I got lucky with my first CE Warp roll for the new Honkai Star Rail character, Rappa. Got her on first try. Ain’t that sweet, got a Imaginary-class Erudition 5-star character. Maybe I can finally ditch Welt for now.
I immediately used what Ascension materials I had left for her right away – I was using it for Clara, but well, she can stay on 72 for now. Managed to get her to at 70 but I haven’t upped her yet to the next level set as I ran out of mats. But for her Relics, I was thinking of the Cavalry set, same as Firefly. I’ll have to think on the Planar Ornament whether I go for Talia or Kalpagni. She’ll be heavy on ATK anyway. I’ll have to grind a bit to get mats again.
And oh yeah, I used Eternal Calculus as her Light Cone for now, Lv 70. I am very hesitant to roll for her intended Light Cone.
There’s another character on the CE Warp roll banner set, and it’s “Much Hotter Dan Heng” (Imbibitor Lunae). Not rolling for him unless I have 200 gold tickets or something, no sir. I will always try to roll for Kafka, and maybe also for Black Swan. Because other than Gepard, all of the dudes on my roster were all unintended, I just got them randomly. I really like Gepard as the tanky shield support uke dude. Got me out of a lot of hairy situations on grinds before I got Firefly, Feixiao and Yunli. I still use him on occasion when Shields are a boost.
Well, it’s off to grind we go. Hi ho, hi ho.
In FGO news, it’s still also grindy AF. I already completed the important stuff in the “Halloween Rebellion of 108! A Dragon Girl’s Water Margin” event a week ago, I already maxed the Pretender dragon loli, so now it’s more of grinding to get the important mats, upgrade stuff, and let the event just fade.
Currently I’m nearly done getting all the remaining upgrade stuff I can sell for Prisms as end-month is nearing and daddy needs some currency for the monthly ATK/DEF boosters. Maybe tomorrow I shoot to spend a couple apples to polish the remaining bits. No biggie on the apples, I have way too many accrued.
Now if only I can get Morgan.
Last Saturday, I was frankly bored out of my mind. I had no desire to blow off steam at NBA2K, nor the desire to fiddle with my pad to play the MVC collection, and man I was running out of things to binge-watch on weekends. I want to save some for later.
So with that in mind, for lunch I dressed up in a nice sporty casual attire and headed out. Initially I planned to go to Chinatown and maybe look for new things to eat there at either the People’s Park food centre or at Hong Lim. I took the bus, got a window seat, and sat for a while looking outside.
But when the bus was near Seng Poh Road and I saw the familiar row of buildings between it and Outram Road, I decided to do a “fuck it, I can go here” and alighted at the first stop that the bus had on Outram (at After Furama Riverfront). I just had to see what’s what here for one reason: this was the first area I lived at in Singapore.
Back in 2018, I just got hired in SG and had nowhere to stay yet. It was planned that my employment was just temporary, so for three months I lived out of my big luggage at a hostel at the Tiong Bahru area at Outram Road called “COO Boutique”. For location, it was just perfect. Two bus stops for two directions within walking distance, multiple restaurants just outside the hostel, two hawker centres and a 7-11 nearby, a mall within distance, and generally a very quiet place. My old boss Iñigo highly recommended it as it was one of his favorite places to stay whenever Sam flew him in to SG for things. I didn’t refuse because some really nice perks was there: a daily free breakfast buffet was there in the hostel, the hostel’s beds were super nice, and my new employer was largely paying for it, three full months. A small chunk of my monthly salary was all it cost me.
