Freaker Loves Sally

Just Married

2011-06-03T00:09:00.095+08:00

After months and months of continuous planning and relentlessly running around to prepare for our most important day, May 22nd finally came. Sally and I, together with our exceptionally energetic friends and families, went all out to make this a special, memorable and truly once in a lifetime experience.

The auspicious day
The alarm on my iPhone beeped at 2:15am. I opened my eyes wide, feeling fresh even though I slept at 11pm the previous night. I remembered vividly the mixed feelings of excitement and anxiety. Adrenaline was in my blood. I knew I had to follow my schedule strictly because everything was planned out down to the minute.

There was little time to spare and I went straight for my Koko Krunch.

My dad entered the kitchen shortly, probably awakened by the lights, wondering why I was up so early. His first assignment on that day was to cook tang yuan at 4:30am. So I explained to him that I had a different timetable to follow. He nodded sleepily before going back to bed.

While preparing my breakfast, I presumed Sally has awakened too. Maybe even earlier. She should be as excited, if not as anxious as me. After all, it was our big day. Jie meis and xiong dis were likely up and about. But it wasn't just us, there were more. Clement and Jessline, who both willingly shoulder the heavy responsibility as our escort drivers. Little Soniyha, Sally's 5-year old niece who was all eager and ready to help. Our parents. Our siblings. Bridal car chauffeur. Makeup artist. Videographer. Photographer. Everyone woke up extra early to accommodate our 5-7am auspicious hour. Tough one.

Sally with her makeup artist
I finished my breakfast quickly and proceed to shower with some odd-looking leaves that Sally's mom gave a day earlier. Not entirely sure what it does though. The smell was strong but it didn't linger. And then I spent the next 20 minutes styling my hair.

Sally's mom lighting up some candles
I took a quick look at my checklist, went to the kitchen to prepare the oranges, then noticed a white MaxiCab driving into the parking lot. Must be my xiong dis. 3:15am. Earlier than I expected but it was good. And they were all smartly dressed up. I waved to them from the kitchen window. The sleepy heads came up looking blur, which was not surprising, considering the fact that they spent half a day earlier at Universal Studios and had barely slept. We caught up with the good old times and I realized we've been friends forever. My mom, who used to be our Math teacher, was also able to recognize my friends.

Looks like there's gonna be a party
Jie meis getting ready for fun
Sally and Soniyha
Chon Shen was kind enough to tag along and helped my parents in the kitchen. He arranged the oranges and roasted pork. At 4:15am, I called Ery, our chauffeur, to enquire his whereabouts. He said he was around the corner. Great. Both our escort drivers arrived shortly after. Jessline, who double-up as our overall coordinator, readily took out a copy of our schedule to go through the morning events. Talk about efficiency. Oh, and she triple-up as our ang pow caretaker too. Now that's multitasking. I was extremely at ease due to her constant reassurance and also her experience in operations. She was like managing a huge project. Time. Resource. Execution. Contingency. She was the best person we could find for the role.

Final touch up
Sally putting on the ring that she
received more than a year ago
By 4:20am, Chiang arrived together with Irene.

It was exciting. We were all ready to prove ourselves worthy of receiving the bride. The 4 brothers I handpicked for this momentous task are no less capable of facing the grueling tests ahead. Jie meis are always in control of the games, yet we can't let them have all the fun. So our plan was to delay the ang pows and finish off as many games as we could. Then demand for more. Yes, and disgusting games are our favorites too. Jie meis won't get the chance to see us flinch.

Sally and her jie meis
Sally with her parents
Soniyha all ready!
Xiong dis tied up the remaining decorations at the escort car handles before we left. I hopped on the comfortable, sun-roofed BMW bridal car and led the way. Our convoy arrived shortly at Teck Whye at 4:45am, honking away like nobody's business. Ery initially honked twice. TWICE!? I told him to blast away. Here we are! Qi and Soniyha came down a minute later. Show time.

Here we are!
Ok, that's me
Soniyha opening the door for me
And we exchanged ang pow and oranges
Soniyha opened the door, grinned at me and readily handed me two oranges. I thanked her and passed her an ang pow. My xiong dis came to me and everyone seem excited. Qi, Soniyha, Clement, Jessline, Jonathan (videographer) and Michael (photographer) promptly went up to get ready. Then I told Ery to go to the nearest 7-11 and buy some newspapers because it'll take us some time. Hehe.

