Pokemon Go: 3 Excellent Throw In A Row

I've tried to collect many Pokemon through the quest when I started this game a few months ago. However there was always this one quest which I didn't attempt to try ... simply because of the sheer difficulty of it all - 3 Excellent Throw in a Row.

The usual reward for this near impossible quest is a Larvitar, which I think I can do without. But that changed when they introduce a different Pokemon for the event quest reward. This event featured a Golett for the prize and I was determined to get my hands on it.

To make sure I maximise my rewards should I somehow achieve this feat, I collected 3 of the same quest. And then I slowly worked on the throws, carefully selecting the Pokemon I would try to catch whenever I get a first excellent throw.

It usually cool and calm on the first two throws. If I missed the 2nd I would simply brush it off and try again. However when I get a 2nd and try for the 3rd, that's where it gets hairy and fraught. I've lost countless streaks when trying for the 3rd. I'm not sure what is it that makes me blip on the 3rd throw. Maybe it's the excitement or the stress or tension. Whatever it was ... it was highly frustrating!

I managed to ride my luck and complete it today. Phew ... now I can say that I've done all the field quest. All these frustration for a little Pokemon named Golett ... Ha ... you have to catch them all!

Sleeping On The Bicycle

The naughty boy refused to sleep in the afternoon no matter how I try to coax him. OO was better and having a nap with Meimei. Since its Sunday Siti wasn't around to keep him company so it was up to me to entertain him.

I thought I'll bring him out for some playground fun on the bicycle. As usual he was elated to be out of the house. I think he had lots of fun at the playground and love the ride as well with the wind in the hair.

We were on our way to collect the Dominos pizza I had ordered when he fell asleep on the bicycle. He looks uncomfortable but in deep sleep due to the sheer tiredness. I burned him out running around the playground with him hehe.

It's close to 6pm and this kinda messes his schedule. I doubt he'll sleep at 8.30pm later but oh well ...

Getting Back To Summoners War

I started playing summoners war back in mid of 2014 and quit before OO was born. That's like 3 and half years ago. I happen to watch a Summoners war stream recently and thought I would get back into the game. I was surprised that they still have my account and I don't have start all over again. 

There seems to be a lot more to do now in the game. It now sports a Real-Time-Arena (RTA) for those who are keen on PVP. There is also Rift Raids, Labyrinth guild quest, Dimensional Holes for 2nd Awakening.

I discover I did not have most of the current meta units like Fran, Loren, Aegir, Twins etc. My account would probably look like a time wrap for the current players. Oh well ... I'll slowly get up to speed. I already have about 30 6* so that's enough to participate in many of the new activities. I'll probably focus on fusing the 'new' 6* first like Fire Panda, Jeanne and Fire Emperor.

Pokemon Go: Trapinch Community Day

OO is sick and vomited so Meimei had to lock her in the room and rest and couldn't join us for the community day. So Hazey and I setup our phones (3 each I think?) on the dining for the community day. I'm excited to catch this Pokemon since you don't normally find them out in the wild.

We tried hard to catch them but they keep head butting the balls which frustrates me to no end. I think we caught close to 300 of them, a quarter of which are Shiny, before we chance on a perfect 100% one. However the CP on it was so low, I didn't bother powering it. Instead I evolved another one with better CP and pretty ok stats.

I took it for a spin and attacked a Team Go pokestop. Bheh ... it was so squishy and went down easily. Good thing I gave it a try before deciding to power up the 100% one. No way I'm spending stardust on this monster.

Pokemon Go: Shiny Legendary

I have class today so I was not able to join Meimei for raids. Thankfully a raid was gonna pop in 30 minutes when I arrive at school. I grab a quick dinner and set out to navigate to the gym and hope there are folks playing too. It's my first time playing in school so I wasn't sure if there was anyone at all.

As it turns out, there are lots of people playing Pokemon at the school too. I was able to join a full 20 pax raid team and we took down the Giratina in no time. And then when it came to catching it, out jumped a Giratina that was different in colour from the others I've caught before. Jackpot! A shiny.

I threw on a pineapple instead of a golden berry since Shiny are always 100% catch so long as you hit it. Please let it be a 3* wonder I thought excitedly as I catch it. Well it turns out to be a wonder, though a relatively average one. No matter, the shiniest of the Pokemon always gives it extra brownie points. Heheh.

YY @20mths - Mr Bookworm

I think it was about this time that OO started taking an interest in reading. And now it's YY's turn. He would take a book on his own accord and flip through them. Granted, he is probably looking at the pictures but that's the first step to reading, to associate pictures with words he hears.

