After nearly 10 years of my old logo, I thought it might be nice to rebrand my personal logo; taking some influences from my life since the last time I did a brand design for myself.

Back in a previous post about Obsidian, I mentioned that I was paying for Notion, and Clickup. In an attempt to reduce my overhead costs, I had initially started using Obsidian as my main PKMS (Personal Knowledge Management System — I didn’t make the acronym up, there’s a fantastic sub-Reddit you can find at r/PKMS). I have since been bouncing between Notion, Obsidian and a newcomer, Affine Pro.

One step closer to completing the jtiong.com project, I finally laid down the groundwork for the Photos section of the site. It’s always been something I wanted to include in the website, being able to share photos of my adventures and hobbies with the few friends & family who visit this website from time to time!

To give some insight into how jtiong.com currently works, it is a marriage between a WordPress backed blog for my Blog entries and my sections as “sub-sites” in subdirectories like /games or /labs. By doing so, I get the feature and stability(😏) benefits of using (I dare say) the world’s most popular blogging CMS/platform; and the flexibility of adding in dynamic features that suits my needs like Game Server info, network status, and other integrations to the site.

It’s been a bit of a steep learning curve (if the number of commits I’ve done in the month of March alone is anything to go by) but there’s been something really fulfilling in finally building the site that I’ve always wanted to but never quite had the time to.

That’s not to say the site is perfect, but there’s beauty and perfection in the very journey of just building this, and maintaining it, and eventually (over time) evolving it into whatever my needs require.

Just in that alone, there’s the Ikigai, Kaizen and Wabisabi of it all.

Update: 20th March 2026

The Photos section is completed in design! It took a moment longer than normal but I managed to shoe-horn the functionality of mobile/sidebar stuff into the WordPress ecosystem properly <3

All done 🙂

From my last related post about all the clutter and possessions I have – as well as a history of the posts in this blog – I am quite into journaling.

I have a problem in that I have too many places to journal and keep ideas – that I’m not sure what I would consider the “most efficient” way to do things.

I have:

• DayOne
• Notion
• Notability
• Physical Bullet Journal
• Travelers’ Notebook (passport size)

So I thought I’d do a “stream of consciousness” rant and put my thoughts down on the screen about how to best use these resources for me personally.

Thoughts about each resource…

DayOne

I’ve been using DayOne on and off ever since the app first came out back in 2016 (whoa, 10 years). It’s actually been my go-to for on-the-go journaling. It has an interesting integration with my phone that just collates all the images taken on any given calendar day of an entry – meaning I can quickly and efficiently make entries as needed.

To that end, DayOne remains clearly the “first port of call” whenever I need to put something down in writing. Or should the need arise (and more often does), I can whip the phone out, press the camera button on my phone and snap something really quickly, then return later in a quiet moment and add it into the DayOne calendar entry for keeping track of the moment(s).

Notion

Notion is actually something I’ve “come back to” recently. I was previously using Obsidian as a sort of knowledge store; but with the idea of making things easier for “those who remain” – I reverted back to Notion and have since been trying to update it more regularly.

Overall I think Notion remains a knowledge store more than any sort of journal system – ironically though as I started writing this post – there’s now a calendar view that allows me to attach pages to each Day in what can only be described as an excellent digital planner/journal setup 😂

Still, it’s a much better application for keeping knowledge base items in there (like, how did I design this site, and the steps I took); and for things in my life that need more organised tables and pseudo database views.

It doesn’t hurt that Notion is available across iOS, iPadOS, and Windows – all my devices are able to access Notion smoothly. Even Linux based devices!

It means that I can smoothly access this knowledge from anywhere, and should the need arise, I can add to my “Diary” if need be to keep information tracked with a day’s entry into my journals.

Physical Bullet Journal

These are traditionally my handwritten journals that I’ve been doing since 2018 – they’re done in “classic” size gridded Moleskine book – soft covered.

Does it still make sense to have a hard copy journal?

This year so far I’ve stated doing the book as more of a long form journal rather than as a planner/bullet journal setup. I don’t carry this journal with me normally so it makes sense to turn it into something more long form, with nice photos and such.

A digital journal, the wildcard…!

Something has been sitting in the back of my mind though about it all – as the times have been changing – does it still make sense to have a hard copy journal? The DayOne journal’s benefits are the multimedia capabilities of such a setup. I can include video footage, photos and even audio recordings per journal entry. That’s simply unbeatable in terms of “saving memories”.