Time to have some fun
But wait.. Take a group photo first :D
I was in the mood to play.

As we approached the gate, jie meis were already waiting for us. Fang fang gave me her sweetest smile and said two words.

Hong Bao.

And we were all like .. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!

So fast meh.

Way to early. Nah, I thought we should play some games first so I told jie meis that I wasn't carrying the ang pows. My xiong dis kept them. And they're all eager to play some games. I negotiated with Fang Fang and she relented. Yes, rare indeed.

Trying to negotiate with Fang Fang for a game.
Gotta talk nicely to her :P Heeee..
Soniyha came nearer to the gate and gave me 5 different coloured sticks to choose from. I picked one and it says Fondle. Sounds like fun. But the jie meis were behind the gate, so that means we're fondling someone or something else.

Soniyha carrying the colored sticks
First pick. Fondle!
We were told that one of my xiong dis need to pass a rubber ball from one end of my pants on the right leg, up all the way, then go down and finally exit from the end of my left leg. Easy. Terrence was a doctor, so for obvious reasons, he was morally the right person to do it. He volunteered and finished it easily in less than a minute.

Ah, that feels good
Very.. very.. close
Then the second game. It was surprisingly easy. I thought our life was about to get more difficult. But no, we were asked to eat an apple stuck to a stick, and a banana dangled upside down. Without using our hands. JauRhen held on to the stick while Tze Ping and Hock Ling chomped hungrily at the apple. Same goes to the poor banana. I had a bite too.

Fruits for breakfast!
Yumz from our loving couple
How about some teamwork here?
I love bananas. Really.
I picked my third game. Solo. I guessed I was about to sing Gei Wo Ni De Ai from Tank, simply because I used to hum that song and Sally hinted that she'd want to hear me sing it during our gatecrash. It was a Chinese song and everyone knew my Chinese is half-assed. But I did not prepare for it because well, I wanted to be true to myself. Any preparation beforehand would make it all so fake. And so I sang like an idol-wannabe. Right.

As soon as the jie meis confirmed that song, I whipped out my iPhone, searched for the lyrics in PinYin and Tze Ping readily stood by my side to assist me. I took a deep breath and sang as loudly as I could, near Sally's bedroom window, fully aware that the neighbors are totally gonna hate me. I stumbled upon some words while singing but Tze Ping guided me, while the xiong dis stood behind me supportively and sang together on the last line of the chorus.

I expected a solo game
I can't exactly sing a Chinese song
so we searched for the pinyin version
And I tried my best :P
When we're finally done, jie meis reminded us of the ang pow that we were suppose to give earlier. Oops! Ok lah, it's about time anyway.

Me and xiong dis discussing our next strategic move
And we decided on the first ang pow
Feeling contented, I gave away the first ang pow to the jie meis. And boy, they had no idea what was in store for them. Hehe.

$2.

Lalala.

Lilian reacted to the $2
Fang fang too. Priceless!
Ok. $2 wasn't enough to open the gates, so we had to play more games. No problem. I picked my next game. 69. You really have to admire how the jie meis name their games. They can be really misleading :P Fang Fang proudly announced that it was a math question. We had to formulate an equation that uses +, -, * and / to produce the number 69. Tze Ping and JauRhen jumped on it and quickly came up with a set of numbers for the equation.

69 sounds like alot of fun!
We turned into our superhero forms! Yaaaaah!!
The Princess of Further Mathematics briefing us
Jau Rhen and Tze Ping took the challenge head on
Jie meis checking our answers
Time for a little celebration. Yey!
So we have completed a few games and it was time to use our ang pow trick again. Will it work? Let's see...

2nd futile attempt to bribe our way in
A little more than the last time
but needless to say, it didn't work
This time, we play with balloons!
In the next game, we were each given a balloon. We were asked to blow the balloons, put them between two xiong dis, and burst it with a nice, tight hug. We were in a mischievous mood, so we lowered the balloons to our crotch and burst it with a little pelvic action ;) And you can see the jie meis blushing.