I think a lot of this has to do with Mama and Siti reading to him too. So kudos to them for giving him an early education, which for my part, I've failed to do. I'm great at bringing the kids to playgrounds for fun and play but cannot seem to find the patience to slow repeat words to YY. I need to improve on that.

YY's Turn With Fever

As expected, YY has fever too. We tried to keep them apart but kids will be kids and they are playing together more often these days. YY especially likes to follow OO around and tries to play with her. OO gets irritated often when YY butts in on her make-believe plays.

Oh well, that's what siblings are for right? Get in your way, fights for stuff with you, messes with your stuff etc etc. But as they get older, we hope they start to bond better and get themselves a chance to experience the joys of having a sibling company.

I'll never get to experience it. My brother and I don't talk. Never. We are brothers simply because we have the same parents. That's about it. It's sad but it's the reality. Can I change it? Probably no, we'll worlds apart. This is something I never want my kids to end up at.

So I say, go ahead and continue to play together even when you are sick. Live and play together. And create bonds that never break.

Mysterious Fever

OO has been running a fever over the weekend. We brought her to see the doctor today and after a whole suite of tests Dr Ang cannot tell what's wrong with OO. It wasn't influenza A or any bacteria infection. But to be safe she put OO on a course of antibiotics and we were to simply ride it out.

Although we couldn't tell what caused the illness, it did leave a pain in my wallet. $500 for all the test and medication. I'm rather perplexed about the 'diagnosis'. It wasn't something serious ... or at least not something that is known. But could it mean other more serious problems that average tests cannot detect?

There really isn't much we can do. We can only cross our fingers and hope that whatever that is causing OO to have high fever is a passing phase and nothing serious comes of it.

Getting Home & Random Food Pics

I got on the first flight home on Wednesday morning. Per schedule, I was going to touch down in Singapore on Friday 12.30am.

The first flight from Cincinnati to Chicago was on a similar small plane I came on a week and half ago. I cannot even stand straight along the aisle and I think they had to find shorter air steward/stewardess to work these planes.

The trip home was uneventful except for a flight delay at Narita where they had to do a on-the-spot replacement of an engine part. That set the flight back another hour and it wasn't till 1.20am when I  touchdown in Singapore.

Next section are just random pictures I took on my meals.

Salmon at Uno Pizzeria. Was better when I was in back in April. Was disappointed that their standards have dropped.

Bourbon cheese steak at Applebee's, which has always been my go-to restaurant here. The picture doesn't do it justice ... its pretty decent fare and I finish every bit of food on the plate.

Dinner on the Friday night on the first week. I didn't want to go anywhere after a week so I ordered room service. Same salmon dish I had in April but I added seasonal vegetables this time instead of fries.

Lunch at Mellow Pizzeria on Saturday. I had been driving to the carpark of this restaurant for the past week to spin the two pokestop and gym. There was a particular spot where I can reach all 3 points. Finally decide to step in to eat and it was pretty ok fare too.

Lunch at Cheesecake Factory on Sunday after the walk at Sharonwood. Sashimi salad variant and an ice cold beer.

Breakfast at Cincinnati airport before my flight to Chicago. A little sick of egg and potatoes after a week and a half of it. But hey ... better eat something than get onto a long flight on an empty stomach.

Supper at the only restaurant opened at the Jewel before I took my cab home. It taste so much better than anything I had in Cincinnati ... maybe its the sweet taste of home.

Pokemon In The Woods

Yesterday wasn't really exciting for Pokemon action. There isn't a lot to catch at the outlet and mall and it's pointless to go back there again today. So I was googling for a better place to catch Pokemons. It seems parks are a popular place since they tend to have several gyms and pokestop.

There are a couple of parks I can go to but eventually I settled on Sharonwoods park because it looks like an easier park to navigate to and I can make out where I can park on google map. 

I arrived at 8-ish to a quiet park. There were already people jogging and it seems popular with dog walkers too. I didn't bring any jogging shoes with me so I was in my leather casuals. An extremely goofy look but hey I don't really care ... I'm here to catch me some Pokemon action!

There are several gyms and pokestops dotted across the entire park which makes for interesting walks. After a week of sitting in meeting rooms, I was ready to get some exercise.

There were nice wide footpaths from the carpark and it was a relative easy stroll. I'm enjoying the fresh air and nice morning sun. But as I get further the paths start to thin into smaller inlets. I looked at my poke map and decided to go down a small path into the forest.

