Here's My Story

Drove out for dinner. Saw puppy in middle of road. Stopped on the side after passing it. Car's driver in opposite direction pointed out the puppy who clearly had came after our car. Not injured and didn't resist being carried but shivered regularly. She had a collar with a bell attached to it. Asked residents of three houses but none claimed her or knew who owned her. A resident asked us to approach guard at guardhouse so that he could then inform committee. In short, guard cycled around, asking residents (took photos of the puppy) but again none claimed her. Took her to vet. No injuries or wound. Gave deworming and anti-tick medicine but couldn't be vaccinated yet. As explained by an experience dog carer, if she was infected already, vaccination would just strengthen the virus and thereby kill her. So needed to isolate her for 10-14 days before can safely vaccinate her. Our initial intention was just to house her for a night (no boarding place would admit her because of no...

When I press a claimant's claim on Kingdom of Aquitaine, I vassalied him beforehand by giving him a city. My hope was that he could make Most Serene Republic of Aquitaine a powerful merchant replublic, since it had quite long coastline, thereby giving me lots of gold. However, not a single trade post was built and the income I received from him was lower than that received from most, if not all, my direct vassal mayors. One reason could be that powerhouse merchant republics such as Genoa and Pisa were already dominating the Mediterranean Sea. In fact, the latter already had trading posts along the coastline of Aquitaine. Other possible reasons, that other players gave, were lack of technology (Trade Practice) and that the patricians were prioritising building their palaces first. I chanced upon his vassal, a duke of my dynasty. He probably descended from the previous line of King of Aquitaine. Since my ruler was already old, I didn't mind taking the 5-year penalty from revoking...

We first got to know of Sushi Mentai many years ago in Butterworth. It was cheap, good and had salmon wrap, a dish that we ever only had once before at Sushi Tei from their seasonal menu but never came back. Since then, it has become one of our usual haunts whenever we're in Butterworth. However, the last visit was a disappointment: Look how scrawny the right piece is. Those that on the conveyvor belt were also like this. This is a worse crime: badly cut salmon! Horrible! I have hope that this isn't a permanent change: my sister went there weeks later and showed me this photo: Hopefully it'll be back to 'normal' when I visit Butterworth again.

Before the next appointment with the physiotherapist, I had the opportunity to play an hour-long tennis with Ban and two of his ex-classmates, twice (a week apart). There was slight discomfort that became slight pain when running but it was ignorable. However, later, I experienced slight pain walking up and down stairs, which this persisted for more than a day. Therapist suggested that I stretched after tennis. The knee was still creaky when doing reverse lunge but it was soft. The arch pain was significantly better but still happened everyday, right at the start in the morning when I took my first few steps. It seems to get better over time but not sure whether it was due the exercises or not. Incidentally, apparently I did exercise no. 9 incorrectly. I was trying hard not to let the big toe press onto the floor and so I decided to use a wall as stopper. Therapist said that that defeated the purpose of the exercise: to strengthen the small toes in relation to the dominant big toe. As...

Finally got Kingdom of Nubia for my vassal Queen of Egypt. I can't remember but most likely I managed to pressed for it immediately upon death of its ruler. So hard to catch such moment. If I had missed it, the new ruler would probably be in a defensive pact vs me.   Probably my first holy war in this campaign. Due to defensive pacts, I declared on a revolt faction. From the spoils of previous holy war, I landed 3 claimants to three difference kingdoms. One of them was claimant of Kingdom of Denmark. I believed I pressed their claim when the then king came to me witha  marriage proposal and so he left the defensive pact against me.

I visited my mum and sister's family in Butterworth for 8 days. I tried my best to do the physio exercises with some limitations: did exercise no. 1 using a chair (no gym ball), can't do no. 2, no elastic bands and, because I didn't want to dirty my sister's chair and floor, I didn't use shoes. Since then, I started experience arch pain in the right foot on a daily basis. At the next session, the physiotherapist, as usual, asked a few questions and tested a few things before concluding that I stood and walked with collapsed arch, thus causing the pain. She showed me how the bone just above the arch jut out more on the right foot, compared to the left, because of it. If I correct the alignment, the difference is not longer significant. Also, in demonstrating the reverse lunge, we both noticed the consistent creaking noise from the knee. So, she added an exercise to strengthen the four small toes and a massage, with rolling pin, to get rid of the creaky sound. As usu...

After my visa application was approved , I priotised buying tickets for the return trip as that would be more expensive than that for the domestic flight on the way to Canberra. Fortunately, the cheap(er) flight was still available. As a recap, that trip is split into two: Canberra to Melbourne flight operated by Qantas and the Melbourne to KL flight operated by MAS. Since both were day flights, the comfortable seat of business class (comfortable for sleeping, which is important for me on night flight) wasn't needed and so I targeted the economy class.  As usual, Ban preferred seats with extra leg room and that was where the problem started: after selecting such seats, the site informed me there was error in determing the seats's prices. Huh??? The prices were clearly stated before I selected them. The summary page indicated that those seats had been selected but payment was zero @@. I tried a few things to fix the error: restarted the purchasing process, clear browser cache/hi...

While waiting for the outcome of my 2nd attempt at getting an Australian ETA , I noticed that Malaysia Airlines's business class ticket was at about two third of its usual price. A bit of background for context: I used to travel to Australia via Air Asia X because it was significantly cheaper. During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, all airlines were basically grounded because people were not allowed to come to Malaysia and we could fly domestically only in certain cases (e.g. when I flew to Penang for my dad's funeral). However, when domestic travel was allowed, Air Asia proved to be unreliable for many people. For example, someone purchased ticket in the morning but later in the afternoon, they were informed that the flight was changed to another date! I can't fly with such capricious airline because any changes would involved me discussing with my sister about the suitability of the date and then changing the connecting flight ticket(s) (there's no direct flight ...

The largest acquisition to date: the Kingdom of France. I believed I landed a claimant with a spare barony and pressed his claim when there was change of my ruler (defensive pacts disbanded). The then French king was fighting a major revolt for the same claim. That revolt continued long after I won the war. As for Egypt, I stupidly pressed my kinswoman's claim to that title, instead of Kingdom of Nubia, both held by the same queen. The entire realm, except two counties, belonged to Nubia, not Egypt :(   Yes, the classic case of declaring war upon the person who makes a marriage proposal. When they do that, they temporarily drops out of defensive pact against you, if they're in one. This time I landed the claimant with a city, thereby making him mayor. I thought that Aquitine long coastline was ideal to be a merchant republic. During the war, Aquitaine managed to ally with Germany, via marriage, and dragged the latter into war. I had to then raised all my armies but fortunately ...

I read that Shin Zushi @SS2 served good sushi at affordable prices but they notoriously had long queues. So one day, we aimed to arrived before they opened at 6pm. Yet, there was already a long queue and unfortunately, we weren't part of the first batch that was admitted in once they opened and was told that we had to wait around 45 minutes. It was hot and I was getting hungry. Hence, we abandoned that restaurant...forever lol. Based on Google review, I suggested Nyonya Restaurant but alas, it was their rest day. Next was My Gracious Kitchen, a first for us, and oooooh they were selling chiffon cakes! Unfortunately, they expiry in 3 days time. There's no way I alone can finish and entire cake by myself. Ban hardly eats cake. Oh well, too bad. We had these: I totally forgot the details of the food but I know that I liked mine (the first food at the top). However, I remember vividly both of us loving the honey aiyu jelly dessert: it was refreshing with the addition of lime and so...