The biggest advantage of a hard copy journal that a lot of proponents will push, is the fact that you have an emotional connection to the handwriting of the journal – you can tell someone’s mood, state of mind or general vibe from how they’ve written on the page (e.g. agitated writing might be sharper or more jagged in the lettering; calmer might be rounder and smoother, etc.) but that becomes moot with something like an iPad Pro, and the Notability app. I can handwrite, and scribble, doodle, and draw my way through a “journal” all while still embedding multimedia into the page, almost like a living Harry Potter Newspaper-esque experience!

Travelers’ Notebook (Passport Size)

I also have a Travelers’ Notebook – a little pocket-sized journal that I can use on the go as well.

Originally after first buying the standard sized journal as a souvenir from Tokyo as well as this passport sized notebook – I couldn’t figure out how such a structure would match the bullet journaling methods I use or how it would fit in with what I do. It uses slim notebook refills and doesn’t seem to be appropriate for the longer form style of journaling that I’m beginning to do.

“Bullet Journaling” on a lighter note seems to be the answer for me – it’s less about doing bullet journals in the way I’ve always known them, and more using the Traveler’s Notebook as a sort of physical life planner that logs appointments to keep, as well as a sort of daily log of where I’ve been or what I’ve done in bullet point format.

There’s 2 refills I keep within the book, and a small kraftpaper folder to hold things like spare cards.

The first refill is an undated monthly view planner book; the second refill is a dotted grid book. Keeping a physical planner system is probably going to be more significant to me as I can look back for a quick jog of the memory for a day’s “traveled journey”.

Coming to a decision

I think it’s time to make the switch to a fully digital journal. Being able to put my thoughts to screen above – led me to realise that Notability is the solution to my future journal needs. It covers:

• the emotional connection of hand-writing and drawing my entries
• being able to embed photos, video and audio into the page for multimedia entries
• iCloud based backup for future use across devices
• on device storage for the Notability files is possible
• editing the journal is far easier – I can select, move, resize things as needed

It also gives my iPad Pro an important use case, aside from just being a graphics tablet and secondary monitor for my laptop, or my desktop – it’s also the device I update my journal in. So there’s clearly a lot of boxes it ticks.

Figuring out the negatives however, are pretty simple:

• it’s battery powered
• there’s an Apple Pencil involved – and that’s expensive…!

There’s a whole load more upsides than downsides – and I haven’t even covered everything. But at this point it’s clear that it’s the future of my journaling.

So here’s to making my iPad far more useful to myself again! 🤣

2026!

I can’t believe I made it past 40 times round the Sun on this ball of dirt. I’m not usually one to wax philosophical in a public space, but I’m old, and I figure it’s alright for me to be doing this now.

This year is all about adjusting to the changes in my life over the last 2 years. This marks my (going into) 2nd year of being “retired” but in reality, I’d say it’s more like a “doing a lighter workload”. And boy it wasn’t a matter of becoming a man of leisure, instead I decided to buy a cafe on my birthday last year🤣

At the end of last year I bought an apartment, my own little slice of paradise in a great spot in Sydney about 15 minutes from the CBD. I’ve been very fortunate to be able to do so, but it’s a big adjustment from my previous living conditions (I’d always lived in free-standing houses usually of 3 or more bedrooms).

It’s forced me over the recent holiday period to look at all the things I own, and how to cut down on excess – something I think I generally suffer from especially the last few years (I have so much computer related crap in my possession). And really, I suppose it’s inspired this post for me to rant about how I’m going to start the year and approach life, etc. Looking back in the post history on this blog, I don’t really recall writing about things like this so much, but I suppose this is a bit more of a personal project now. So, time to ramble on!

Like every trend chasing “New Year, New Me” kind of person in Western Culture, I looked at what I thought would be a “foreign yet cool” concept as a starting point, and of course, looked to Japan. A bit awkward considering I’m an Australian-born Chinese person, but hey! Sort of in the right region!

• Ikigai – I think this means to find meaning and purpose in life on a day-to-day basis
• Kaizen – I think this means to constantly improve, as long as it’s a step forward, it’s improvement
• Wabisabi – Finding beauty and perfection in the imperfections, impermanence and incompletion

I like the muddled sort of “constant improvement” and reiterative process of development these Japanese Philosophies talk about. And I think in a lot of Asian culture, the grind culture is definitely something they’ve mastered over the years. Maybe it’s appealing deep into that heritage inside me 🤣

Not to be outdone though, the Swedish themselves also have a philosophy called Lagom – a term that actually hits with a bit of PTSD from an old development project for me (it was named Lagom). Lagom means “Just the right amount, not too much, not too little. Just right.” and is the idea of perfect moderation and balance in execution.

