun.

Valentine’s Marathon, Upcoming Podcast Release and the forgotten Blogiversary

My brain’s apparently gone to mush and there’s been a lot of things that I simply forgot. The first being that January 17th was my blogiversary and I didn’t even mention it last month because like I said, I forgot. It just slipped my mind. The original plan was to get the all-new podcast up for then but plans have changed and I need a little more times in lieu of this wonderful baby phase I mentioned above to the next month, preferably before my birthday as a little gift to myself for starting up an individual podcast project.

Another thing I mentioned was Valentine’s Marathon and while I had a pretty good plan down, I just didn’t really feel like watching romantic films and ended up watching one Taiwan romance drama instead. BUT, I will talk about that more in the next section!

WHAT’S UP

BOOKS

• Mr. Happy
• Thomas’ Snowsuit
• The Lost Dinosaur Bone
• Just Some Lost Treasure
• Mortimer
• The Berenstain Bears’ Trouble at School
• Something Good
• Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too
• Angela’s Airplane
• Mickey Mouse and the Best Neighbor Contest
• The Berenstain Bears and the Slumber Party
• 101 Dalmatians
• Donald and His Friends

Currently reading: Broken Darkness

Suffice to say that my main reading has been with Triple V and traverses a lot of books from when I was a kid with the Mr. Men series, Robert Munsch, Lil Critters and Berenstain Bears along with some Disney books. A lot of great memories as I read them to him since he doesn’t really understand any of it but he is starting to get interested in what I say when I’m talking and my facial expressions and actions.

For myself, I am working through Broken Darkness which is a reading commitment that I need to get done. I had wanted to get it done for end of this month but best plans and all, right?

MOVIES

• Lady Vengeance (2005 rewatch, Review)
• Dr. Jason Leong: Ride With Caution (2023)
• F9 (2021)
• A Trip To The Moon (1902)
• Hidden Blade (2023, Review)
• Decision To Leave (2022)
• Great White (2021 rewatch, Review)

Probably one of the lowest output in movie watching in a long time and involved a lot of rewatches but everything was pretty good and a lot of fun, other than Great White which dropped half of its stars from my first time watch rating. Hidden Blade drove a lot of traffic on Twitter and the blog which makes me happy since it was a screener and the movie is really good on all elements. I’ve always wanted to watch A Trip To The Moon and caught that before it left MUBI (which I have until early April). Dr. Jason Leong’s new standout comedy is a real hoot. It was so much fun and had a lot of good laughs. F9 and Decision to Leave’s review is in the making but both stand on very different levels: one is just entertaining and the other probably deserves a second viewing to really grasp all the small nuances and details that Park Chan-wook likes to do.

Definitely thinking about an Asian month soon since I have a lot of films on MUBI, Netflix and Shudder to get through. I’m probably going to try and make that happy.

TV

• Drunken to Love You (Netflix: Love You 醉後决定愛上你, 2011)
• Lockwood & co. (Season 1, 2023 Review)
• Gilmore Girls (Season 1 rewatch, Review)
• The Mole (Season 1, 2022)
• 28 Days Haunted (Season 1, 2022)
• Gilmore Girls (Season 2 rewatch, Review)
• Gilmore Girls (Season 3 rewatch, Review)
• Physical: 100 (Season 1, 2023)
• Gilmore Girls (Season 4 rewatch, Review)
• Perfect Match (Season 1, 2023)

Currently binging: Who’s The Murderer S8, Memories Beyond Horizon S1, Night in The Greater Bay S2, The Last of Us

A lot of TV watching on my front as well as I dive once again for probably the fifth time into Gilmore Girls. Its my stress-free and fun TV binge. Between this and a lot of reality TV, this is where I am. Of course, I did get in a romance dose with a 2011 Taiwan romance drama that I had never seen. There was almost a decade that I didn’t watch a lot of Asian anything and now its about catching up to what I can get my hands on when I see it around. I did manage to binge Lockwood & Co. which I enjoyed immensely and can’t wait for hopefully a Season 2 seeing as it kind of ends on a cliffhanger but I do also plan on getting to reading the books. Seeing as I already announced the Reality TV Roundup segment, I’m going to leave the whole chat about the reality TV on the backburner plus a bunch of these are mostly silly stuff, the only one that I enjoyed a ton was The Mole although 28 Days Haunted was pretty decent even if the last one of the season overturned all the effort of making it not staged. Either way, more on that later on.

