Great Reminders from the How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies and Before the Coffee Gets Cold

How to make millions before grandma dies (Pic source: Google.com)

"How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies premiered on April 1, 2024, and is now hitting cinemas worldwide. It is currently rated at 8.5/10 on IMDb, with 97% positive rating from Google users, and has made THB 320.7 million in Thailand alone, as of June 2, 2024." - Lifestyle Asia

I heard about this when I was staycation in Batam with my friend two weeks ago. She had been wanting to ask me to watch this together since it was cheaper to watch movie there. But since we both were busy, we could not watch. Until yesterday, finally I grabbed my hubby to watch it together with me.

He was wondering what kind of movie it was. I just told him it was a Thai movie and I bet, he believed my taste, so he just agreed and joined. He was struck in awe upon seeing a fully occupied theater on Thursday evening (not even weekend), and people was willing to sit at the most front rows because every where else was occupied. "It must be really good," he claimed inside his heart.

After finished watching, I understood how it had become really famous not only in Thailand, but worldwide, especially in Southeast Asia. The movie depicted Thai Chinese life and culture, which was also applicable to any other Chinese immigrants in Southeast Asia countries like Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

Filial piety, favoritism upon boys, and greed upon wealth/ inheritance came hand-in-hand and usually appeared when someone old and sick was going to die - realistically and sadly. The young "good for nothing" boy - who had initial intention to benefit something from the upcoming grandma's death, changed his heart through love and over time as he spent more time together and closely with his Amah (grandma). 

It was heart wrenching. I could hear sob sounds somewhere inside the theatre when the movie was almost ended. I did not cry though, in fact, I laughed more while watching it. Thanks to the boy's character that was lighthearted and always wanted to see his Amah smiled :) 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold Quotation - Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Our parents were getting old each and every day. One day, soon or later, one thing or another, we might have to face such thing in life. I hope my parents would be blessed with good health all the time and they could spend the rest of their days happily and full of love despite living away from their children. Hope they can gain happiness from travelling and seeing the world, spending time together with their children, grandchildren, friends, and families.

The above picture was taken from the "Before the Coffee Gets Cold" book by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. Three sequels were published with the almost same stories over and over again, on how customers had the opportunity to travel to a time of their choosing, as long as they followed a long list of rules.

"There is only one seat in the café that allows time travel; the seat is only available when the ghost that usually occupies it goes for a toilet break; once back in time, customers can't leave the seat; the only people in the past who can be met are people who have visited the café; whatever happens in the past, the present won't change; and, most importantly, the customer has to return to the present before their cup of coffee goes cold (around 1 hour)." - Source: Wikipedia.org

In real life, whatever had passed, would never return. Just like a broken vase that could not return to its initial form. As Amah said, "What has been done, cannot be undone." 

Hope the movie and the book would be a great reminder to all of us to always treasure the people surrounding us, to feel grateful of their existence, and in any way possible, to spend more quality time with them - be it near or far, and to love with all of our hearts, not because we expect something in return.

Let's be active and healthy!

Health quote (Pic source: Google.com)

As a fellow Singaporean, I feel very grateful that we have a government that takes care of its citizens well being, as well as health. In this matter, I want to spread this information as far as possible, so that more fellow Singaporean, permanent resident, employment pass holder or work permit holder aged 17 years and above can benefit from the exercise events that you can find out from the Healthy 365 app. 

Despite being Singaporean for almost two decades, I only started joining the event last week. Hahaha... It is never too late though. I believe, there are still many more who do not even know or aware about such benefits. What I am talking about is the free exercise programs that are available all over this tiny island and country.

Sample of Healthy 365 app

First of all, I hope by now you have downloaded the Healthy 365 app on your mobile phone, and also have collected points from many sources, such as steps that you walk every day, minutes from your physical activities (MVPA - Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity), number of hours of your sleep, points collected from healthy meals, drinks, desserts or groceries that you purchased from various shops by joining the Eat, Drink, Shop Healthy Challenge 2024 and National Steps Challenge.

