The weather now feels like the light at the end of the tunnel and my brain’s totally switched over to fall. I really love everything about it: the food the weather, the corny Halloween aesthetics/atmosphere. 🎃

The elusive pumpkin spice latte, which has only been a thing here for the past few years, is back again. 🤓 The three main fall flavors we get for sweet things are sweet potato, chestnut, and pumpkin. But there are lots of sweet potato snacks available throughout the year, so it doesn’t feel that special to me. And chestnut desserts—another year-long popular flavor for desserts which everyone seems to be absolutely obsessed with—are flavorless calorie bombs. 🥹 Whole roasted chestnuts or chestnut rice tho? Immaculate. And pumpkin is just a bit boring. _{I have a lot of opinions lol.} But pumpkin spice lattes contain a combo of spices that’s just not a thing here: Ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, all spice! There’s also the silly memes…

Time to get outside more

In other news, I keep forgetting to take pictures, just in general. A couple weeks ago at night, I came across an entire watermelon that was smashed on the street and wrestled with the idea of pulling out my phone but kept walking. It felt like such an end-of-summer scene. Not every single thing needs to be snapped or recorded, but I’ll still have tiny regrets.

It’s definitely time to start walking more like I was earlier in the year. Shops still seem to come and go a lot in my area, so I might eventually come across some interesting new places. 🚶‍♀️

I’ve done just okay with cooking instead of ordering delivery. Since the last blog post, supermarkets finally have rice now and I can make bentos again… Once I get the itch to. 👩‍🍳 Being a hermit during summer also meant fewer restaurant visits.

And I finally braided my hair a couple weeks ago. Ended up redoing some of them once they started looking a little messy, so they lasted over three weeks and there were about 75 individual braids.

At first, the hair was so heavy it made my neck sore for a few days, but you eventually get used to it. Though washing it was always a pain as it gets very heavy and drips forever. 🙃 The hair also got caught in some of my ear piercings and was hard to sleep in. 😅 Lots of cons…but also big pros. Getting up and not worrying about my hair usually makes things worth it.

Island side updates

My mom’s cousin agreed to paint our ceiling. He’s so meticulous and has done an incredible job so far. When she brought up payment the other day, she said he almost sounded offended. He told her, “money isn’t everything in life.” Of course, we’re compensating him for all his work and time, but WOW. Small, slow island life comes with some positive community support at times. People cook elaborate meals for others all the time. Some have hard jobs that they do all day and will still drop by after to help you fix things without any expectations of being paid or anything. Imagine that… 😭

Bonus cat picture my sis sent. She was doing her best to interfere with work.