GAMES

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• Boxes (Demo)
• Planet of Lana (Demo)
• Blue Wednesday (Demo)
• Mika and the Witch’s Mountain (Demo)
• Bionic Bay (Demo)
• I Am Future (Demo)
• Alt-Frequencies
• Far: Changing Tides

Currently playing: The Gunk, Disney Dreamlight Valley

Steam Next Fest happened so I caught up with a few demos. Some of them were really great especially Planet of Lana which was exceptional and definitely right up my alley. The other one would be Mika and the Witch’s Mountain which I also ended up backing on Kickstarter because it looked so great. Plus a game inspired by Kiki’s Delivery Service seems like something I would have thought existed already but finally someone’s doing something about it. I’ve been pretty much working through the Google Play Pass games since I have it for 3 months on a 90% discount so its pretty sweet. As much as people think mobile games are dumb, there’s some pretty good ones and one of them is Alt-Frequencies. I’m working on a review for Game Warp but I am thinking of checking out their previous game which I own but haven’t played yet. I’m moving through Game Pass with a similar mentality except chasing after games before they leave the service. This month of course was Far: Changing Tides which I describe as Journey but operating a ship. Its pretty great as well, we have a recording lined up for Game Warp so you can look forward to that if you follow the podcast.

A few games currently playing but I’m probably going to put them aside for the next batch of games leaving. Yes, I said batch. Not sure where I’ll find the time but I’m definitely going to try my best to finish Paradise Killer and give Guardians of the Galaxy a whirl to see whether I want to work on that one as well.

That’s it for this month’s Adventures/Updates and What’s Up!
What have you been reading/watching/binging/playing?

Music Obsessions – February 2023

Welcome to this month’s Music Obsessions! I’m starting to have a pretty fun idea to dive in discovery posts of a specific artist every month. But then, I’m a little hesitant on doing it all the time since I always find new songs every month from multiple artists. However, this month, I spent a lot of deep diving into the discography of Pakho Chau, a Hong Kong actor and musician that has popped onto my radar in recent months.

On that note, its also giving me a little idea of how to restructure the Sunday Lists that I was doing a few years back which I’ve been wanting to get back to doing since its a fun time.

Either way, let’s give this a go. Not sure it will be like this every month yet but I’m going to have fun with this one since Pakho Chau is really a great singer.

The songs are in no particular order but rather just five songs from his pretty extensive discography that I really like.

天網 Skynet (Line Walker: The Prelude Theme Song) – 周柏豪 Pakho

TVB series theme songs are renowned for being some of the best in the industry and has a reputation of being the goal for many to be the singers. While this music video has nothing to do with Line Walker: The Prelude, the TV series was the sequel of Line Walker and while not quite as good as its first one, it still really had traction by the end. It was full of great characters and in this case, how I saw Pakho Chau acting as well in a pretty great role. I just wished they find a way to bring him back into the series if they do get the 4th one off the ground.

磨牙 Molar – 周柏豪 Pakho Chau

In many ways, this song by Pakho Chau is pretty basic. The lyrics and the rhythm is pretty familiar and rather simple as a song and it reminds me of another song that I can’t quite remember the name right now but it has this has the kind of piano chords transition that I like plus the lyrics are actually quite good. Basic but a personal preference in style.

天下大亂之密室謀殺事件 Chaotic Chamber – 周柏豪 Pakho Chau x JUDE

Chaotic Chamber is such a cool name especially the really long Chinese song title. Not to mention that this song is very different to what Pakho Chau has done before and has this pop rock vibe to it. I don’t really have a whole lot to say but this song has a nice duet for the both since their voices match well together.

