Here's My Story

It turned out that we truly rarely dined at Red Kettle, as stated in this blogpost . I guess it's because we rather pay that much for good Japanese meals rather than good Western or fusion meals. The second time we were there, we brought Ban's parents and brother. It seems that they liked it but not too sure whether his parents were just being polite or not. I forgot what I had then. On the third visit, I had their Angel Hair in broth i.e. "Angel Hair, grilled pork shoulder, pork broth, cherry tomatoes, soy lava egg, cloud ear fungus, sesame & spring onion" as taken from their website .  I didn't have a good impression of Angel Hair the first time I had it years ago at another restaurant and so I was a little wary of having it again because it just reminds me of wan tan mee except that it's much more expensive. I forgot why I even ordered it :D This time, it...still tastes like want tan mee haha but the overall dish was delicious. The broth, the eggs and p

During third session, I told the therapist the following: As reported to her via WhatsApp , the pain came back an hour or two later after the stretching exercise. I added, this time, that the pain level might be slightly lower than before starting the therapy treatment. Contrary to expectation, I could slice carrot with no issue. That there was pain when I turned my toothbrush inward to brush the inner side of my teeth. That I did the minimum 2 sets of 10 x 10s of third stretching exercise using the wall. I did further sets using the slightly easier substitute. She did the usual massage and ultrasound. At the end of it, we discovered a different spot of the pain, on top of the original: slightly below the wrist, in line with the base of the thumb. Largely a pulling pain. The therapist surmised that the reason why the relief from pain was only temporary was because my muscles were not strong enough to sustain whatever repetitive movements I was doing. So, the next step was strength exer

Previously , my prawn omelette recipe included milk but I discovered that I would prefer the omelette to be more fried i.e. has less liquid. Hence, I started excluded it and it had become one of my favourite dishes. Ban also liked it a lot :) So yummy! I would lightly marinate the prawns overnight with soy sauce, sushi soy sauce, garlic powder, onion powder and Chinese five spice powder. The soy sauce is the critical flavouring. The next day, after beating the eggs, I would add a little salt to it. Fry finely chopped garlic, stir fry the prawns for a short while i.e. until they just turn pink and then finally pour in the egg. I've been getting pretty good at getting as many prawns as possible embedded within the egg. I would also have a vegetable dish. One of the better ones that we both like is green leafy vegetable with enoki mushroom: Too much water in this one though :D

Three days after the first session , I was pleasantly surprised by a WhatsApp message by the therapist asking me whether there was any improvement, which there wasn't, unfortunately. The pain level was the same. So, she suggested a second stretching exercise:   Combined, the exercises provided immediate relief but it was temporary. At the next session, she did more extensive and intensive massage and I concentrated to give some feedback on where I felt pain/soreness the most. Midway, she asked for feedback. I had false hope at first because there was no pain but then it returned very shortly :( Again, she massaged based on my feedback and miraculously the pain was gone! Ok, the pain did come back a few hours later but that was way better than just a few seconds. She ended the session with ultrasound therapy on the wrist. She introduced a third stretching exercise: right hand on the wall with fingers pointing down, arms at shoulder height. Bend knees until I feel the stretch on my l

Recently, I was recounting to my sisters lucky incidents that happened to our family. For me, I brought up the example of how I got the scholarship to ANU: The only way I could study overseas was to get a scholarship that must at least cover tuition fee. Hence, I was scouting for university that had Actuarial Science course and offered scholarship. In Australia, at that time, I only knew Macquarie University and University of Melbourne offered the course but neither offered scholarships, at least not to oversease students. A schoolmate, who was also interested in Actuarial Science, asked me whether I want to go together with her to the Australia Education fair. I declined because of the reason I gave above. Later, after she had already gone to the fair, she told me that ANU offered the course and also scholarship that we could apply. I was luckly on 4 fronts in this instance: ANU had the course I wanted, they offered scholarship, a schoolmate went to the fair specifically looking for t

I changed my mind: I still used the ointment on the right wrist because it soothed the pain. However, the progress seems to have stalled. I was keen to get healed before going to Australia late December and so I decided to consult a physiotherapist at Relive Physiotherapy & Rehabilitation . The funny thing was that on the morning I woke up, there was no pain in the wrist even when I did the wrist movement that would usually tell me it's still there. Since I want to accurately point out the pain to the therapist, I did the normal push-up just to strain the wrist a little and that worked. The therapist confirmed my suspicion (after getting information from me) that I have De Quervain's tenosynovitis. Thereafter, she massaged my arm to loosen the relevant muscles. Amidst this, she pointed out the fleshy part of my palm just beneath the thumb was swollen compared to the left palm. After the massage, the swelling went down significantly and that I could do certain stretch more c