Quiet day today, informed slightly by the fact that I woke up in the middle of the night and thought I was going to be sick (I wasn't) and we then slept in until after 1pm. Whoops. Oh well. We are on holiday, and there was nothing we needed to get out of the door for today.
As such, today was a fairly lazy day, though we did make an excursion to the pool, where we spent a pleasant hour and a bit in the warm water of the "Sprudel pool" and its nearby "whirlpool" (actually a jacuzzi) before heading home to have a bit of dinner and pretty much just vegetate on the sofa. Absolutely fine with me. Andie and I are both of a similar mind; a holiday doesn't have to be constantly "doing stuff" — sometimes just being away from your usual surroundings but doing pretty much "normal" things is enough to have a positive effect on your overall wellbeing.
One of the things we've discovered while we are here is a brand of drinks called "Mogu Mogu". I have seen these around before but never tried them, and the ParcMarket (a well-disguised Co-Op) is pushing them hard at the moment. We each tried one flavour yesterday and another today, and we're both big fans.
For the unfamiliar, Mogu Mogu is an Asian (Thai, I believe, though the phrase "mogu mogu" is Japanese) soft drink that consists of a brightly coloured, sugary, fruity drink with lumps of nata de coco floating in it. Nata de coco, if you're unfamiliar, is "coconut gel", or, to put it considerably less appealingly, fermented coconut water.
Now, I won't lie, when I first read the description of these drinks, I wasn't entirely convinced. I was primarily concerned that the presence of something called "coconut gel" would mean that the entire drink tasted of coconut, and while I don't find the flavour of coconut especially offensive (Andie does, meanwhile) I wasn't sure I wanted it in my brightly coloured, sugary, fruity drink.
However, we decided to take a chance — and you know what? They're bloody lovely, they are. Yesterday, I had a bright blue "blackcurrant" one, which reminds one just how inferior sugar-free blackcurrant flavour really is, while Andie had a lychee flavour one, which was a little too floral for my tastes, but she enjoyed it. Today, meanwhile, I had a strawberry one, which was very good, and Andie had a mango one, which was also very tasty.
The present of the nata de coco forms the core gimmick of Mogu Mogu — the Japanese onomatopoeia mogu mogu refers to the act of chewing, and indeed, the fact there are lumps of stuff floating in these drinks mean that with each mouthful you take, you will get a kick of flavour from the liquid part, and be left with a pleasantly chewy part that still tastes of the fruit flavour and not of coconut at all. Nata de coco, it seems, is one of those things that if you bung in something with a strong flavour, it will pretty much just take on the flavour of the thing it is immersed in, making it ideal to provide some things to chew in a drink that markets itself as being… well, a drink you can chew.
The texture of nata de coco is similar to those soft and squishy lumps of pineapple you get in your typical Chinese takeaway sweet and sour sauce, but, as I say, they just taste of whatever flavour drink you got. It's not unpleasant at all, and in a funny way I think it makes you appreciate the drink as a whole a lot more; the very nature of the fact that a mouthful will have both liquid and lumps means that you will tend to take smaller sips rather than guzzling it down in one, allowing you to savour the flavour a bit more than you might otherwise.
Yes, there is a bit of a mental block to get over — and I'm aware that describing a mouthful of this stuff as "having both liquid and lumps" probably isn't helping — but honestly, I was really pleasantly surprised, and we are almost certainly going to try pretty much all of the flavours at least once by the time we depart.
So yeah. That's been today. This has been a good holiday already, and we're kind of still just getting started. Tomorrow we have equally minimal plans, so will probably get up, have some pancakes or waffles (Andie brought a huge bag of mix with her, along with the waffle iron) and then just have another lazy day, perhaps including a dip in the pool again.
Ah, it's so nice to have a do-over on this holiday. And yes, we have been checking in with Oliver via the security cameras while we're away. He seems to be having a lovely time with my mother-in-law, who is giving him lots of attention, treats and playtime. So nothing to worry about there.
Now it's time to head to bed, and perhaps we might even get up before midday tomorrow…
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