I feel like recently I am blossoming more into a flower. Especially with my new Pleats Mama cherry blossom bag. Sakura is carrying her new sakura bag and dressed in sakura colours today. 😀 Well, I wore my cream pleats blouse from Uniqlo with my pink linen shorts from Muji today. Oh I picked my black merino wool cardigan from Sezane as well. So it definitely matches the bag colours that I got. You can see a photo of the bag in here. I matched it with my VCA Sweet Alhambra necklace in rose gold and it is a perfect addition to the entire outfit. 🙂 I’m definitely blossoming well and beautifully! I took a selfie of my outfit of the day and all of my friends (probably biased haha) praised my outfit choice. Whee!

Okay, except for Alex who commented that I look like an auntie who is going to wet market to buy vegetables (all in Chinese). Rude! -.-

I used to be a dehydrated flower but now that I am refocusing everything on myself, I’m definitely blossoming well. A flower needs water to grow well. The same for grass too. I should always focus on myself and direct the water to myself to grow well.

That reminded me of something that a friend told me. My real Chinese name can be translated to Japanese name “Reika”. I just checked and whoa, Google translate did translate it accurately.

YJ*: Sakura actually fits you well because hua means flower
Me: yessssssss
Me: not bad, you are smart
Me: your PhD has come in handy hahahahaha
YJ: also btw your Chinese name can pass as a Japanese name
Me: eh is it???
YJ: yes
YJ: rei ka

* Not going to put the name of my friend because he is listed as a public figure on Google and I don’t want my blog to appear when his students googled for his name…

It was an old conversation but as I am blogging about blossoming more into a flower, I decided to google about “rei ka”. Apparently it means “beautiful, lovely, flower, petal”.

Perfecto lah. All these glowing up is actually inline with my name. *acts out a pretty pose* I’m vain and I’m not even going to deny it. Hahaha. 😀 If I knew my Chinese name can be translated to such a beautiful Japanese name, I would have called myself Reika instead of Sakura. Lol…

No idea why no one ever told me about “Reika” name… Not even my friends, who knew both Chinese and Japanese. I am not exactly sure how to write it in Japanese characters though and my friend didn’t type it for me. Luckily I got a Japanese mentor and I have my 1-1 meeting with him tomorrow so I will definitely ask him about it. Otherwise, I have to ask my Japanese violin teacher this Sunday during my violin class. If I like how the characters looks like, then I might add it into my online name. Haha.

On a side note, will I recommend anyone to buy Pleats Mama bag? Probably no. I already see some design and quality issues on my first day of use. To be honest, I haven’t had a bag brand which I do not complain, except Hermes. LOL. I also have complaints about my Hermes bags but Hermes after sales is always able to address every single concern I have. So no complaints about it. No wonder I have the most number of bags from this brand so far. I don’t think I ever bought so many bags from a single brand/shop before in my life…

I recently watched this podcast on YouTube which explained pretty well about gaslighting. I highly recommend everyone to watch this podcast as it really explains really well about gaslighting.

DARVO – Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. I realised it happened to me as I was in my healing phase. Sylvia’s example was really classic and I can relate to it really well. Like the gaslighter will deny what he did, then attack you back before proclaiming himself as the victim and put you as the offender. If only I did my self-work and understand all these way earlier, I would not have wasted so many years. Oh well. At least I realised it much later.

Real narcissist will not heal. You are not in public service and you are not a social worker, so just run. Anger is a self-protection mechanism from danger, indeed.

This is a call for you ladies to understand the basics of gaslighting and be able to identify when you are in such situations. Don’t just walk away, run away immediately!

Recently I started watching some of the real estate related videos and there’s 1 part of the video that really hits me.

“Buying a property is not just investment centric or own-stay centric. It is also psychology centric. When you owns an asset, it trains you to save because now you have a responsibility… A home also has psychological factors because the moment you start to own a home, you need to maintain it. You need to pay property tax, monthly conservancy or MCST, electrical bills, Internet bills and stuff like that. That will give you like an internal, healthy motivation to be hardworking because you now have a responsibility.”

