On the first of July, my colleagues and I had lunch at Old Kanpai. I don’t know if it was because of the new month or because it was Friday. Maybe it was both. I ordered the Japanese BBQ set and it also came with wagyu beef. The food’s really good and despite originally thinking that I would’t get full, the meal is actually filling. For another reason, my manager treated us. Yay!
Adam celebrated his 2nd birthday, and Joyce found this Italian restaurant in Taimei Main Station’s Hoyii. It was my first time going there, and I didn’t know there was already such a place in Taipei Main Station. It’s a building that goes underground and has different restaurants and stores inside. Tim Ho Wan and Pablo Cheesecake are also located there.
The restaurant we went to for Adam’s birthday party is Tino’s Pizza. Joyce ordered a lot and we were sooo full! The food and the drinks were delicious, and the servers were all really nice and attentive as well. Fun day! After the party, we went to QSquare to walk around for a bit to digest our food, and then T and I went home as kuya and the others watched a movie.
I finished reading Good to Great, and I also cooked a couple of dishes at home. I cooked sour tamarind soup (sinigang), which is my go-to comfort food and my favorite food as well. I also cooked cabbage with carrots and bacon, mom’s chicken mushroom, and ginisang pechay.
There was a big fire around our area, and there were lots of firetrucks and ambulances. Good thing I got to the bus station earlier that day because the driver said that the next one might take 30 minutes to arrive (it normally takes only about 7-10min between each bus) due to the fire. The bus was jampacked!
We had dinner at Hot 7 for Roxane’s birthday dinner. I remember last yearRoxane also took us there after she got her first paycheck. The food’s good and the sets aren’t super expensive so we like it there.
I made banana blueberry smoothie one morning and took it with me to the office to pair with my breakfast sandwich. A lot of people in the office were hoping to have a typhoon “holiday” so that we could have a long weekend, and what do you know, we really had a typhoon holiday! It was timely too because my period came that day and I had menstrual cramps. Lucky that I was able to rest and just chill at home.
T and I watched Me Before You. I was actually planning to watch and read it but I read some negative reviews online and found out the story plot which made me not want to watch or read it anymore. However, T downloaded it and wanted to watch it too so we did. It was probably because I was hormonal but I cried buckets after watching the movie! I also finally understood why things happened the way they did.
I’m not saying that it was right or that I support the decisions made throughout the film; I’m just saying that I now understand their side and their viewpoint, and how things unfolded. I also read the book and it’s exactly as is the movie, albeit with more details and in-depth descriptions. You can also read what’s on the characters’ minds in the book, as chapters are told from the different characters’ points of view.
We went to the market and as I previously said, bananas and tomatoes are cheap again! We went to the stalls we frequent, and I got almost 3kgs of ripe tomatoes for only 50NTD! What a steal. One of the first dishes I made using that was fresh tomato sauce for pasta dinner. For the bananas, one thing I tried was the three-ingredient banana oatmeal pancakes (banana + oats + egg) which turned out pretty good. I didn’t have a lot of bananas to work with so I only ended up with 3 pieces of dollar pancakes.
Over the weekend, T and I also finished watching CSI: Cyber and we started watching Game of Thrones because he really wanted to watch it. I got bored with the first season because I felt like the pace was super slow and a lot of fight scenes are stretched out. I just wanted to press the fastforward button a lot.
I stumbled upon this personal finance and freelancing blog called The Wild Wong, and in one of the articles she posted, she said that:
“It turns out there is a specific dollar number, or income plateau, after which more money has no measurable effect on day-to-day contentment. The magic income: $75,000 a year. As people earn more money, their day-to-day happiness rises. Until you hit $75,000. After that, it is just more stuff, with no gain in happiness.”
“Money makes you happy the same way not having a rare illness makes you happy: you have a lot less to worry about.”
“It might be more or less than $75,000, but we all have a money-happiness benchmark: the price it takes to eliminate common worries and enjoy a comfortable life.”
“Financial independence isn’t about being able to stand on your own financially. It’s actually about independence from your finances. It’s the ability to do the things you love without checking in with your budget. “
“When you define your own goals, you’re in control, and that’s all managing money is: not letting it get between you and what matters to you most.”
I’ve always believed that money can buy happiness, often because of experiences or things that you can buy with money, and it seems like I wasn’t wrong. Each person has of course their own definition or view of how much they need or want in their lives, but the bottomline (or for me at least) is that you cannot completely forego money no matter how much you want to.
C'est moi 