mochi's corner

August 2025

Moving to Penang by Natalie

The thought of moving to Penang came about when we were on our Japan trip mid April this year and heightened when we came back to our daily routines in KL. There was just something about KL that made us feel stuck and stagnant, every time we came home we yearned for another trip, one after the other it was as if we were trying to escape something.

I figured it’s not sustainable for us to leave the country every time we felt a slight discomfort, we needed to find a place to call home, a place we no longer wanted to escape from.

Ernest and I pieced together all the different aspects we loved from our 2 years of travel and there were so many things that stood out but the one that we found the most significant is the walkability of a city.

Through almost every country we have travelled to, our mode of transport was to walk. When we lived in Florence last August, our morning walks to the city center took at least 40 minutes and it was beautiful. I heard a quote somewhere that said, If in your daily routines you find just one thing that makes you smile, it makes all the difference in your life. In those 40 minutes of walking, I wander through streets and stumble onto shops and places I wouldn't have seen if I hadn't travelled by foot. It gives a child-like exploration, curiosity and excitement to my day. And sadly KL was just not the environment that caters to pedestrians.

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In my first week in Penang, I averaged 10k steps a day and stumbled upon so many cafes and third spaces.

It was not easy settling in a new state, the house needed a lot of servicing, the humidity and heat is crazier than KL (or at least it feels like it) but my biggest challenge of all was feeling like I was truly growing up.

I moved out of my mom’s home at 19 and it’s been 4 years since and even so, moving states with my boyfriend still freaks me out (even though we practically lived together for years before).

It feels like such a big girl move, and it also felt like trial for when we actually migrate elsewhere. I have lived outside of the country before for close to a year but I always felt like I had a home in KL that I can always come back to. For some reason it didn’t feel the same here. It felt like moving to Penang solidified a new hub. A new default. That KL in future would just be a pit stop to visit friends and family before going home, that I am simply a visitor, no longer a local. I wondered if this was how my life would look if we moved to another country.

Ernest has always been my best friend and the best partner one could ever ask, but being the only person I personally know in a state or in the future, a new country creates a huge reliance on one person and that kinda scares me. Like wow. I am truly growing up, and this is the person I’m growing up with. My person. It’s exciting for sure, but anxiety inducing too as with any big changes in life.

Thankfully we quickly morph into our routine easily, and created our dream space. We took our home deco inspo from a Vinyl Cafe in KL. We were quickly drawn to the warm ambience of the lights, the personality of the art and poster and tried to replicate it in our new home. It took a minute but I finally warmed up to our new home and this is honestly the first time I've ever finished a redecorating project. The amount of love and belief we put in this house is very apparent, and I wouldn’t have it any other way despite its many challenges.

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Moving Back to Where Food is Good Again by Ernest

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An entire decade has brought me full circle, back to the small island state (emphasis on island – sorry, mainlanders) I spent my childhood on. So much has changed but it seems that the people mostly stayed the same. My family, people I knew from high school that I bump into, hawkers whom I’m familiar with. I do wonder sometimes whether they indeed haven’t changed or that I see the parts of them that I remember and my mind fixates on those parts as their identity. Food for thought.

Speaking of food I’ve started collecting new favorite food spots like infinity stones. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of food I (and sometimes Natalie) have revisited or plan to:

Activities to Stay Offline by Natalie

For August, I made a pact with myself to try to be less online in hopes to be more present. Often I find my internal struggles with discontentment, stress, insecurities and not to mention the oversharing, are rooted in being overstimulated and overdrived with information that I would barely remember the next day.

I needed to be more mindful with what I was consuming and question myself if what this internet persona is saying even aligned with my beliefs. With short form content, I find that information is often just consumed and not discussed, it’s no longer a conversation or debate, and without me realising I was quoting and internalising information that I find not factual or are against my personal values. Sometimes it wasn’t even that deep, it was just as simple as consuming brain rot content. I was in so deep that I felt like I could physically feel my mind being mushed and that I was losing brain cells overnight.

Here are some things I’ve personally tried that have helped keep me off instagram:

  1. Reading (hear me out)
    I have always thought since I was a kid, that I was a reader, a book girlie, well I am far from right. I am the type of person who buys books and never reads them. I have plenty of books sitting in the storage that when you flip a page you can still smell the scent of the book store from when I got it years ago. Sometimes to progress you have to let go of the potential you see in yourself, of what you think you can be and instead, accept the baseline of reality you are currently in. I was stuck in a fantasy. I was not a reader and still do not consider myself to be. I, however, am proud to say that I finally, finally finallyyyy finished a book this year in just 3 days of reading (it was a comic book but still). What I found to be important throughout this experiment is to find books that I actually enjoy consuming, learning should be the byproduct, at least to get you started on a habit. I finally put those self help books to rest and allowed myself to indulge in fiction for once, I am now starting a new book. Death by Ivan Ilych, a short read (or so they say).

  2. Scrapbooking
    If there’s anything I find addicting about Instagram, it’s reliving my life in the form of my story highlights. It brings back so many memories of our travels, evokes emotions from the past. I honestly could care less about who watches my story or how many likes I get on a post because I truly am my biggest fan. Those highlights are there for me to reminisce, the music I attached to each post are there to evoke nostalgia when I look back at the pictures a year from then. So I figured, why not bring it off line? Afterall we never really own anything we put out on Zuckerberg's platforms. We have no say if 10 years from now it all vanishes and Meta shouldn't be our only mode of storage for our precious memories. IMG_4982 Large

  3. Learning a new instrument
    I’ve always wanted to learn piano since I was 12, but I never had the privilege to. I now have the time and thanks to Ernest my very own Piano for me to play at our beautiful home. I have since learned to play 3 songs from Taylor Swift’s TTPD album and yet to find a piano teacher here in Penang. Hopefully soon. Learning a new instrument or anything new when you’re not a kid is so much harder, as a kid your capacity to learn is limitless, you are like a sponge, soaking every bit of lessons from the world. As an adult you already have your own set of experience, preferences, learnings, beliefs. We tend to be resistant to change, new challenges, new spaces. It takes much more humility to learn something new when you’re older. But it sure is rewarding when you are finally able to accomplish something you’ve spent hours trying to learn.

Visconti Medici by Ernest

I’ve had this on my wishlist since last year and almost bought it during Christmas but changed my mind because I couldn’t stomach dropping 1k Euros on a pen after a comfortable month in Europe… but guess who got their appetite back this year. In my defense, I got a limited edition colour, exclusive to the US, and at $100 less because it was used in a demo at some point.

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Behold the Pitti finish (made of Jonathan Brooks resin), based on the famous Palazzo Pitti, one of the palaces of the Medici family. The Medici pen line is an homage to the powerful family of the same name that bankrolled the Renaissance in Florence. They funded both Michelangelo and Botticelli! The pen body is inspired by the Florence Baptistry and designed according to the golden ratio. Unlike v1 of the Medici pen, this updated version includes an ink window with the city emblem of Florence (the Florentine Lily - which is actually an iris).

I have no regrets because it's been my daily workhorse (thought I prefer the palladium nib my Homosapiens came with vs the gold nib on this) ever since I got it and it's numbered which was a pleasant suprise. I wonder what pen is next on my list...