Where did January go?
That’s it. That’s all I have for this month’s introduction because, really, where did January go???
Highlights
🎉 ━ Celebrating New Year in Bali with my cousins. We started the new year swimming in the pool and eating grapes, twelve for each of us to represent the twelve months.
🌴 ━ Other best-of-Bali experiences (I promise I’ll write about) include a yoga practice with Fafa and Jik, attending a Balinese cooking class, getting a Jamu massage, drinking Balinese coffee, and meeting my cousin’s fiancé for the first time.
🍻 ━ We celebrated Jen’s 30th birthday party at Workshop Bar in the city, where I drank copious amounts of Paloma Fizz and listened to adult-teen rap. Ah, (to pretend) to be young-ish…
🚗 ━ Fafa and I went to Warburton over the long weekend. It’s a magical country town with the Redwood Forest, Yarra Creek, Lotus Garden and Alpine Hotel.
Culture Chat
🚂 ━ I have informed Fafa of what I want for my birthday gift in September: sleeper train tickets for us both. I guess we are adding Prague to the list, eh Fa?
🚶🏽♀️ ━ When you are visiting Melbourne, do check out these Melbourne walking tours, especially the ones that involve food.
🥟 ━ Blueberry pastries in Warsaw, 80p samosas in Blackburn – the best things eaten last year.
Read, Watched, and Browsed
📚 ━ I read Body Friend by Katherine Brabon for our book club. I enjoyed the writing and appreciate the simple topic and the singularity of it. The two friends remind me of ambition and rest, and eventually, ambition in the last chapter becomes burned out. I love books that have beautiful but easy-to-digest phrases – books (and food) that make me come out in a daze. I love books like this.
I loved it so much that I lent it to my work friend so more people could read it. Another book I read was Angela O’Keeffe’s The Sitter; it’s mostly good with bits that made me go, “Huh??“.
Yet another book club book: I read the highly anticipated “Premonition” by one of my favourite authors, Banana Yoshimoto, with Japan as a backdrop. Even as a fan of her other books, I must say this one is not for me. The narrative felt disjointed, and the arch is too absurd even for a Japanese fiction standard. For coming to a coming-of-age story, the characters’ development went the other way around – I had a visceral reaction digesting the romantic relationships in the book, and even with those plots, the story is just oh so bland. This book is a 1-star for me. I finished it because it’s a short read, but I wouldn’t recommend it. If you want to read her work, start with Kitchen.
🎥 ━ For our movie nights, Fafa chose Good Grief and Salaar, both on Netflix and worth checking out. Meanwhile, Loudermilk and Wellmania have been playing in the background when I am doing errands around the house.
👻 ━ Horror updates: I paid $2.99 to watch Followed for my monthly scary movie fix, which was good! Also, after much consideration and rewatching, I have determined that Hell House LLC and Paranormal Activity are two of my favourite horror series; on the other hand, I don’t get the appeal of the V/H/S series at all. I also watched Evil Dead Rise and Emily Rose Exorcism.
🔖 ━ How to Sleep Well ❥ Memories Of Railway Puri and Alu Curry ❥
Foodie Guide-y
🍖 ━ Shanghai Street opens another branch in the city featuring Sichuan Spicy Street Food. We went there as a reward for returning to running and feasted on Spicy Sichuan Crab and BBQ skewers. I am ready to revisit them.
🍛 ━ In the past three weekends, we have been feasting on Nasi Padang from Tambo Ciak. I am well aware it’s turning into an addiction, but I can’t help it, especially since Fafa offered to drive for 40 minutes to get it so I can just eat it.
🫓 ━ We also got takeaway at the newly renovated Chai n Dosa. Upma for me and Idli Vada for Fafa. It’s value for money, and we are adding it to the busy/lazy workday lunch roster.
🍪 ━ On the tiniest progress around the kitchen: I made TikTok two-ingredients Milo Pudding, baked a brownie – Chewy Cocoa Brownies from Snacking Bites by Yossy Arefi, made Payasam for Ponggal, successfully cooked Bengali Chicken Potato Curry and learned to blanch tomatoes.
