A Day in Life

My second car was a 2006 Toyota Vios 1.5G that I bought used in 2009. I was in my early 20s, paid it all off on my own, and good enough for the time. 6 years later, I passed it on to my mother and sister for their daily use.

The Vios may be a Yuppie’s car, but now that I think about it, this was probably the TRUE chick magnet; more girl sat in this passenger seat than in all my previous BMWs combined. LOL

It was also this car that shielded the explosive blast when I rescued a drunkard from a burning vehicle in 2013.

This was also the same car that got me stopped by the cops quite a few times (profiling much?) Heck, it happened as recent as a few nights ago! Thankfully, all without incident.

This morning, I drove this car to the dealer’s to trade in, pending PUSPAKOM inspection.

I’ll be “upgrading” the ride to a Proton X70, although it’s mainly for my mother’s daily drive as she’s just become a real estate agent.

I’ll still drive, though not as often as I work from home most of the time now and thankfully, I live in a rather convenient location where everything we need is 5 to 10 minutes away.

14 years later, and it’s end of the road for the silver dolphin.

Took one last picture, to compare to the first time I got it (2009 vs 2023)

Repeated exposure to Douyin froggo on TikTok has turned me into one!

I found this on Shopee by looking up “china frog mascot” and it was shipped from mainland China. Took about 2 weeks to arrive here in Johor.

Interesting back story on how this Douyin frog costume became viral:

A couple years back, toy sellers in China dressed up in these frog mascots to sell their inflatable frog toys. A lot of people find them amusing, and after it was listed as one of the top 10 ugliest products on Alibaba in 2022, that made it even more popular.

The exaggerated salute by the frog also has an origin: because these frog ‘mothers’ are selling away their ‘kids’ i.e. the inflatable toy frogs, passer-bys and Customers often salute them for their ‘hard work’.

Since then, the frog ‘seeds’ have spread to other countries including Vietnam, Thailand, and even Malaysia and Singapore.

Interestingly, I’m far from the first Malaysian to have this. There are already some people dressed as the Douyin Frog in KL, and at least a couple more here in JB. I think there will be more to come, and as a friend of the green, I am happy!