Fyi, the Sleep Tracking Challenge has ended on 31st May 2024, so there is no longer needed to wear your digital watch when you sleep.

And from those points that you collect, you can redeem it to various eVoucher. From as low as 150 points, you can exchange it to a S$1 SimplyGo eVoucher (for those who do not know, SimplyGo is a travel card - can be used to pay for public transport such as: MRT and bus). You can use your point to donate to various organizations too, such as: Community Chest, SGH Needy Patients Fund. You can buy soya bean drinks, bubble tea, and many more. For me, I usually change my points to the FairPrice eVoucher - the supermarket voucher. I can buy more healthy food as a result - fresh fruits and vegetables.

I used to use the app up to this point only.

Sample of Healthy Workplace Ecosystem (HWE) events - Healthy 365

Last week my friend messaged me and asked if I ever joined their exercise program. She sent me one of the exercise events that is held at my office building. I told her, so far I had not joined any yet. I heard about those events from my Boss last year. However, when I tried to find suitable programs around my areas, I did not know how to search. Feeling hopeless, I never pursued it any more.

But this time, since the exercise event that she told me was just being held above my office, so I thought, why not? I did not even know that there was such events at this building. So that day, I brought the exercise mat (as they did not provide) and joined my first Pilates for free. Yes, it was free!!! All the programs stated there, were provided free and led by professional and experienced instructors.

As you can see the above, they have this so called Healthy Workplace Ecosystem (HWE), usually located near office buildings or city area, so that office workers can join the activity after work instead of going back home. Pilates, Yoga, Zumba, Cardio Dance Fitness, KpopX Fitness, Piloxing, Line Dance, Steel Combat, Dance Remix, HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) - are some of the exercise programs they offer. You can see the level of intensity of the training from that page too so you can have a mental preparation before registering the event.

It was perfect for me! I heard about Pilates since long time ago but I never gave it a try. There is classes being held but usually it comes with a price (nothing is free for those private health centers). Even when my friend told me the above, I was still hesitating as I worried that I might not be able to follow - since I never tried it before. But she encouraged me to give it a try. So, I thanked her for her support and encouragement that I finally gave it a try. Perhaps I may try other type of exercises too since it was opened to public and it was free. From the trial, then I can decide which one to keep joining and which one to let go. Isn't it fantastic??? :)

How to check exercise events at Healthy 365 App

Apart from those located near workplaces, I could also find activities nearby my home. How to find? From the Healthy 365 App, click "Explore" at below page and click "Events". You can type the area where you live in or nearby you. Here, I typed "Punggol". But Punggol is big, so is Jurong, Tampines, and other parts of Singapore. To find a more specific area, I click "Map View" Here I could use my fingers to move the map around and find the location nearby my home. 

The blue pins indicate the place where the exercise events being held. So I can just click on the blue pins, and the name of the place will appear at below, then I click "View events at location".

Healthy 365 App

The above left page will appear. There, you can see which day and date, what type of exercise, level of intensity, for who, and so on. For details, click on that event and the right page will appear. If you are interested and want to join, click "Book now" below.

So, there are many ways to search for the suitable exercise and location that you want. Once you click Book now, they will send an email for your as confirmation. If you are unable to go, you have to cancel it beforehand, otherwise there will be penalty - and it also gives other people chance to join that empty slot. Fyi, Active Ageing means for people age 65 and above.

This way, you can have as many exercise as you want and all at the convenient of your fingertips. 

You can check the Health Hub website here to find out government programs for the healthier Singapore, not only physically, but also mentally. 

So, are you ready for your next exercise event??? I hope this post can benefit you and motivate you to exercise more in your daily life. Jia you!!! :)

What I was made for?

Beauty of aging

All had changed

Hair dropped
But white ones appeared
Wrinkles on the forehead too, some below the eyes
Freckles on the face, nothing to say
Saggy cheeks, steroid effects? Damn it!