Each of us blowing a balloon
Me and dai lou doing our thang
Tze Ping really put in a lot of effort :P
Finally it was time to give the big one. Will we finally get our breakthrough this time?

This one ought to bring us in!
Counting... counting...
Jie meis were satisfied this time. So, does that mean we can go in already? Well not so fast. Not until we finish the last game.

More yummy food?
The last game was a common one. And I was actually waiting for it. Sour. Bitter. Sweet. Spicy. We were given bitter gourd and cocktail mixtures of sour, sweet and spicy liquids in small little cups. JauRhen and I took on the bitter gourds. Hock Ling took on the sour substance. Terrence grabbed the red, hot and spicy goo. Tze Ping took the sweet one. We did a yam seng toast and finished our breakfast with ease.

Yaaaaaaaam seng!
Something doesn't taste right :P
Whew! Time to go in!
Jie meis welcoming us
With the last game completed, the gates finally opened! But that wasn't the end. Phase 2 just kicked in. We were given fake moustache, party garlands and big round spectacles to put on. I had an extra sparkling white hat and was told to put on a bright orange wig. The jie meis then handed us a bunch of ridiculous props like frying spade, umbrella, toilet pump, etc. Now we look like a bunch of homo clowns. Perfect!

Time to dress up a little
We must look really funny
The new dance troupe in town!
Qi pulled out a radio and told us to get ready to dance. Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal blared loudly and we all started dancing in our nonsensical outfit. It was fun to see all of us kick into action regardless of how silly we looked. I danced like I was being possessed by Michael Jackson, but I did a bit of Grease too, so it was actually rojak. And where is my white glove?

Let's start dancing!
Doing my trademark kick
Trying to imitate that move from Grease
And I got myself a fan already :D
After the dance was over, there was one final task to be done. All that stood between me and Sally was this piece of paper with 10 commandments.

Jau Rhen helping me to apply lipstick
Must be quite amusing to see a guy applying lipstick!
Reading my commandments aloud
Soniyha listening attentively
Sealed with a kiss!
And now I've got the keys!
I read through it loudly so that she could hear me from inside the room, and ended it a long smooch to seal the deal. Fang Fang passed me the key and I opened the door to peek at a rather excited bride. All the noise and shouting earlier must have made her quite curious!

I got rid of my crazy wig and went in to receive her. The bride is now mine.

Now to meet the bride!
Lifting the veil
Muuuuaaks!
Finally!
I got the bride!
After we picked up Sally, we headed right back to our matrimonial home for tea ceremony, which was suppose to be completed by 7am. It was approximately 6am and we had plenty of time. No need to rush. I had earlier passed two oranges to Terrence, in case Soniyha was too tired to come along, so that he could open the door for me upon arrival. He was the youngest amongst the xiong dis anyway. But little Soniyha came along, still looking amazingly upbeat. Awesome. She must have had plenty of rest the day before.

Going back home!
In our bridal car :D
Soniyha opened the door again upon reaching
Group photo with everyone
My eldest brother and Fuon had arrived. And breakfast was already on the table for everyone who came back with us. Cakes, chicken bites, chicken wings, sausages and drinks. And best of all, the air-cons were all turned on. Just what we needed.

Back to our lovely home!
Doing that an chuang thing
And turning on the bed side lamps
We proceed with tea ceremony for my parents and my elder brother. Followed by tea served from Chiang and Irene. Now the most time-specific, crucial tasks was done. Huge relief. We had about 2 hours to spare before our next destination. Time for everyone to take a short break. Jessline came to me, diligently inspecting the schedule and checklist to ensure we didn't miss out anything. And everything was in perfect order.

Serving tea to my parents
Elder brother has been waiting for this a long time
Our turn to drink :P
Family photo
We then enjoyed the tang yuan in our room, while our family and friends had breakfast, took photos and relaxed outside. Sally changed into her kua and little Soniyha appeared in our room shortly after. Though we initially didn't arrange for a kid to jump our bed, we decided to let her do it anyway. She quickly hopped on and wouldn't stop jumping. Well, I suppose new beds are the coolest thing to jumped on.