Wow, like just wow. Can any property owners relate to it?

I discovered my love for Popcorners in my last US trip in 2022. It was available in the office pantry and I had the Sweet and Salty flavour. Then I went back to the same pantry this year and I couldn’t find it anymore. I wasn’t able to find it in Sprouts too. I nearly forgot about it until I saw it in Google office pantry. Many thanks for my friend/ex-colleague Daniyal for inviting me for a lunch at his office. I had an office tour, tea and even snacks haul when I was visiting San Francisco as part of my personal vacation. 🙂 He told me I can get it from Costco but I don’t have Costco membership. He told me next time he will bring 3kg worth of Popcorners for me since I love it so much. Hahaha! Anyway, I managed to find it in Safeway in the end and I brought 4 big packs of Popcorners home. Feeling quite happy.

One of my favourite Korean YouTubers, Kieun Choi, also likes Popcorners too haha.

I have an interesting story in my hunt for Popcorners actually. After I went to visit Daniyal in the Spear Street office then I walked to Ferry Building to get my matcha latte from Blue Bottle Coffee. I don’t drink coffee but Blue Bottle Coffee is so ironic and I felt I should get something from there. I usually get hot chocolate but I wanted a change. In my effort for more changes, I opt for almond milk instead of normal whole milk. It’s not very nice so be warned – don’t pick almond milk when it comes to matcha latte. :/ Anyway, it is like 13 degrees Celsius and I somehow decided to drink iced matcha latte instead of hot. Then I took an Uber ride to Golden Gate Bridge and was quite pleased with myself for ordering the iced version. However, Golden Gate Bridge is quite cold. Folks who visit San Francisco before would know that the fog and temperature is usually the lowest in Golden Gate Bridge. Here I am – drinking iced matcha latte and walking on the bridge. Not exactly a wise choice but hey, it turned out to be a good choice because I was sweating on the bridge. Well, I was wearing my thin collar short sleeve shirt from Uniqlo (meant for Singapore weather), my baby blue cardigan from SPAO (my recent purchase from my Seoul business trip a few weeks back), my relatively new down jacket from The North Face and my new 100% cashmere scarf from Hermes. The cashmere scarf turns out to be too hot for the 11 to 13 degree Celsius weather on the bridge. I was basically sweating on my neck and arms. To be honest, I don’t think I will sweat without the Hermes scarf. Well, that proved to be very worthwhile purchase I guess. The iced matcha latte helped to keep me cool.

Then I stayed on to watch the sunset at the Golden Gate Bridge since I realised it is going to be sunset and it isn’t as crowded. Probably because it is much colder than usual or by SF standards and also a work day so less locals are there. The sunset in California is always very beautiful. The paddle pop sky is very pretty.

Then I decided to hunt for Popcorners since I have some time before going back to meet Gulabi for dinner. I originally wanted to take Uber to go there but I happened to see a bus at that time. So I decided to ask the driver if that’s the same bus that is going to the direction where Safeway is. Luckily I asked because it was the wrong direction. Lol. So I waited for the right bus and board it to go to Safeway. Unfortunately, I am supposed to alight before the bus goes into Golden Gate Park but I missed the stop so it went into the Golden Gate Park and exited it on the other end. I could have retrace back the route but it is quite dark and Golden Gate Park looks quite dark and scary. So I immediately went to find another Safeway that is slightly further but I can take another bus from the other side of the Golden Gate Park and avoid the dark and scary route of Golden Gate Park. When I reached the bus stop, I realised the bus I am taking is arriving much later. So I took the bus that came earlier and boarded it with everyone else in the same bus stop. The unfortunate part? I have to walk 6 streets/junctions before I can reach Safeway. Well, the roads are dark but since it is like the residential area, it doesn’t feel as scary. Furthermore, that area is relatively rich neighbourhood so it is unlikely to be dangerous. Scary – yes. Dangerous – no. Unfortunately it is a upslope route so that was a good workout since I haven’t been working out for some time. I’m still wearing the same Hermes scarf that is causing me to sweat earlier. However, the temperature has dropped and there is no sun to generate heat so it is actually quite cold. I’m thankful for the scarf at that time.