Slow metabolism, harder to lose weight
Even plain water made me fat
 
And reading glasses, it was almost for everyone
Weak knees, stairs were harder to climb
 
And if you think physical changes were worst,
Wait until the mentally changes haunted you
 
I was talking about ladies here
“M” word
Not that bloody “M”
It was the opposite
 
Yes, that “M”
Hot flushes
Sleep problems
Energy low – blamed it to the hormones!!!
Moody – always moody L
 
One day
If you live long enough
You too will experience it
 
'Cause I, 'cause I
I don't know how to feel
But I wanna try
I don't know how to feel
But someday I might
Someday I might
 
Think I forgot, how to be happy
Something I'm not, but something I can be
Something I wait for
Something I'm made for
Something I'm made for

Babe, U R too hot!!!

Pic source: happybeingdoodles.com

End of March, just as when I thought April would be cooler, I was totally wrong!!! April was even worse!!! (Straits Times said March 2024 was the warmest on the record - capping 10-month streak of the temperature record).

Ching ming festival (tomb sweeping day) fell on 4th April this year but few weeks before that, people had already started preparations for tomb-sweeping and ancestral worship. Usually people would offer the death some money and things as they believed that the deceased would receive it in the are world. Therefore, lots of burning happened and it would increase the heat temperature especially in South East Asia countries. 

A week ago I heard the news that Thailand was facing very high temperature too, especially in Bangkok, the metropolitan city. I checked with my friend who stayed there and he said, even in Chiang Mai, where he was located at that moment, the heat did not spare the area. 40 degree celsius was not enough, there was air pollution too as there was wildfire nearby the area. 

Pic source: Accuweather - Strait Times

And since the beginning of the April, everyone here could feel the heat too. Many news were reported, from the very high level of UV in the island and what to do with it, to the extreme heat or heatwave that was going on in South East Asia countries (the above picture was posted only 2 days ago). 

From the personal experience, this was like a living hell. I mean, I was usually the type of person that could bear the normal heat. I mean, it was common to face 30 plus degree temperature in a country like Singapore and I was born in Jakarta and stayed there for seventeen years, so it was not a very big deal. 

But now, it was really becoming so much unbearable!!! I used to have a morning walk in MacRitchie Reservoir because despite the sun, there were trees covering most of the hiking trails. Only when came out, then there was not much protection from the sun. I went once sometimes in March and I found that the heat was too much. The water that I usually brought and topped up, was not enough to cool down my body. That was why I had stopped going, especially when the news reported that March's temperature was breaking the records high.

Until towards end of April, I thought, this was not the way. No matter what, I still had to have some exercise. So my brain had some thinking. Hahaha... Perhaps it was not on much use earlier :P Lol. Then why not just walk around where I stayed??? It was a blessing to live in area like this. It was not far from the man-made river and park, but at least, there was such a place. 

I thought of cycling in the evening. I finished work quite early and could reach home by 6pm. However, the sun was still shining bright at 6pm and the heat was still felt emerging from the asphalt cover. I did not think it was a good idea. I was even wondering why people was still going for jog in such hour. First heat, and second, the carbon monoxide produced by the trees when the night appeared.

One of my morning walk/run

And when I had difficulty to sleep after waking up for pee at dawn, so I thought, why not I go for walk early in the morning before I started my day? And that solved my problem. So now, when I woke up at 6am, I got up and moved my body around the neighborhood. The earlier the better. Like to start before 6am was better as there would be lesser people, lesser noise, but the sky was darker, sometimes could be eerie when you were the only one there, but I had to finish and went back home before 7am as I had to leave to work by 8am. I loved it!!! During weekend, I gave myself longer time and route to go plus breakfast date with my hubby. It was perfect!!!

But afternoon and evening time were still unbearable. Even when I lie down on my bed with wall fan blowing towards me, or when I watched TV sitting on the sofa with ceiling fan blowing from the top, my body was wet from all the sweat, as if the heat could penetrate all over the house. And it was not me who felt it this way. It was for everyone. Everyone complained about the heat.