Enjoying our tang yuan
Jie meis
Xiong dis
Together with jie meis
Together with xiong dis
Together with everyone!
And with Soniyha!
This interval allowed me to catch up with my elder brother. He flew in from across the world, all the way from Canada, and reached Singapore only at 8pm the day before. And I requested him to be at home by 5am. With jet lag, it must have been tough for him and Fuon, but well, he wanted to be served tea within the auspicious hour, so he didn't have much choice either. Ha!

With my family
And again
At this point, it has already been 5 hours since I woke up and so many things have happened. Everyone was resting comfortably at home. Some dozed off. Some were still eating. The others were either taking photos or watching TV. At around 8:45am, I announced to everyone that it was time to move. We had to return to the bride's home for a second tea ceremony. Suddenly, the whole house was abuzz with activities again. Everyone helped to carry our bags, gowns and other solemnization and wedding items to the cars. My parents, siblings and Chon Shen stayed back to help tidy up the house. We were to meet directly at Traders Hotel at 10:30am.

In front of our home
Getting ready to leave
These guys can really jump!
We left for the bride's home. The second tea ceremony was completed in less than 10 minutes. We had a second serving of tang yuan and took some photos. Sally packed her remaining items and we were all set to move again.

Returned to bride's home
Second serving of tang yuan
Serving to bride's parents
Siva and Jie
From Clement and Qi
And finally from Soniyha
Another family photo
We were roughly 30 minutes ahead of schedule but we thought it was OK to reached the hotel earlier. Time buffer is always a good thing. And now, we're going for our next big thing - solemnization at Traders Hotel. During our journey, we told Ery to open the sun-roof, just for fun. When we were about to reach, I called YiYing, our events manager, to prepare for our arrival. It was about 9:40am.

Our solemnization was scheduled at 11am. While Sally's friends helped her to change to her ROM dress, I helped my parents and grandmother to check-in to the hotel. After everything was settled, I went up to the suite to fetch Sally.

Our marriage certificate
2 birds watching over our wedding bands
By 10:45am, most of our guests have arrived. Peter, our solemniser, briefed us on the things we were expected to do, when and how.

My grandma, Uncle Chuan & Aunt Chun Fa,
Uncle Choon and Aunt Mary
Our wedding bands on the ring pillow
Sally and I both stood outside and I cheekily asked if she could remember her vows, which I suggested we memorize for maximum sincerity. At 11am, we were ready for the ceremony. The solemniser went into the function room and closed the doors, together with 40 of our guests inside. I stood with Sally, feeling really, really excited. And I could tell from her broad smile, that she was looking forward to it too. After being together for more than 2 years, after my proposal to her more than a year ago, we have finally reached this stage. And our lives are about to change.

The door opened.

What we saw next, was unexpected. The solemniser decided to give us a surprise.

Xiong dis and jie meis were lined up by near the entrance on each side. Our family and friends were crowded near our solemnization table, with the solemniser standing in the middle. Everyone started clapping and cheering loudly, as we marched into the room slowly. I could see and feel the happiness around us. And it was the most amazing moment I've ever experience in my life.

Our mini march-in surprise!
Understanding our serious undertaking
My parents as witness
Sally's parents as witness
The solemniser was fluent in both English and Chinese. He joked with the crowd, spoke about us, and the solemnisation began soon after. We were asked if we understood our purpose at the ceremony, and if we would accept each other as husband and wife, in complete, very cool, solemnisation-style sentences.

I do.

I then put on the ring on Sally's finger, took a deep breath, and recited my wedding vows from the bottom of my heart.

Putting the wedding band on Sally's ring finger
Reciting my vows
In sickness, I will nurse you to health.
In health, I will nurture you.
In sadness, I will bring you joy.
In happiness, I will share with you.
When you need encouragement, it will be from me.
When you need a helping hand, it will be mine.
With this ring as a token, I pledge my love to you forever.
And I now marry you.
Sally then did the same thing, and recited her vows.

Sally's turn
Sally making her vows
I vow to keep my love as pure as it will stay,
In your laughter, and your tears,
In your comfort and your fears,
In your happiness and your sadness,
In your sickness and your health.
I vow to always cherish you.
I vow to be faithful to you.
With this ring as token, I pledge my love to you forever.
And I now marry you.
Having exchanged our rings and vows, the solemniser led us to recite the vows again, this time in Chinese, for the benefit of the other guests.