日落日出 AM/PM- 周柏豪 Pakho Chau & 連詩雅 Shiga Lin

Probably one of my favorite songs of this discovery as its not only a nice winter song with its music video and lyrics but also really cute and romantic. I like the video and the sweet romantic vibe that the song gives off. Not to mention I honestly think that I’ve heard Shiga Lin’s songs before but I can’t remember from where. I guess that’s where I will be heading in the next discovery.

傳聞 Rumors – 周柏豪 Pakho Chau

When I initially did the search for Pakho Chau, this song listed first under his name so I’m guessing its the more popular one and I can’t say that I disagree as I also like this one a lot. It reminds me a lot of the song from Wilfred Lau called Rumored Boyfriend for some reason. The lyrics aren’t about the same thing but still it seems like the type of song that could be a sequel to that one.

There’s still a lot of really good songs from Pakho Chau that I haven’t listed here.
Hong Kong music has been pretty sad whenever I hear new singers except for the very rare few like Gigi Yim.
As I slowly catch up with the Hong Kong music from the past decade or so, we will see what else I discover.

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!
What have you been listening to?

Adventures & What’s Up – January 2023

Hello everyone! The first adventures & What’s Up of 2023 is here as I wrap up a bunch of small things. Not a whole lot going on in terms of adventures since its winter and our little baby isn’t vaccinated so yet again, mostly updates on a few things.

If you missed my Upcoming Plans for 2023, you can check that out HERE.

ADVENTURES

Baby Update

7 months old now! We had our “supposed to be 6 month but because of previous postponed” 7 months checkup. Triple V remains high on the baby curve as a bigger baby and everything is developmentally on track. He has a little bit of cradle cap or dandruff or something along those lines but not a big concern so far. Triple V is also eating an assortment of purees now which is really fun to see his reaction to the different flavors. He even had his first snow picture and since January was rather snowy, we’ve had a few uses for his snowsuit. He’s definitely getting stronger day by day and its so nice to see him grow a little more and learn more things. One of the big recent successes after the doctor’s follow-up appointment and her pointer which he took the change like a champ is that he is officially able to sleep through the nights and has a decent sleeping and wake-up schedule. He even got his first teeth. Last development goal that he reached is recently responding to his own name.

Letterboxd Year in Review

Letterboxd Year in Review always is a bit late and its pretty self-explanatory so here’s a quick look at that.

Avenue of Daydreams – 365 Challenge

I’m working on reviving the Avenue of Daydreams this year with a 365 Photo Challenge. I’ve been sharing it on a weekly basis on Instagram as well. Here are the weeks in January. I fall behind every once in a while but its been really fun to try to get a little more creative and push myself to explore the pro feature on the camera on my phone.

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Hydroponic System

After a good bit of research and a final failed attempt at planting basil in our no sunlight house (or at least rarely sunlight comes in), we decided to get a hydroponic system. We got the Yoocaa 12 Pods Hydroponics Growing System and decided to give the first whirl to a herb garden. As we speak now, the mustard has germinated first and its only been about 4 days or so since we set it up. Fingers crossed it’ll work out. I’ll probably keep you all up to date with that here (and also acts as a notes for myself since I have horrible memory now).

February Romance Month

Normally, February is our Romance month. I have to admit that I’ve been pretty bad at keeping up with the marathons but I will try to get some reviews up for this one. No guarantees on how many movies but I do have a decent list compiled even if I’m pretty sure I won’t get through all of it and review them all before Valentine’s comes around. Maybe I will just do it for a month-long event and get some romance instead of the overabundance of crime, suspense and horror that I keep watching.

WHAT’S UP

Books

• Mr. Nosey
• Mr. Topsy-Turvy
• Mr. Bump
• The Queen Who Stole The Sky
• Mr. Messy
• The Berenstain Bears’ Moving Day
• Love You Forever

Another month of children’s books despite really wanting to start an actual book. Good thing is that as I’m writing up this post, my Kindle is on charge plus after watching a TV series for a book I read last year, it changed my mind and I bought the remaining two books of that trilogy which I plan to start after a book review commitment. Its actually really fun re-reading books from my childhood that I’m passing on to my little guy now. He might not understand any of it but he’s starting to look at me when I read especially when I make weird sound effects for some of the things within my limited ability.

