The Canteen

Today's lunch brings us to what my boss and other colleagues call "canteen". It is a typical Chinese seafood restaurant in Klang that is always empty for lunch except for me and my colleagues. The company has been such a regular customer the past year that my colleagues were treated to a massive seafood hotpot ON THE HOUSE.

See, just us.

Today's steam fish was delicious.

The company even had our Chinese New Year company lunch with a company lucky draw earlier this year! Yes, still confused.

The owner likes us so much that she serves us fruits for free after we are done with the dishes. Today, she served us the sweetest jackfruit I have had in years. I have never heard the Mandarin word for jackfruit so I inquired of my colleagues and I learned a new word today - 菠萝蜜 (Bōluómì), which apparently means "pineapple honey". After learning this new word, I thought it would be fun to surprise my Mandarin-speaking colleagues but they did not understand what I was saying. Interestingly, 菠萝 (Bōluó) means pineapple in Mandarin but here in Malaysia, pineapple is more commonly known as 黃梨 (Huáng lí), literally "yellow pear". And during CNY, "to attract prosperity". My colleagues also made me realise that 菠萝包 (Bōluó bāo), a famous sweet bun in Hong Kong I have eaten so many times before that it is called pineapple bun in English. Gosh. Mindblown. Mom, please do not reproach me for being hopeless in Mandarin.

Moving on to making fun of my friend's motivational quote sharing of the day:

"Time and silence are the most luxurious things today. Good morning..:)"

Actually, I have no comment for this. This could be true in an age of information deluge. Wise share, friend, wise share.

Change.

Much has changed since my last entry. 2019 was a crazy, amazing year. I got married after a two-year engagement with my lovely, God-sent partner, Aisha in September, grown so much professionally at work through life-changing challenges throughout the year, and decided to move back to the Klang Valley to be with my wife.

I was working on an artificial reef project for The Datai Langkawi and finally, after what seems like eons (one whole year), we finally got to do so on the 16th of January 2019. Momentous day for us at work, me in my professional career, a portent to many more achievements in 2019.

A professional portrait of the team I led during my second stint at The Datai Langkawi (from 2018 to 2019) in front of The Nature Centre. I am glad to have been part of this team of diverse personalities that coalesced against all hardships thrown at us in 2019. Yes, 2019 had many dark days. Picture credit here.

The wedding band and us.

Love you, Aisha. Aisha blogged about our wedding. Go check it out here and here.

Mine and Aisha's "nest".

It has been four months since I have moved in with Aisha and we are definitely enjoying married life together. I started my new job in January and I am enjoying it very much, although it is in a very different industry doing nothing like what I have been doing since 2013. Funnily, my new workplace is just a five-minute drive from the house I grew up in and my permanent mailing address of 24 years!

Now that I have more free time than the past four years (graduated with my Masters degree in Fall 2018 and no more doing long hours at The Datai Langkawi), I decided I should blog more since I feel blogging helps me journal more.

But it is so tough to know what to blog about, what to journal about. Therefore, I have come up with a formula for this blogging/journal dead-end - my go-to "theme" would be:

• Lunches
• About the discussions I have at these lunches
• New vocabulary I learn from my daily readings
• Making fun of motivational quotes a friend shares in a group chat on WhatsApp

How about I start this tomorrow?