I think, this year I’m beginning my 40s with a step towards making my life more like a chill game. More Stardew Valley, and Animal Crossing; and less the Sims without a ladder, or Elden Ring 😱

It’s more about making sure each day I’m a little bit better than before. But also accepting that not all days will be like that, and some days there will be steps backwards, or time needed for recovery. And even in those challenges and setbacks, there’s beauty and joy to be found.

Happy New Year 🙂

Welp, seems to be an almost yearly thing – although to be honest there’s no plan to how I do things with my jtiong.* sites — it’s all very whimsical 😅

I’ve started working on a new site theme called “Chubby Snorlax‘ – a sort of sequel to “Minty Charmander” (the theme you see now on this site – as written about here).

This was mostly brought about by wanting to freshen things up when I started updating my jtiong.games website. The site itself is going to be used as a personal game server documentation and humble bragging website for all the stuff I run and mod for family and friends.

Behold!

The site design pulls back more towards engineering documentation style layouts with a little bit of a flair taken from my jtiong.network site. It’s part of an intended update to all my domain names that I’ll write about (I suppose…) in the future.

The design itself is mostly complete – with the final steps being to make sure that any content I put into the theme is represented fittingly with the design (ie. there’s no weird layout issues or formatting issues). After that, I’m not going to immediately update this blog’s theme; but rather I’ll deploy Chubby Snorlax into the jtiong.dev site first, alongside some behind the scenes updates to that site!

Minty Charmander was a fairly easy update – I was able to create a WordPress compatible theme, then roll out a similar style that matched to jtiong.dev – however, this time the workload has increased to three websites (.blog, .dev, .games) at least. So complexity of the project does grow – each site has its own unique functionality, .blog being a WordPress powered site, .dev being a stylized website that interacts with GitHub, and .games being almost entirely handwritten HTML/PHP content. I’m trying to unify their look & feel, as well as bring them all under an umbrella sort of branding “jtiong.network” like a media network or some such. It’s just a fancy hobby name for my rapidly costlier hobby.

Yup – I bought a cafe 🙂

Happy Birthday to me!

Here’s to a new adventure 🙂

This is the 100th post in this blog 🙂

This year, one of my goals is to blog and journal a bit more consistently. I have a bit of a weird process, but we’ll see if I can keep it up 🙂

My day to day, and default “journal” I reach for, is on my phone using the Day One app. I’ve been using this since it first came out in 2011, and it is in fact one of the reasons I kept to using an iPhone (the other being my medical data in my diabetes sensor apps from back then too).

Since roughly about November 24th, I’ve been managing to pop in at least an entry per day; so my hope is to keep that “chain” going – and manage a post in the Day One app per day.

These entries generally just tend to be photos, or really short entries about thoughts/happenings throughout the day. It’s easy for me to reach for my phone and I have a lockscreen shortcut to Day One.

Following that, I’ve started making longer form blog entries into this blog that you’re reading right now!

And finally, the hard copy “bullet” journals – I used to keep these bullet journals as my day-to-day things, but nowadays my phone will suffice for that with short Day One entries. So these Bullet Journals are actually kind of historical objects that I’d write/draw/scribble in retroactively. At least, that’s the plan…

I keep these paper journals consistently in a Moleskine Classic Soft Cover Notebook Large Size (Amazon Link for the books) that’s grid-drawn for easy planning and sketching things. I started the 2023 bullet journal, and kind of took a break. So I’ve got to catch up on them all, and make sure I more consistently take the time to keep the 2025 book up to date too (it’s a good place to doodle around and be a bit creative).

So here’s me publicly saying that I’ll blog and journal more consistently! And we’ll see if I really keep up at a minimum, the daily entries into Day One and from there, I can further update the blog site, and my paper journals.

Went on a bit of a trek all over Sydney yesterday for a date day with Annie – it’s a bit unusual as usually we just have a single destination that we kind of go and check out, then head home afterwards. Instead this time, we went to:

• 2 Foodies in Mt. Pritchard for super authentic Pho, and Vietnamese Food
• Bondi Junction Westfield to watch War of the Rohirrim (great film!) and just check it out
• Macquarie Centre for dinner (Claypot Kitchen ♥)

Crossing Sydney as a whole multiple times was interesting, kept the day rolling along, and was a good day out!