Movies

• Roadgames (1981)
• Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical (2022 Review)
• Perfect Blue (1997 Review)
• Jimmy O. Yang: Good Deal (2020)
• Freaky (2020)
• Kairo (2001 rewatch, Review)
• To All The Boys I’ve Love Before (2018 rewatch, Review)
• Project Wolf Hunting (2022, Review)
• Fall (2022)
• A Cinderella Story (2004 rewatch)
• Russell Peters: Deported (2020)
• Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
• The Wandering Earth 2 (2023, Review)
• Ponyo (2008 rewatch)

Its been a pretty fun month in terms of movie watching with quite a bit of variety. To be fair, I didn’t watch a lot of movies since I was absolutely obsessed with Matilda the Musical so had it in the background constantly. I did catch up on a lot of films that I’ve been meaning to watch for a while like Perfect Blue and rewatched Kairo with the husband and taking advantage of the wonderful MUBI deal I got. I did get a couple of screeners, one was a lot better than the other. I did manage to catch Everything Everywhere All At Once after multiple recommendations especially co-host listing it as his top first time watch of last year, much like Roadgames which also made it on his Top 10. If you haven’t listened to that episode on Movies and Tea, you can check it out HERE.

Basically, January is always a bit like this every year where I want to sort out what to review in the backlog while working out the upcoming year so working through a lot more TV or rewatches instead of starting something new.

TV

• Pressure Cooker (Season 1, 2023)
• Wonderland Junior (Season 1, 2022)
• Line Walker 2: The Prelude (2017)
• The Circle (Season 5)
• Bake Squad ( Season 2)
• The Summer I Turned Pretty (Season 1, 2022)
• Line Walker 3: Bull Fight (2020)

Currently binging: Night on the Greater Bay S2, Physical:100, Drunken to Love You, Lockwood & Co., The Last Of Us

I’ve been catching a lot of reality shows on Netflix. The beginning of the year has been pretty packed with a lot of these shows from Pressure Cooker to Bake Squad and the latest season of The Circle. I also signed up for the Amazon Prime trial so caught up with The Summer I Turned Pretty which I had reviewed the book (Review) last year and as mentioned in the “Books” section above, I ended up buying the sequels and it kind of changed my mind a little on the story. Its rare that the adaptation is what changes my mind but somehow it did in this case especially since it was renewed for Season 2. The big triumph and focus was to finish the second and third season of Line Walker and boy, it was a crazy ride. Line Walker 2 and 3 aren’t nearly as great as the first one but it still has some great moments and such a solid central cast.

Games

• Doors: Origins
• Doors: Paradox

Currently playing: The Gunk, Alt-Frequencies

I believe I mentioned last month that I picked up the Google Play Pass for peanuts so I’ve been focusing on that mostly. I ended up finishing the Doors: Origins and Doors: Paradox which is so creative. Its a mobile game but I had a ton of fun figuring out the puzzles and such. I’ve moved on to Alt-Frequencies on my phone which is one that I’m definitely going to talk more about when I’m done as the game mechanics, premise and concept are all very creative and a very unique gaming mechanic and experience. Aside from that, I’m still waiting to get back to finish The Gunk but January has been a wild month so didn’t have time to get back to Game Pass just yet.

That’s it for this month’s adventures and What’s Up!
What have you been up to?

Music Obsessions – January 2023

Welcome to the first Music Obsessions of this year. First of all, a little wrap-up of 2022 as look at the Spotify Wrapped.

流沙 Everything’s Gone – 陶喆 David Tao

Man, this song brings me back. David Tao is probably Top 5 favorite music artists in my book. Everything’s Gone is a song that is probably my absolute as it was my go-to song at karaoke every single time. I sang it so much that I actually had the courage to perform it on a little event one time. I have no idea when I added to it my Spotify list but so suitable that its my most played song in 2022 as I was puffing up my list this year and getting really nostalgic in the process. David Tao is such a fantastic R&B artist and probably will take a Music Obsessions post to share a bunch of my faves of his. Hmm…thinking about that, maybe it might be a fun segment to add to the blog.