My parents are certainly happy
And now the signing of our marriage certificate!

Me signing the certificate
And now Sally's turn
My dad as the first witness
Sally's dad as the second witness
And finally the solemnizer
And I may now kiss the bride :P
The solemniser then passed the microphone to us, encouraging us to say a word or two to the guests. We were both unprepared for this.

I spoke about how Sally stood by my through the ups and downs in our relationship and we've come so far now in our relationship. And I was happy beyond words. Sally took up the microphone and talked about how 3 years ago, I promised to marry her and now I've kept my word. And I totally remember telling her that!

Giving my unprepared speech
Sally was surprisinly fluent!
The solemniser then turned to our parents. He spoke about how proud and happy any parents would be to see their children grow up and get married. He spoke about how each and every parent would want to turn back time and hug their cute little child again. He said we did our parents proud and they deserved a hug. I was really touched. I hugged my dad, not knowing when was the last time I hugged him, because he was such a shy person. Then I hugged my mom. And Sally hugged her parents too.

Thanking my parents
My first and perhaps one and only photo
of me hugging my dad.
Sally hugging her dad
Together with our parents
We took pictures and did a quick tea ceremony in the function room for my grandma, uncles and aunts who missed the super early 7am ceremony. The guests were led outside for light snacks.

Jie meis and xiong dis
Together with our friends
Serving tea to grandma
Serving Uncle Chuan and Aunt Chun Fa
Serving Uncle Choon and Aunt Mary
Light snack after our solemnization
Wah!
Wah wah!
Wah wah wah!
With our solemnisation completed, Sally is now my wife, and I'm now her husband.

We. are. married.

The following video is our express highlight, which summarizes the entire morning's activities, up until our solemnization in the afternoon. Wedding dinner photos are shown right after the clip.

Finally, here are the photos taken during our wedding banquet. Enjoy!

The champagne pyramid and wedding cake

Dinner table setting

The march-in path

The menu

Bird watching over ang pow box

Our wedding venue

Jessline, Liling and Xindi

With friends who arrived early to help

Early bird AGIans

Me and my xiong dis

Polaroid photos and well wishes

Relatives from Malacca and Segamat

My very tall cousin

AGIans Bee Ling, me, Alan and Ah Boonz

Sally's friends

My lovely wife

Our first march in

Making our way to the stage

Me and Sally cutting the cake

Food is coming in soon

Me and Sally

My dad and mom

Chiang and Irene

Da Ge and Fuon

Da Ge and grandma

Sally's parents

Qi and Clement

Clement's parents

Jie, Siva and family
Getting ready for our 2nd march in

My friends

Sally's friends

It's us again

Lots of petals flying around

Poppin' the champagne

Let it flowwwww

All smiles!

Yam the Seng

Close up

The guys are screaming into the microphone

And the girls are giggling behind

Giving our Thank You speech

My parents

Yam seng with my secondary school friends!

Screaming our lungs out

Our parents

Friends from GE

Sally's secondary school friends

Sally's poly friends

My cousins!

My secondary school friends

Family members

AGIans!

Sally and I are indebted to the following people who have selflessly helped us, before and during our wedding, shouldering immense responsibilities, and knowing full well of our grueling schedule which starts unsympathetically at 2am. With your help, our most important day was flawlessly pulled off and we will forever be grateful to you.

Jessline, as our main coordinator for the entire day, escort driver and ang pow caretaker. Thank you for keeping everything in order, and even asking for more, but sorry, we honestly couldn't make you MC too.

Fang Fang, Lilian, Xin Lerh and Qi as Sally's jie meis. Thank you for waking up so early, preparing games for me and xiong dis, and helping us out the whole day. I know you gave us an easy way in, during the morning gate crash, and I believe the games could have been worse. But hey, you girls rock!

Terrence, Hock Ling, Tze Ping, Jau Rhen as my xiong dis. You guys flew in all the way for me, played the morning games like real men, and helped us carry things around. What else can I say?

Clement, as our escort driver. You woke up very early and ferried my xiong dis around. And we heard you washed and cleaned your car specifically for this event. Thank you so much for going the extra mile.

Xindi and Liling, as MCs during our wedding dinner. Thank you for lending your lovely voices on our most important day. Not many people are courageous enough to stand and speak before a crowd, but you girls delivered it superbly. We couldn't have done it without your help.

Chon Shen, for volunteering to tag along in the morning, helping out in the kitchen and staying back to accompany my family to Traders Hotel. Special thanks to you.

Soniyha, for opening car doors very early in the morning. Not once. But twice! And at such an odd hour where other kids would rather be sleeping in their cozy bed.

Wendy, Celine and Janice. Thank you for taking polaroid photos for our guest during our cocktail reception, and arranging them nicely on coloured papers. These photos will definitely bring back sweet memories.

My cousin Ah Liang, who drove Grandma all the way from Malacca to Singapore to attend my wedding.

Our parents, siblings, relatives and friends who directly or indirectly helped us on May 22nd. Thank you all so much!

To all of you, who came to us when we needed you, especially on our most important day. You made a difference and we are truly grateful.

New Home, Sweet Home!

2011-04-05T23:56:00.059+08:00

Ok! I'm gonna squeeze abit time out and quickly post some pictures of our new home. So many things happened in the past few weeks and this blog has been in the freezer for a long time :P Think I really need to get this entry off draft mode or the next update will after our wedding! :o

Yes, too many things happened between this and the last update, so I'm gonna revisit those events later and concentrate on our new home. I will posts pictures, before and after renovation, side by side hopefully to show a clearer picture of the "transformation" :)

Here goes! Original: left, after renovation: right

Living Room
This is our feature wall and it is something we're extremely proud of. Weeks of thinking, researching and looking around for a simple yet elegant design. This feature wall is the main attraction of our living room :)

This is a 3m sofa that is directly opposite the feature wall. This sofa has an interesting story behind, which I will talk about in the next blog or so. In short, we got an extremely good deal but the whole transaction took longer and was more troublesome than we imagined.

As you can see, the feature wall is on the left and the sofa is on the right. And right head, is a glass wall. Yep, we hacked it through. That, is our study room. More to come.

Nothing much about our main door. In fact it was the original fire proof door. We repainted it but that's about it. Oh, and we replaced that pesky yellowish switch box and got ourselves an aircon unit in the living room too.

Dining Area
Right beside our living room is the dining area. We found a nice pendant light and got a good bargain for it too. The full height curtains make it all the more comfy!

Here's a different view of our dining area. We installed 3 large bronze tinted mirrors along the wall beside it, so that we can keep check of our tummy during meals :) Nah, actually it's to make our house look more spacious. And it actually works!

Walkway
This is the walk way as seen from the main door. Nothing special except the row of lights and we used a different tile color to show "the way" :D

And this is seen from the opposite direction.

Master Room
The main thing about our master room is ... well, it is hard to design due to the slightly odd-shape home that we have, leaving triangular corners and spaces we can't fully make use of. Nonetheless, this room and the study room received major hacking and we were determined to make it look good. The result?

This small area right outside our master room's toilet is extended out to be our vanity area. First, we have more space for our toilet. Second, the vanity is slightly larger and we can now brush our teeth together :D

Yes, that thing you're looking at, is Sally's specially-ordered, LED backlit, double-sided, magnifying mirror. Win.

This is where we installed our built-in wardrobe. The area looks larger than it used to be, because it is :P We hacked and extended the wall towards the kitchen a little bit to make way for our wardrobe. To make it more interesting, one side of the wardrobe can house a small TV and a console. And we installed a full length mirror too.

Ok and this is where our bed will be. It's not here yet, so ...

Master Bathroom
We kept nothing from the original bathroom and hacked away! Installed a very nice rain-shower and voila! There was enough space for a shower screen too. Some of the incompetent IDs we approached told us there wasn't enough space for one. Boo! Take that you fools!

Here's a closer look at the rain-shower. Hehe.

And of course, the more comfortable toilet bowl ;)

Study room
Next is our study room. This used to be a dark and dirty room, where the previous occupants' son smoked away. So yep, we gave it a good hacking and made it our study room instead. Looks way better than the boring blue. The glass walls now stand between the living room and study room, so I get to watch TV while surfing web at the same time :D

Here's a closer look at the table.

And from a different perspective :) See the TV?

Here are two additional pictures of our study from another angle which shows the main attraction of our study room. The arco lamp, polar bear skin and Teddy sitting comfortably on a chaise.

Our study room seen from the outside.
It took us a long time to consider, but we finally bought
an arco lamp, a Kivik chaise and an artificial polar bear skin :P
Guestroom
Ok, we didn't do much for the guest room, except for the blinds, repainted walls and laminate flooring. Move along now, nothing to see here.

Kitchen
Ah, Sally's favorite. Our kitchen went through unimaginable rounds of redesigns. Space constraint is the biggest headache, but we finally settled on the most ideal design. Everyone who has seen our house thus far had nothing but praises and good comments for the kitchen. Sally's masterpiece indeed :) Congrats Sally!

One side of the wall is designed with a small kitchen counter top for our water dispenser, rice cooker, etc. It has also enough space for a tall cabinet to house our microwave and built-in oven. On the right side is our beloved 6-door fridge :)

On the opposite wall is our stove on the far right corner. And we replaced all the cabinets with new whitish ones. These cabinets look modern and so much cleaner.

Looking outwards from inside the kitchen.

And erm, the opposite direction.

Washer & Dryer
There's the washer and dryer. The cabinet on the right is where we organize our cleaning stuffs like vacuum cleaner, brooms, pails, detergents, etc.

Wall Tiles
These wall tiles deserve a special spot here because Sally hand picked them out of many, many choices. And they fit perfectly!

Common Bathroom
Our common bathroom design is derived from the master bathroom, simply because we want it to be consistent. Same tile colors, rain-shower, toilet bowl, etc. Oh, only the sink is different.

Here's a closer look.

And this is the sink and toilet bowl.

Ceiling Works
Ok, to wrap it up, let's see some ceiling works from our living room which we missed earlier :)

Living room cove lights from a different perspective.

And looking towards the dining area.

Our wedding is just around the corner so I will be away for a while. This means I won't be updating our blog for at least a few weeks. After we settle our wedding and come back from our honeymoon, I'll catch up with the missing stories between my last entry and this. There are lots of stuffs to be told and I'm gonna review (yes!) the people we've come in contact within the past weeks, in the course of renovating our house and planning for our wedding. Not to be missed! :P

Stay tuned!

Grandma's 85th Birthday

2011-03-01T23:38:00.011+08:00

Yes! We finally managed to go back to Malaysia!

The CNY flood sort of altered our travel plans earlier so let's hope this won't be an annual thingy because that would be so lame. This time we went straight back to Malacca, so that means I still haven't seen my house condition back in Segamat yet.

Anyways, my grandma's birthday is usually a few weeks after CNY. It's really like another family gathering plus all the yummy food! Speaking of yummy food, most of my relatives including my mom and dad, think I've put on alot of weight :( My tummy is growing bigger everyday :o

Ok, let's get on to the pictures!

Our breakfast right after we reached Malacca!
Classic hot water flasks
Heee.. washing hands
Now, some pictures of our dinner...

Sharks fin soup
Lobster cold dish
Yummy prawns
Ehh.. don't know what is this called?
And the birthday celebration after dinner!

Grandma's double cake!
Happy birthday to my grandma!
Alot of candles to blow :P
Hungry againnnn...
Everyone waiting for the cakes :D
Now's the time for some fun! If you haven't tried iPhone's Old Booth Lite yet, here's what it does - turns us all into afro hippies! LOL. Check it out.

freaker :P
Chiang LOL
Uncle Chuan
Ah Liang
My dad aka Morgan Freeman ROFL (winner)
Caleb
Uncle Niam
Christopher
After eating the cakes and having lots of laughter, Chiang, Irene, Sally and I went back to our hotel. Of course we didn't sleep immediately. Chiang and I continued hunting monsters until I reached HR 3 :D Not bad at all, but still not enough time for us to reach our target - HR 7. The next morning, we had our breakfast in the hotel... but nothing special about the food there.

