#小镇

[buffetlicious]

In my previous post, I mentioned that we were going out to eat at the newly opened restaurant in Sun Plaza. This is the Nan Yang Dao (南洋岛) restaurant we patronized, and boy was it packed. We were given just one menu so I gave it to mum to let her choose what she wanted. And she picked the Penang Fried Kway Teow (槟城炒粿条) I wanted to eat so I chose something else. My mum had barely eaten it when one random woman asked if the dish was good. She told her that it was indeed yummy. Stir-fried with bean sprouts, plump prawns, slices of fish cake and Chinese sausage, the kway teow were more savoury than sweet and full of wok hei. The noodles were mildly spicy but nothing we can’t handle.

Originally, this Signature Trio Mini Noodles (招牌迷你烫面) consisting of three different mini sized bowls of noodles were intended for mum but she had chosen hers. From right to left, I started off with the Pork Ball Noodle Soup (吊片猪肉丸面汤). Tasted like our fish ball noodle but with two springy pork balls. The yellow noodles, bean sprouts and shredded cabbage is soaked in the flavourful and wholesome broth.

The next bowl, I tried is the Penang Prawn Noodle Soup (槟城虾面) but the prawn is nowhere to be found! Instead, I get slices of pork, fishcake, bean sprouts and a quarter of an egg. Luckily, the yellow noodles were swimming in umami filled broth cooked with the extracted oil from the prawns’ head and shell.

So, this is where the prawn jumped itself into. The Seafood Curry Mee (海鲜咖喱面) had only one seafood and that is the prawn. The other so-called seafood were mainly prawn rolls or other items made from fish or prawn paste. The spicy curry cooked with coconut milk is rich and flavourful which goes well with the yellow noodles. If you are the type who likes to try many different dishes at once, be sure to order this trio of mini noodles.

To finish the meal, I had the Bear Iced Coffee (小熊冰镇咖啡). Came in a small jug and topped with a cute little ice bear. I love the thick bitter yet not too sweet milk coffee. We were seated next to the glass cabinet filled with lovely and yummy looking Puff Pastry Egg Tarts (酥皮蛋挞). Many customers were seen buying but we had to give them a miss as we were just too full at that moment. But we will order it the next time we are here.

[justheblueberry]

laojun

[lxh-arts]

白露~ || Bailu~ || White Dew~

Luxuriant reeds,

frosted dew.

Pre-Qin Dynasty, The Book of Odes, "Reeds"

[mushrooms-y0160]

蓝溪镇cafe民国风

[wuya-wuya]

🍃🍀🌿🌸spring

[spoon587]

nate and tambry

balabala balabala...

[xuexishijian]

(More) Vocab from 镇魂 (Guardian)

I’m thru episode 6 and the plot’s building up to something mysterious! A lot of the vocab that I was able to pick out consist of characters I already know, just used in different ways, which is a cool way to gain new words for “free” from my existing knowledge.

放手 fàng shǒu - (v.) let go

胆子 dǎnzi - (n.) nerve, courage

加入 jiārù - (v.) join

文人 wénrén - (n.) scholar, person of letters

伤 shāng - (v.) hurt, injure; (n.) injury, wound

感受 gǎnshòu - (v.) feel, sense; (n.) feeling

处长 chùzhǎng - (n.) dept. head, section chief

出事 chū shì - (v.) have an accident

果然 guǒrán - (adv.) as expected, sure enough

打中 dǎ zhōng - (v.) hit the target

垃圾 lājī - (n.) trash

求 qiú - (v.) beg, request

救 jiù - (v.) save

查 chá - (v.) check, investigate, examine

相信 xiāngxìn - (v.) believe

认出 rèn chū - (v.) recognize

怪物 guàiwu - (n.) monster

And some bonus expressions to say “shut up”, aimed at a rather talkative character:

闭嘴 bìzuǐ

不用你多嘴 búyòng nǐ duō zuǐ

[yuexuan]

[Review]我的理想小镇

Title: 我的理想小镇 My Ideal Town

Author: 青色羽翼

Length: 343 chapters + 3 extras

Rating: M

Tag: infinite flow, system, suspense/thriller, mystery, transmigration, apocalypse

Summary [taken from novel updates]:

Game Tester Mu Sichen was pitted and transmigrated into a holographic game. The game was an apocalyptic world after a cataclysmic event, where there were unnameable monsters everywhere, and they had divided the world into different towns.