緋聞男友 Rumored Boyfriend- 劉浩龍Wilfred Lau

I actually own the album for this artist which is the few songs that were really popular that I remember of (maybe there’s more that I don’t know about). There’s actually another song back then from Wilfred Lau that I listened to a lot more but somehow after I added this song to my list, its one that has been popping up a lot and has really won me over in the past year. I don’t think its anything really special but somehow the lyrics are pretty catchy. On that note, its odd but one of this past month’s discovery is also with him.

I’ve shared the other songs from the Top 5 of Spotify Wrapped in one way or another before, I believe so I’m going to move onto regular programming.

行者Walker – 劉浩龍Wilfred Lau & 側田Justin Lo
(“Line Walker” TV series Main Theme)

I’m super late to the Line Walker party since they aired Season 3 in 2020 and I only caught up the first season in December. Its a really great series though. Its been a while since I’ve watched TVB series which used to be my main thing growing up and some of the best memories when I was younger. Coming back to it in probably a decade, it had to be a series that was worth it and not something that I would just sit down and feel like it was all done before and Line Walker definitely did that. Theme songs for TVB series used to mean the big times for Hong Kong artists because they were usually big hits and while I’m not sure how it is in the current decade, this song has Justin Lo and Wilfred Lau and is pretty great. I chose the opening theme sequence for this video over some of the other lyric videos but I think its worth it to showcase the series a little, in case you can find one with English subtitles.

2nd Favourite 第二最愛 – 古巨基 Tyson Yoshi

Honestly one of my favorite song in the recent weeks and I haven’t really found a lot of new music lately. This song has such a great vibe and the collaboration is pretty good as well. Some of the lyrics is a bit hilarious much like parts of the video with Leo Ku hanging out under the bed which is fairly silly but the song has a nice rhythm and fun.

Why Why Why – 王嘉尔Jackson Wang

Jackson Wang is probably one of the most diverse music producers in the current landscape. I’ve shared a ton of his music on Music Obsessions already and every single one has a different vibe from pop song 100 Ways to Electronic Dance song Pretty Please to Alternative/Indie song Blow and Cruel. Why Why Why is considered a pop song but this one differs from 100 Ways mostly in its more comedic take. Jackson Wang in a tree suit is just awesome. There are no words to explain how silly the video is but he also rarely sings in Mandarin and the lyrics are actually pretty good paraphrasing basically that there’s no reason why you love someone but for who they are.

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!
What have you been listening to?

Upcoming Plans 2023!!

Happy New Year everyone!

2023 is here. Honestly 2022 went by way too fast even if its probably the year that I slept the least, got my first hospital operation ( since wisdom teeth extraction is also considered an operation), birthed a little baby boy Triple V and my life milestones are celebrating his developmental milestones. In the midst of that, I managed to cover a couple of film festivals and took a few review opportunities as well.

For a general overview of 2022, you can find it HERE!

As we look forward to 2023, we’re looking at mostly the same but perhaps a little more goal-oriented (or an attempt to be). Maybe it will help with my indecisiveness when there’s just too many choices!

Let’s get right to it!

BOOKS

Goodreads Reading Challenge 2023: 15 books

Setting a rather ambitious goal of 15 books this year but above is all the books I do want to get through this year. I still have a ton of unread books that I physically own but I’m going to start with that. It will also have some children’s books in the mix since I’m reading a lot to the little one. Not that he understands anything as I write this up but hoping to get him used to the sounds and such to hopefully help his development.

Also, I’ve been thinking about reading all the Hercule Poirot books by Agatha Christie so I’m planning on trying to get that kicked off. I’m going to read them in order of release.