Although everything looks to be flat on the map, I was slowly climbing up a very gentle slope as I followed the path. There were nice resting points along the way and there were many people coming down it rather going up like I'm doing.

I took me roughly 30 minutes to reach the end of the climb. At the end of it was a nice surprise, it opened into a small lake cum reservoir of sorts.

It took me another hour or more to circle the lake and then make it down back to the car. It has been a fruitful trip, I got on three gyms of which two look like I would be on it for a long periods, and I was able to enjoy the sights in Cincinnati. It would have been miserable to stay in the hotel the whole day.

Forced To Move Out Of Hilton Garden Inn

I'm alone this weekend in Cincinnati with little planned. I have assignments due for my Business Analytics course so that's the only priority for the weekend. Some folks on the project team were kind enough ask if I wanted to join them for shopping or trips to the aviation museum or the beer festival at the banks. I wasn't keen to be with anyone after spending a whole week with them. I politely declined, citing the class assignment I had to complete before flying back to Singapore.

There was a minor-major irritation though on the accommodation. Although we had the rooms booked through the fortnight, someone on the hotel team 'accidentally' released the booking for the Saturday and the place is fully booked. We found out that there was a wedding party and they had booked majority of the rooms in the hotel. Bah ... they were shoving us out the door so they can secure the 'bigger pie'.

I nua-ed in bed this morning and had a long breakfast. There wasn't really anything I could do till I complete the check-out and moved into a nearby hotel. It's like a minute's walk from this one but the hassle of packing and moving was a huge turnoff.

Once I was done moving into the other hotel, I went off to the outlet mall again to see if there are anything I can buy and more importantly, catch more region specific pokemons. Below is the small haul I have from this trip.

The late afternoon was spent at the hotel lobby working on my assignment. It has a cozy layout with a long high table area for working. There was also a side bar of hot coffee which really help just because I don't have to try and brew my own in the room.

Well as comfortable this all sounds, I'm gonna have to move back to the original hotel again tomorrow morning. I will think twice about staying at the Hilton next time ... you don't shove guest around like that.

Pokemon Action At West Chester

I've been here since Sunday and the Pokemon scene is definitely very different from Singapore. Here, pokestops are far apart, there isn't anyone fighting raids ... or I didn't know where people congregate to do them. A couple of challenges which makes me wonder how folks here play the game.

There are no pokestop at the hotel I'm staying but off and on, a few pokemons will pop up. I've had to conserve balls because there was not easy to get them unless I drove to a pokestop.

Because of the jet lag, I've been waking up at 4-5am every morning. So my usual routine has been to drive out to several spots with gyms and pokestop to spin and stock up balls again. Above is a picture of the West Chester clocktower I took in the wee hours of the morning while on my Pokemon run. I usually make it back to the hotel by 6am for breakfast.

As much as I can get around the lack of pokestops, there wasn't really a way to find folks for raids. I tried soloing a 3 star raid Raichu but kept failing because I ran out of time. Eventually I downgraded to only do 1-2 star raids.

Another 'problem' I had was my pokemons were 'stuck' in gyms and taking a long time to get back for the game to recognise the return and credit the coins for the day. This probably never happens in Singapore ... I'll be luck to have a Pokemon in a gym for more than 4 hours at any one time.

Jag's Steak & Seafood

The team was flying off next morning so we thought we go for something more up class. We had so-so dinners for the last few days so we were adamant to get something better. So we went to check Google Maps and there is a nice upscale restaurants nearby, Jag's Steak & Seafood.

It's a pretty nice decor and ambience with low lighting. The seats we were at are little tighter than I like but hey it's still ok. I order the fish and we had lobster bisque and creme brûlée for sharing. The meal cost probably close to USD80 each ... which is pretty pretty steep. But what the hack, they made us come all this way ... we should have a 'good' dinner.

Biting 姐姐

Meimei sent me this picture and I really have to blog about it. YY gave OO a big bite on her feet. I'm not sure what happened that lead to the bite but I think both are no angels. The good though I must say is that OO doesn't attack back ... that's an amazing quality. I cannot imagine the chaos if she fights back.

Extra kisses for my girl girl for being so restrained. *muach!

Red Mess

Back in the room after a long first day at the workout. I was hoping to ram down with a nice glass of wine. Shit happened when I open the mini fridge and the bottle dropped and broke. The guard that holds bottles to the fridge door was loose and the wine bottle went for a spin and cracked right in front of me.

I quickly grab a bath towel to soak up the wine before it reaches the carpet. I took a picture of the mess too and thankfully one of my colleagues was a Walmart and they got me a replacement bottle. Phew ...