My office centralized air conditioner was very cold (I even had to wear jacket inside the office). But when I went out for a walk after lunch, wahhhh.... the sun was burning, I could feel the heat penetrated underneath my skin. Often times I chose to take the lift and walk through underpass (went for a longer route) rather than crossing the traffic light in front of me directly under the sun. I think, even in such few meter distance and seconds, the UV light could harm the skin.

The air, it was hot too!!! Suffocating!!!

And with the flow of cold and hot air in and out the building, people were easily getting sick. Flu, cough, and fever. You could see many people wearing masks especially when commuting in public transports like MRT and bus. 

Water! We had to drink much water, enough to take back all the sweat that we expelled from our body.

I have no idea how long more we have to endure such heat. I really miss the Covid time, when people could not travel and just stay within their country where they were. With less emission from the planes, factories, cars, and so on, the world was cooler and healthier. I do not know what the world will become. If this kind of weather went on all the time, where human being would stay???

My Types of Books

Find your right book - J.K. Rowling quote (Source: Google.com)

I love reading but I do not just love any books that come into my hands. If I would say, it requires fate to be able to read my type of books. Recently I realize that only my type of books would give me a kick, a motivation to keep reading it, until the end.

I did try reading just any book. It was not thick. It was not heavy (in terms of topic and content). By right, in my opinion, it should be easy to read and fast to finish. However, despite it was being just beside me, for one and half month the post it notes that I pasted into, was still stuck there at the same page and finally I decided to return it back to the library. The book did not call me to open. My heart was not willing to open it as well, to continue where it had stopped. I bet any fellow reader would also feel this way before.

So, my type of book. I could say I was very lucky to be met with them. Let me share them with you.

1) The Little Liar by Mitch Albom

  

The Little Liar - Mitch Albom

" A powerful novel that moves from a coastal Greek city during the Holocaust, to America, where the intertwined lives of three survivors are forever changed by the perils of deception and the grace of redemption. Eleven-year-old Nico Krispis never told a lie. When the Nazi’s invade his home in Salonika, Greece, the trustworthy boy is discovered by a German officer, who offers him a chance to save his family. All Nico has to do is convince his fellow Jewish residents to board trains heading to “new homes” where they are promised jobs and safety. Unaware that this is all a cruel ruse, the innocent boy goes to the station platform every day and reassures the passengers that the journey is safe. But when the final train is at the station, Nico sees his family being loaded into a large boxcar crowded with other neighbors. Only after it is too late does Nico discover that he helped send the people he loved—and all the others—to their doom at Auschwitz. Nico never tells the truth again. In The Little Liar, his first novel set during the Holocaust, Mitch Albom interweaves the stories of Nico, his brother Sebastian, and their schoolmate Fanni, who miraculously survive the death camps and spend years searching for Nico, who has become a pathological liar, and the Nazi officer who radically changed their lives. As the decades pass, Albom reveals the consequences of what they said, did, and endured. A moving parable that explores honesty, survival, revenge and devotion, The Little Liar is Mitch Albom at his very best. Narrated by the voice of Truth itself, it is a timeless story about the harm we inflict with our deceits, and the power of love to ultimately redeem us." - Goodreads

You must have heard or familiar with the author. This American author is not only a book writer, he is too a musician and a journalist. He has sold over 40 million copies worldwide, books and stories that inspired people all around the world. Tuesdays with Morrie, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, For One More Day, Have a Little Faith, The Time Keeper, The First Phone Call from Heaven, The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto, The Next Person You Meet in Heaven, Finding Chika, The Stranger in the Lifeboat, and the most recent one, The Little Liar. 

I believe you may have read at least one of the titles I mentioned above. And some, might have read all of them :)

The Little Liar was not only inspirational. It was very sad too. How sadistic war was. How could human behave in such ways. So many how I questioned as there was no humanity, no love, no compassion, nothing. Instead, there were many lies spoken that many people believed, just to dupe them into life that they had never imagined. 