By the time I reached Safeway, it’s like close to 7pm. I managed to find my Popcorners at the store and it makes all these adventures pretty worth it haha.

It’s interesting how some stuff seems to be messed up at the start – like my “bad” decisions on the iced matcha latte or the missed bus stop for my bus ride to Safeway turned out to be a good decision in the end. Life is interesting, isn’t it?

I’m blogging this on my phone as I am flying from South Korea to Singapore. For some reason, I am always very motivated to blog when I am on the plane. Maybe it is a quiet time since I am not connected to WiFi and I can’t do much while on flights. Maybe I am feeling more insightful when I am up in the skies? Lololol.

Well, it is more boring in the current flight because my Netflix is not logged in before I fly so I cannot access my downloaded videos. Somehow Netflix thinks I am downloading videos on multiple devices and refused to let me download more videos so I have to login to log out all devices. I did log back in again but somehow it log me out again. Gah. I have to reach out to Netflix to sort out the issues when I am back in Singapore.

I realised I am the biggest critic to myself. I should learn to appreciate my own achievements. I have achieved much more than what I started out with. Just because there are people who doesn’t see my true value or appreciate my efforts/hard work does not mean I should not see my true value. I am gaining more self-awareness and learn to gauge people around me. I’m also learning to trust my gut/intuition more. It’s also important to celebrate small wins in life. 🙂

Anyway, it has been a fruitful trip as I was able to top up my skincare items along with getting my personal colour test and new hairstyle. I was able to get new makeup based on the results of my best colour match as well as 1 new outfit for Chinese New Year too. 🙂 I got a new cardigan for me to wear in US too! Whee!

I got more sunscreen from Olive Young too. Trying to save money by buying cheaper sunscreen instead of Kiehls sunscreen. Haha.

I did splurge on hand cream though. I went to Tamburins and got more hand and body cream for myself. I even got myself a new bottle of perfume from my favourite scent – Berga Sandal.

I even managed to get my new accessories which I didn’t get in my previous trip then got tempted when I am in Singapore. Sadly the first faux pearl necklace I got broke before I managed to wear it. I still managed to get replacement for it at another place too. I also managed to get a nice pair of clover earrings – yeah the fake Alhambra earrings lol. I probably won’t wear it with my real Alhambra jewellery haha. It’s in the colour that matches my best personal colours too.

The lady at the personal colour test told me that my current spectacles doesn’t suit me. I will look better with silver or transparent spectacles. Or even black. These are the colours I never considered until the personal colour test.

So I went to Gentle Monster and got a black frame with silver spectacles hehe. Still thinking if I want to make it into sunglasses or just normal spectacles. I’m definitely working hard to glow up after my break up. I have to put in extra effort to make sure that I am taking care of myself better. I think my goal for remaining months of 2023 and 2024 is to sleep more. I need to get my health in better condition. This year has been pretty tough for my health and I hope next year will be better. Eunice mentioned that this year is expected to be tough for us and whoa, she is right at least for me.

I definitely achieved way more than I initially expected in this trip, on top of learning new stuff for work. Good job, Sakura! *patting myself on my back* Hahaha.

Anyway, I’m listening to the audio book – 5 levels of leadership on Audible now. It’s a book recommended by one of my career mentors. I’m thinking if I want to buy the physical copy of the book. Not sure if I want to build a mini library of physical books in future. That is going to be on top of my library of music books. Space is a serious consideration though. Hmm…