🌶️ ━ Aussies who love spicy food, check out this chilli subscription.
🍱 ━ Donita, a writer friend, recommended “Andaza: A Memoir of Food, Flavour and Freedom in the Pakistani Kitchen.” It’s on my to-read list, along with other recipe books I am drooling over.
Tiny Joys
When I grow up, I want to be the pink version of the green lady ❤ Google Photos ❤ Sri Lankan Lunch ❤ Receiving Christmas Cards well into the new year ❤ Sturdy houseplants ❤ Saffron Incense ❤ Temu ❤ Sephora white eyeliner ❤ SaturdaySkin facemask ❤ Triduta Bracelet ❤ Long daylights ❤ Library books ❤ Cleaning service ❤ Writing Morning Pages ❤ Supermarket Ice-cream ❤ Making plans ❤ Buying flight tickets ❤ Somersby ❤ Film camera ❤ Old photos ❤ Jacinda’s (NZ ex-PM) wedding pics ❤ Excellent flying experience with Jetstar ❤ and coming home after a long trip ❤ Hitting the bull’s eye while axe throwing with Liz ❤
Meanwhile, on Kulture Kween:
I wrote about Colours and Flavors of Samadi Sunday Market Canggu ❃ Warung Mek Juwel: Culinary Journey Amid Ubud’s Rice Fields ❃ Adda Yoga: Savasana-ing on A Rooftop in Canggu Bali ❃ A Day of Vegan Delights in Canggu Bali ❃ Samadi Yoga Bali’s Zenith of Zen Yoga Class Experience ❃ The Naked Traveler Trinity on Writing, Travel, and Culture
More Kulture Kween Updates:
✍🏽 ━ So, I am working on tidying up the blog in the background. I am midway through the “30daysofBali” posts, and once I complete them, I will move them all to January month. Meanwhile, I will fill next month with Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage articles, which I abandoned last year for a reason I can’t remember.
👑 ━ I am also working on showcasing more (female) creators on the blog – ideally once a month. This month, the blog featured an Indonesian travel-writer icon, Trinity, of The Naked Traveler.
💌 ━ Another thing I’m working on is reviving the blog newsletter. I am currently in conversation with an enthusiastic person in MailChimp who sent me five emails and is keen to schedule a Teams Meeting when I asked for a Free Trial to do some testing. If it works, I will redirect you to the signup form and let’s take it from there. But for now, it’ll be a monthly summary of what I posted on the blog on that particular month. There won’t be additional posts on this newsletter, at least not this year, as I don’t have any more capacity, but maybe someday I will, so do subscribe! Btw, I do find it weird asking you to subscribe when everyone is moving to Substack, but here we are.
💯 ━ Lastly, in the early days of blogging, I thought I’d retire the blog when it reached 1000 posts; it looks like it will reach that milestone this year. It’s a pretty ambitious target, so here is hoping that it will. Also, to clarify, I am not retiring.
Time Machine
Read more about last year’s happenings.
Thank You, Next!
🌟 ━ The February card is the Nine of Cups. A card of self-satisfaction, I would very much embrace it if I pulled it in December. But in February and with a mountainous size of tasks to do, how?? IDK, really, let me mull over this.
👯🏾 ━ Jik is flying to Melbourne for a GGP weekend. So far, our schedule includes the 2024 goals pow-wow and immersive night theatre at Werribee Park.
🐉 ━ We are having a Lunar New Year celebration at work. The week after, My work friends and I celebrated Galentine’s Day with Korean BBQ and binge drinking.
🎂 ━ At the end of the month, I am off to Jakarta to celebrate Appa’s 70th birthday. I also anticipate a week of overeating and gossiping with the cousin gang. It’s going to be glorious.
🏮 ━ Wishing you an auspicious Dragon Lunar New Year and a very happy Lammas from the Southern Hemisphere.
Follow me on Instagram @KultureKween for more recent updates.