It was my type of book because I could relate the story and the places mentioned with those I had travelled to before - the shoes on the Danube River bank, the exhibit inside the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives, next to the Dohány Street Synagogue and the Raoul Wallenberg Holocaust Memorial Park, and so on. 

2) From a Mountain In Tibet: A Monk’s Journey by Yeshe Losal Rinpoche

From a mountain in Tibet - Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche

"The extraordinary story of how a wayward boy escaped his war-torn country, found himself, and became the leading Tibetan monk in the West. Lama Yeshe didn't see a car until he was 15-years-old. In his quiet village, he and other children ran in fields with yaks and mastiffs. The rhythm of life was anchored by the pastoral cycles. Food was carefully apportioned and eaten together, everyone was family. The arrival of Chinese army cars one day in 1959 changed everything. In the wake of the deadly Tibetan Uprising, he escaped to India through the Himalayas to start over as a refugee. One of only 13 survivors out of 300 travellers, he spent the next few years in America, experiencing the excesses of the Woodstock generation before reforming in Europe. Now in his seventies and a leading monk at the Samye Ling monastery in Scotland—the first Buddhist centre in the West—Lama Yeshe casts a hopeful look back at his momentous life. From his learnings on self-compassion and discipline to his trials and tribulations with loss and failure, his poignant story mirrors our own struggles. Written with erudition and humour, From a Mountain in Tibet shines a light on how the most desperate of situations can help us to uncover vital life lessons and attain lasting peace and contentment." - Goodreads

This book told us the story what the Tibetan went through during the Chinese army's arrival to Tibet. It changed fate of many. Lama Yeshe was lucky enough being able to escape, although he had to go through difficult times - food scarcity, sickness, uncertainty, no clue where to head to, etc. He also told us the story on how he could change himself to where he is now. I enjoyed his story very much and very grateful that he could share his life journey to all of us in this book. Many things I could learn from him. By now, you must have already known what type of books I love reading.

3) A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East by Tiziano Terzani

A Fortune-Teller Told Me by Tizian Terzani

"Warned by a Hong Kong fortune-teller not to risk flying for an entire year, Tiziano Terzani—a vastly experienced Asia correspondent—took what he called “the first step into an unknown world. . . . It turned out to be one of the most extraordinary years I have ever spent: I was marked for death, and instead I was reborn.”

Traveling by foot, boat, bus, car, and train, he visited Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Mongolia, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. Geography expanded under his feet. He consulted soothsayers, sorcerers, and shamans and received much advice—some wise, some otherwise—about his future. With time to think, he learned to understand, respect, and fear for older ways of life and beliefs now threatened by the crasser forms of Western modernity. He rediscovered a place he had been reporting on for decades. And reinvigorated himself in the process." - Penguin Random House

I found out about this book from one forum in Facebook. Not knowing what it was about, the title and the picture were enough to draw my attention. As I unfolded each page, I fell in love with the way the author telling his story. And yes, fortune-teller, phii or spirit, war story, Buddhism, travel journey to places I had ever been to, were among the topics that I had interest with. Plus life learning from other people's story and experience, inspirational story, they were priceless!!! That was how I loved and enjoyed reading his book. I would check the google map too sometimes for the places he mentioned to imagine where they were located as he moved around to many places in Southeast Asia and I bet many readers also did the same :D

I am hoping to read more on these types of books. If you happen to have any books to recommend me to read, please drop your message below. Who knows I will have fate with that books. 

Books quote (Pic source: Google.com)

So, what have you read lately? I hope all of you read too sometimes, despite your business in life, in study, family obligations, traveling, and so on. Reading is really good for our mind. It can give our life inspiration and reminder to keep going upward and moving our butts off!!! Hehehe... if you know what I mean. Anyway, I hope you can find your types of books to read and enjoy reading ya!!! Cheers!!! :)