The monsters had divided the world into different towns, and the survivors were scattered in these towns. Mu Sichen waved his pickaxe and swung it to kill an unidentifiable monster that terrorized the town.

A teary-eyed survivor took the tools and asked expectantly, “Won’t you lead us to build a home?”

Mu Sichen: “I am only a trainee, the ideal home is still to be built by you, I am only responsible for grabbing the site.”

So Mu Sichen carried his pickaxe through the different towns and snatched the territory, and accidentally snatched Qin Zhou, who was called “the last hope of mankind”.

The leader of the survivors chased after him, “You robbed the wrong person, Qin Zhou is the protector of our safe zone!”

Mu Sichen looked at Qin Zhou, who was holding him tightly. He was a bit silly. He seemed willing to be robbed by him-

The Qin family had a secret: they guarded human beings in the last ages with their strength. He was going crazy. Each person with the ability of “field” would eventually become an indescribable monster.

In order to delay the attack, Qin Zhou became weaker and weaker. Until one day, a man with a pickaxe came to the safety zone. Qin Zhou immediately hugged him and whispered, “Take me away quickly. ”

The man pinched Qin Zhou’s hand, “I can take you away, but loosen your grip, I’m a little out of breath.”

“Oh.” Qin Zhou agreed but his grip tightened.

Novel | Novel [translated]

Comments **contains spoilers**:

The first part of the story seems like the typical infinite flow genre, where the characters have to defeat different monsters of increasing difficulty within a game world. However, the latter parts include elements of mystery (e.g. what is the source of contamination), parallel worlds, and leans more towards a hero-esque/savior-type narrative. 

Please note though that the ML doesn’t have a lot of parts in the story - he generally resides in the background and is best represented by a plush octopus. As such, there is not a lot of focus on romance (and definitely no tentacle actions lool). 

Highlights:

The octopus plush is. freaking. cute. The octopus is the unwanted emotional side of ML and the entity that interacts with MC for most parts of the novel. I can just imagine it staring back at the MC with bling bling eyes, or how it would spit flavored bubbles, or how it runs around with a blue knitted cap. There was even a part where it flooded the room with its tears by absorbing water from the tap. I mean, just look at this part:

The little octopus stared at Mu Sichen’s tail, turning around the tail in excitement, occasionally using its tentacle to touch the scales on the tail. Then it stuffed its tentacles into its round mouth and bit on it hard. It was unclear what impulse it was restraining.

In terms of side characters, I love He Fei (there’s a part of me that suspects he is also one of the author’s faves, considering the amount of times he is mentioned compared with other side characters). He Fei is just such a happy-go-(un)lucky person and provides a lot of the comedic reprieve in the story. 

On the note of side characters, the antagonist Shen Jiyue has more interactions with MC than ML lol I find myself shipping their (one-sided) love-hate dynamic throughout the story~

I found the plot growing more interesting 95 chapters in, when the powers from the ‘game’ world started infiltrating into the real (i.e. present) world as the stakes started becoming higher and there was the hanging mystery of what led to the convergence of the worlds. 

Things that I don’t like:

I’ll be honest, this is the first infinite flow story where I struggled to complete the story, partly because I was sick at the time of reading and had a hard time wrapping my head around the rules and concepts, but also because the way the rules were introduced seemed very - for a lack of better words - disproportionate. There were a lot of lore that just got thrown at the readers without an equal amount of elaboration. It didn’t help that the story toys around with a lot of intangible concepts such as “self”, “rationality” or “constant” that makes it harder to understand. That said, this is the first novel that I have come across that conceptualizes its lore like that, so definitely something refreshing.

I love how normal the MC was at the start of the story, being a normal student that was somewhat lazy with a little bit of street smarts. However, he quickly became quite OP, demonstrating abilities that normal students shouldn’t have - e.g. ability to read others’ lips and solving complex problems that literally no one has ever thought of (whether in this world, or previous worlds). And then every time he returns to his world, he suddenly become this normal lazy student again…it just feels like the MC’s character flip flops around a lot, especially at the start of the novel…

[lxh-arts]

寒露~ || Hanlu~ || Cold Dew~

Poem:

It is not that I love the chrysanthemum out of all flowers,

But that no more follow once it has bloomed

- Tang Dynasty, YUAN Dian, Chrysanthemum

[mushrooms-y0160]

七夕接力的图

君清那两张没画完，遗憾

[lxh-arts]

Legend of Hei x Lanxi Zhen x STELLAMAP Cafe collaboration

book a reservation here

The pop up shop for this event includes Sailor Style merchandise: