2025, jan

Remember back in the early 2000s (lol) when we’d post photos on our blogs the way we’d now post photos on our Instagram grids?

Yeah, I’m bringing that back.

There are no words in the dictionary / known to mankind that could describe how my January went, so … skipping to the photos.

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One very fun Saturday earlier in the month, Mako and I went to see “The Limitless Orchestra” that had [THE] Hans Zimmer as one of their guests. It was pretty surreal to see him as part of the audience during the first 45mins of the show. I giddily nudged Mako to let him know. I couldn’t imagine someone as powerful as Hans seated about 5 backflips away (with parkour involved, he was in one of the ‘boxes’ — for a time my eyes were on him more than the show, lol).

Hans did not make an appearance on stage up until the last 2 songs, but we’ll take it. I’ve seen him live twice back in June last year and I cried on both days (consecutively, may I add). I walked out of the arena feeling reborn.

Overall, the Orchestra’s performance was okay — it’s different, I’ll give them that. For some reason, the acoustics of the Opera didn’t really do them justice, and even when you merge a Strauss and a Zimmer piece, it should still sound structured (it kind of didn’t), but they’re putting themselves out there trying something new, and that in itself should be applauded. Shit’s scary, man — but they’re doing it, with Hans to support them, too!

Afterwards, Mako and I downed our complimentary wine (lol) before we made the walk to Dubai Mall, met up with Carlo (who parked his car there), and then we took a cab over to The Opus to have dinner at the Le relais de l’entrecote — they just opened their Dubai franchise few days prior (I haven’t made the time to go to the original Paris institution because queing for so long is not part of my itinerary, lol — they only accept walk-ins, no rezzies, so even if we were there early, we had to wait 40mins).

Before their 6.30pm opening, we crossed over to Bay Ave for pre’s (lol, we had Gelato).

The secret sauce was everything — the fact that you get a steak and frites refill makes me so happy. Afterwards, we walked (!!!) back to Dubai Mall (which I very much welcomed, because I fucking love walking), and staying true to our “be a tourist in your own country” mantra, we made time to watch the Burj Khalifa light show.

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I’ve also began restructuring my weekends — apart from therapy, I’ve FINALLY gone back to Pilates (the love of my life), and I’ve been going to the beach again.

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I’ve also started taking myself out to solo lunches again — on one of the weekends, I squeezed in a date with myself at The Lighthouse in MoE because I missed the Short Rib (with Parmesan) Risotto (drooling as I look at this photo), and then went to see Nosferatu (which has obviously made my top 4 films of January 2025).

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Carlo invited Vince and I to join him and his Gym Friends (who we’ve already met during Carlo’s birthday dinner last year, they’re such a fun lot) to camp at the “Milky Way Spot” (in Al Quaa, Abu Dhabi), which is my second time to visit.

I love sitting by the fire and all, but unless I make the effort to bring our own air mattress and a portapotty equipped with a portabidet (because Carlo does everything for us during these outings, bless him), I will probably suggest we go glamping next time. Don’t get me wrong — I took my actual portable bidet with me and used mineral water to brush my teeth, but … it’s just … I can’t, unless maybe it’s with Bear Grylls or something and it’s to learn survival skills, lol.

(funny thing is, we always say that after a camping trip, but we go whenever there’s one planned, heh)

I also did LOVE the fact that past a certain point en route to the site, we lost [network] signal and was completely offline for over 12 hours. No doomscrolling to fall asleep, just the sound of 10 things I hate about you playing on my iPad, several people snoring from the tents next to mine (courtesy of Carlo, who decided to sleep in the car — TRAITOR! char), and the voices of everyone else who went to bed at 3 in the morning. To be fair, it was one of the best camping trips I’ve been on because of the people we went with — there was no draining energy, there were lots of vibes, two puppers, and an outpour of Brazilian BBQ.

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Our team gathering this month was held outdoors (at the park across our building, lol) on a beautiful Friday afternoon — an extremely last minute thing that our CEO decided to do (and thank God, because the weather was weathering). After stuffing our face with Pizza, we played ‘GUESSLY’ which was ‘Pinoy Henyo’ in a nutshell, and at the end everyone started treating it like charades (smh). My team and I worked on a very effective strategy — we still lost (lol), but it was so much fun.

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Other January tings (with photos) :

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Other January tings (without photos) :

• Saw A Complete Unknown (will have to rewatch, Timmy did such a great job)
• I finally got my brows Microbladed (well, a variant of microblading, called Powder Brows), YAY
• I won’t be surprised if my Spotify Wrapped this year will have Chappell Roan dethrone TayTay as TRAFOAMP is on loop — getting ready in the morning, at the office, working out at home, you name it
• I have adapted a new morning routine which I am ridiculously proud of
• Watching the upcoming Superman and Fantastic Four trailers — WE ARE SO BACK, BABY

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My god, this was so much fun to post — an actual actual proper visual diary. I’ll edit this at some point and will include the YouTube video of our camping trip.

Here it is :

kbye.