MOVIES

Not too many changes to movies this year. Much like previous years you can expect Double Features and single reviews on new releases, mostly those that I am more enthused about. My main source of entertainment remains Netflix and Shudder and sometimes Amazon Prime so I’m working mostly off those avenues. Not too sure whether I will getting on for the bigger festival coverages but I’m going to guess it will be a year or two more before I get back into it (if I’m still doing this by then). Marathons should remain the same with February Romance, October Horror and December Holidays. These suffered quite a bit this year but I’m hoping to shorten the length but get some decent reviews out. Still working on getting some themed months but hopefully this year will be it.

Also, seeing as my co-host for Ultimate Decades Blogathon announced last year his hiatus or possible permanent departure from blogging, this will not be happening.

My main focus has shifted a lot on Movies and Tea Podcast. Its a great time to record and Elwood and I have a lot of fun as we move through more directors and have some pretty good ideas for upcoming seasons.

TV & Tranquil Dreams Podcast

If you were here last year (and amazingly have stayed after my hiatus and slow content), I already talked about this. Only difference is that I actually put a lot of set up work on this in the past 2 months so its almost ready to get going. I just need some small polish to get things ready to relaunch.

For those who weren’t here, TV binge will focus on everything other than Chinese Language Series. I’ve already started doing that in 2022 and even changed a little bit how I approached the TV binges in general. All the Chinese Language Series will be moved to the podcast when it launches. I’m actually working on some series from the past few years that I haven’t had a chance to write about but I really love. Chinese Language Series means anything from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China. Maybe the random Singapore ones if it catches my eye. The main focus will be on the bigger North American streaming platforms like what is acquired by Netflix but will also look at notable ones from Chinese International streaming apps.

Last year I did also talk about the Sunday Lists being moved to the podcast also. Its still in my plans but I’m going to get it relaunched first before going further with this. I love the segment a ton so I do hope that I get around to working it back into the blog one way or another.

Monthly Segments

Monthly Segments remain the same with Music Obsessions happening the first weekend of the month and Adventures & What’s Up as a month-end wrap-up.

Retiring Photography Segment, Housekeeping and Where It Goes

I mentioned on the Adventures post for December 2022 that I had retired all the photography posts on the blog. With that said, I do still want to get back to photography. I’m mostly using my phone lately but still, it should be fun. I’ve always wanted to do the 365 challenge so I’m going to attempt to do it this year over on Avenue of Daydreams which was constructed for all things creative so photography is moving over there and honestly just continuing since I did weekly photo posts before I took a hiatus.

PERSONAL GOALS

WORK OUT REGULARLY: I’ve given myself a good deal of time to recover from the operation and while taking care and amusing my 6 month old is a lot of exercise, I do want to start doing some actual working out. I’m looking at getting in some yoga, bodyweights and light weights just to see how it goes. It will be a slow progression but I’m rather heavy right now and I’m starting to worry that its not doing any favors for my knees. Plus, we plan to get back to hiking in the summer carrying the little one on our backs so I do want to start training a bit more endurance in preparation for it.

STREAMING: Last year I set this goal and did not do it at all. Its still on my mind to get this launched. I have a lot of games to play on back catalogue and why not try to build something in the process. This will probably happen after I get into a rhythm after the podcast launch.

FINAL NOTE

Last year I talked about slowing down and to be honest, its pretty clear that I’m not picking up blogging any time soon. My baby is taking a lot of my time during the day and in the evenings, between making sure the house isn’t a complete mess and trying to move up my sleeping schedule, its been really hard to focus on writing a lot. I basically write posts for the things that inspire me the most at the moment. Anything that lands in the average doesn’t get prioritized. You can always follow me on Letterboxd to see what I’ve watched and the ratings, if you like. I only use it for my diary to track the movies I’ve watched throughout the year.

To be fair, I’m shifting more towards my co-host projects so while I’ve mentioned Movies and Tea Podcast. I am going to also put more effort into Game Warp to try to get more reviews out and gaming done. It will go hand in hand with the streaming plans.

2023 has some ambitious plans but I’m hoping to get through it!
Wishing you all a fantastic 2023!