I picked up Annie, and we trekked it over to 2 Foodies (https://www.instagram.com/2foodies_)

The food was super delicious at 2Foodies – it was extremely authentic and it was full of Vietnamese people ordering for their busy Sunday lunches! Annie went with a fresh Noodle Salad, and I went with Pho – with Beef Balls, Brisket and Rare beef and a Coconut Juice drink on the side!

We smashed our food so hard 😋

Neither of us had been to Mt. Pritchard before and we sure as heck picked a sunny, hot day to visit. Parking was a nightmare at the Petrol Station where 2 Foodies is located – so next time we go, we’ll definitely look for street parking.

Tummies full, we made our way to Bondi Junction’s Westfield Shopping Center — I’d never been before, always only passed the center. But this time around we were going to watch the new LOTR animated movie, The War of the Rohirrim.

Driving the M8 route from Liverpool all the way to Bondi was definitely a new experience for both of us, and it was kind of amazing seeing that Sydney had such a long underground tunnel for cars to travel. We made good time though, thanks to it!

I was impressed by the movie – it was an anime film that sparked a lot of Stranger of the Sword meets Princess Mononoke to me – and those films I rate probably a 9.5/10 – some of my favourite anime films of all time!

Imaginations inspired, we left – looking for dinner we actually decided to completely forgo eating at Bondi – the Westfield was incredibly disappointing. And headed “towards home” for a favourite at Macquarie Shopping Centre; Claypot Kitchen.

All in all, it was a fun day – and we’ve resolved to go on more “adventures” to check out more of Sydney together in the future. As Sydney natives – sometimes we just don’t really see things to do or enjoy in Sydney as much as it’s “home” for us.

Hopefully this opens our eyes up to more!

Day 5 continues!

We went to visit the Gundam statue – the life size version of the MG RX-0 Unicorn Gundam 🙂 we spent most of our time at a shopping center called Diver CIty.

Diver City actually had a couple of things we wanted to see and do, but it’s always been a shopping center that I’ve visited every time I’ve been to Japan – without fail so far!

Doraemon Department Store

Annie is a big fan of Doraemon, a long-running anime franchise that was (in my opinion) one of the first series to really gain worldwide recognition. I didn’t get some happy snaps of the Doraemon store, but Annie did! So these pictures are very much courtesy of her ♥

She ended up spending a little bit of time there, buying a few things to remember the trip by, and there’s already a shopping wishlist for our next visit 🙂

A Quick Break, and on to Gundam Base!

Finally as it rounded off towards evening, Annie and I had a quick snack of some McDonald’s and took a brief break before heading to the Gundam Base store – which has always been amazing!

Then onto the main attraction…

I’ve never been able to see the Factory side – as it’s always closed for Maintenance for some reason in the last couple years (last year I couldn’t see it either). However, on display were the World Championship Gunpla Builders winners models on display!

Let’s get to the galleries of the entries!

GBWC 12th Tournament – Under 20s

GWBC 12th Tournament – Under 14s

GWBC 12th Tournament – Over 21s

All these models were INCREDIBLE to see – and the customisations each of the entrants did were mind blowing and so creative. As an amateur Gunpla builder who just started this year, it was a huge inspiration!

Of course, we succumbed to the store limited editions and Annie even picked up her first Gunpla model! It was Haro! Very cute ♥

We were actually both pretty tired at this point so as we wandered out towards the exit of the center I actually caught a sign I wasn’t expecting!

What a pleasant surprise! Hololive hold a special place in my heart as around the time they started becoming popular in Western culture, it was a really tough patch in my life and watching them saw me through it. So it was pleasantly surprising to see Hololive doing a little better in Japan and increasing in popularity!

On our way out, Annie spotted a Doraemon claw-game machine at Round 1 near the entrance, and she won!

Dinner

We ended up heading back to the hotel and honestly resting/snoozing for a couple hours before heading out to a nearby popular curry rice chain, CoCo Curry House. Finally got my chance to show Annie this amazing food chain; it’s still a classic hit, and they do 20 levels of spice now instead of the 10 from last year that my friends and I had encountered!

A classic Chicken Katsu Curry, with Cheese/Potato Croquette 🙂