After three months, my stay was extended from temporary to long-term, and I found a decent lodging – I moved in with a work colleague and one Burmese co-renter in their 3-room HDB at Holland Village. Apparently one of their co-renters fled out of Singapore in a hurry for some reason, and I conveniently was looking for a place to stay. So I finally moved out of the hostel in Tiong Bahru. But I won’t lie that I missed one place most of all – the Tiong Bahru Market. I loved eating there whenever I go back to the hostel and I haven’t had a meal yet. It’s big, it’s varied in terms of food offerings and it became the main area I used to fill in the gaps of what Singaporean food knowledge I lacked – I always tried a new stall whenever I could, and I always tried a new dish whenever possible. Every meal there was new – at least for my 3 months of stay at the area. I tried lots of soups, noodles, meals, desserts, and drinks.
So for that Saturday, when I saw the area again, I could not resist the urge to go back. Split-second decision. Tapped out of the bus and walked towards the familiar row of houses.
For one… “COO Boutique” has been long gone. Probably since the pandemic, even. I’ve read somewhere that many hospitality businesses shuttered during the first years of the pandemic, and likely that hostel was a casualty. I knew it was hard to make profits during the “social distancing” years for businesses like theirs. In its place was a new one called “Futura Boutique”. Not sure if it’s just a rebrand or an entirely new owner. But from what I saw on Google later, I think they just took over and kept many of the existing things inside.
Many of the restaurants in the same row of buildings were still there, fortunately. But I didn’t had much time to leisurely walk there and look around, as it was nearly 1pm, and I had a place in mind. So I then started walking towards the Tiong Bahru Market with one meal in mind that I suddenly wanted again: a big deep bowl of lor mee. Yeah, lor mee is ubiquitous in Singapore and I’ve had them in many hawkers, but the one in Tiong Bahru Market is big and hearty for me. Tastes awesome too.
I quickly got in the second floor of the market where the hawkers were, and made my way to the right towards the one I’ve frequented since 2018: the aptly-named “Tiong Bahru Lor Mee” hawker stall. Their main specialty is lor mee, with (I suspect) more options for customization, but I don’t speak nor understand Mandarin and Hokkien, so I don’t know how to really customize the dish. What I had (and eventually got used to) was the regular order set – big yellow noodles, chunks of meat, fish cake slices, a fried dumpling, half a tea egg, some bean sprouts in there, maybe more stuff. The only thing I choose is the serving size – they offer small, normal and large servings, usually differing by just 1SGD each. I always get the large serving, because it gets served in a big bowl with more meat, more noodles and more of that rich thickened gravy soup.
So I get my usual favorite – basic order, large serving. The garnishes and seasonings are free and abundant, so I do my preferred means – a tablespoon of diced garlic, four shakes of the white pepper, a tong-ful (they have tongs for some condiments) of the sliced big chili peppers, a tong-ful of the diced cilantro (leaves and stems there), a tablespoon of sambal, and a rounded splash of soy sauce and Chinese vinegar. I then went to a nearby stall to get a “Michael Jackson” drink (it’s about 60% soymilk and 40% grass jelly), and looked for a nice ventilated vacant table spot to eat. Not too hard to find as it’s 1pm and most of the lunch crowd had already left.
Yeah, it was a gutbuster. Big bowl of hearty thick gravy soup, noodles and meat, filled me up great. No qualms there, the taste was comfortingly familiar from years of patronizing the place. Apart from the price, nothing has really changed for their lor mee and its excellent taste. Afterwards, I went down the market and got in to a nearby 7-11 to buy iced coffee. I looked at my watch, and it said 2.15pm. Hmmm, maybe a quick jaunt to Ngee Ann City for an hour at Books Kinokuniya could be a good time to spend some afternon time on.
Thankfully, the local authorities saw fit to erect a brand-new train station just a few blocks away from the market – Havelock MRT Station, in the new brown-colored line (the Thomson-East Coast Line) that also has an intersectional stop at Orchard MRT Station. Great, easy way to go then. Off I went to the brand-new station. Alas, the card readers rejected my EZLink charm card, so I ended up using my Visa card.
All in all, I liked my meal back in Tiong Bahru. Maybe this week, I finally go and eat at Chinatown.
Briathrail // Albert 2MNG 
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