April in Photos and a Few Words
14 July 2026
April felt like it lasted a long time and that's ironic considering we had an extra day in March. But who knows what happened with last month—the dreadful heatwave in Southeast Asia here, no public holidays, being cooped up at home for most days of the week, I can go on. But time really did past by ever so slowly.
We caught rescued a kitten outside of our usual shop for snacks one random night and he's been living with us for an entire month now. Kopi, has grown so much! He used to really fit in the palm of my hand but now his belly sticks out in a round-ish way, and he wobbles when he walks. Remind me to commission another artist to draw a brand-new family group picture of us soon.
I have grown absolutely obsessed with lontong for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It's a traditional Malaysian dish served in a bowl with sliced rice cakes, topped with sambal belacan, a chilli paste made from shrimp paste, and then fried tofu, anchovies, hard-boiled eggs, slices of long beans, and crunchy cabbage wedges. This is all presented together in a rich and spicy coconut milk gravy. I can't—my mouth is watering from just describing what I've been eating. I fear, my husband has grown sick from going to the same restaurant back and forth each week.
I discovered the only remaining copy of Paula by Isabel Allende in the blockbuster price-cut shelves for just RM17-22 at POPULAR Bookstore! This is such a steal honestly because the original price would've been in the seventies and completely out of my budget for books this month. This book is a memoir dedicated to Allende's daughter Paula who died from medical complications in 1991. It details the episodes of Allende's life and family history. I love her work in The House of the Spirits and after finishing that book, I knew I needed to read more of her work.
My book-sleeve has finally arrived which means the books I read can now safely follow me everywhere in my handbag without suffering from dents and folded pages.
In my three years of discovering Tsutaya Bookstore, I never knew they had a special section for writing guides?! I had to buy previous ones off from Amazon which I'd like to lessen and support physical bookstores instead. Anyway, I'm really into writing memoir-like essays lately, perhaps there is something in the works (!), who knows! But I need to have some foundation in this sort of writing and so, my blog here and the one on Substack will be my experimental platforms for it.
I finished reading Shirley by Charlotte Bronte. I'm glad I read it but boy was it a long read. I would give it a 3.9/5 stars and don't mind recommending it for others to give it a go. I think it's much different from her previous work on Jane Eyre and Villette where this time, her two main female characters are two people of the opposite coin, and they have such a cosy friendship which I'm honestly jealous of.
I ALMOST bought these books but for now they're on my watch list. The prices are very... how do you say, hurts the wallet but what each of them is about? Yes, gimme!
Okay, funny story. I was craving for fresh iced tea and Beutea is THE perfect place to get it because they always put bits of fruits in their drinks. It makes drinking tea fun (I don't know, could just be me). Anyway, I was really thirsty after walking around the mall for hours, so me and my husband asked the cashier for an extra-large cup of this tea, and she asked us twice if we were sure, which was... odd because why did she ask us as if we ordered slime for drinks? A few minutes later, our drink was ready and she called for us from the desk. JUST LOOK AT HOW GINORMOUS THIS IS. So note, their extra-large cup tea definitely fits the definition of the word.
For the first time in my 30 years of living on earth, I tried cute cafe food hunting, the one with special cakes and pastel fruit smoothies! It's my fault for playing cafe ASMR vlogs for weeks that it finally got to me and I just wanted to try it. My verdict: will do this more often.
That's my April wrap-up for now! How has last month treated you?
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