Breakfast at the hotel
Entrance to the hotel's ~~small~~ swimming pool
And then we went back to Singapore around 1030am. Hehe. Very short but enjoyable trip!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-23T23:20:00.007+08:00

This year's Valentine's Day is quite simple for us. It was on a weekday so half the fun is gone. But the other half is still great, with little surprises for both of us. This time Sally made arrangements for a nice dinner though she refused to tell me when until we got there. Truth is I'm a kind of person who can't take these kinda suspense. LOL. *struggle*

Anyway, my first surprise to Sally was a bouquet of flowers sent to her :D This is the first time I'm sending flowers directly to her office and I was pretty sure it'll brighten up her day ;) I have been carrying flowers to her personally in the past (which is really fun!), but this year it had to be an exception due to work :(

Bouquet of flowers for my darling ;)
At night, Sally arranged for a superb dinner in a nice, cosy restaurant in Somerset, called Oriole, which serves mainly western style food. These photos hardly justify the food's taste. I just couldn't capture them in their original glory.

This coffee is actually quite amazing :o
And this innocent looking cod fish pie is superlicious!
MUST TRY!
And this is Sally's lamb rack. Tender and juicy.
Though we agreed that we shouldn't buy any gifts this year to save abit of money for our upcoming wedding and house-related expenditure, we both lied. Sally got me a little surprise.

And I pretended I didn't buy anything for her until we went for dessert. Hahaha! ;) Gotcha darling! And as usual Sally can't beat me when it comes to surprises :D So here they are, the nice little gifts :D

My gift from Sally.. with a hand made ribbon!
And my gift plus a card for Sally ;)
Yey, look what I've got!
Woo hoo! I've got a pair of
spanking new Creative earphones ;)
And erm.. Sally's got a bottle of hand made hearts from me :D
Each carefully folded with loving thoughts ;)
Ohh.. hungry again. Let's continue to eat! Desserts!!
So that's all for us this year. Simple and happy.

Happy? Yes!
Happy Valentine's Day (again), darling!

The Rabbit Year

2011-02-13T01:20:00.012+08:00

Thanks to the flood this year, I couldn't go back to Malacca and Segamat for my Chinese New Year celebration :( It's not an entirely bad thing though. Yeah, I miss my family but this turns out to be a rare opportunity for me to experience CNY in Singapore, which I never did before! Woo hoo! Was it good? Well..

Actually the overall experience is this: It's quiet. Everyone's gone home. All the shops are close. Orchard road is pretty empty. Not a soul around.

-deafening silence-

Ok la, just kidding. It's quiet but isn't as bad as how I described it above. On CNY eve, Sally brought me to Chinatown. I've been warned that there will be a crowd, which is something I don't like for obvious reasons.. Ewww, imagine squeezing with those slimy, perspiring uncles walking down the jam packed streets. Not too very enticing. Oh well, we GO nonetheless! What's experiencing CNY in SG if we don't go down to Chinatown, yeah?

The crowd @ Chinatown
Are the lions coming?
We waited for the lions but nothing happened!
Actually Chinatown during CNY is like any pasar malam. There's alot of food, noise, people and stalls selling stuffs like souvenirs, etc. It kinda drizzled abit though. Making it harder to move about when everyone's trying to find shelter. And those aunties made it even worse by opening their huge umbrellas in the middle of the crowd, hitting people nearby on their heads.

Oohh.. Lights
So we got hungry again and decided to eat :D
On the first day of CNY we had lunch together with Sally's family. Well, I didn't take a photo of everyone though :P Forgot.

Oops, can't see the food too
Around 3pm, Sally and I, together with her sis, brother-in-law & niece accompanied her parents to the famous Guan Yin temple at Bugis. Nearby where I'm temporary staying now hehe. The crowd was HUGE :o

The crowd was organized into groups.
Too many people already!
Ok the gates are opened.. Slowly uncles & aunties, don't run.
And the uncles & aunties zoomed pass. Unstoppable.
More people going in..
Ok full already!! At this point, the next group of people
are already being organized. Whew!
Soniyha & Sally
Soniyha took this picture,
so I acted like a clown to amuse her
Soniyha wanted to take a picture of us.
Together with WeiYing and Siva
On the second day of CNY, we decided that we needed some form of exercise already! We've been eating and enjoying ourselves so much even way before CNY. We went to ECP for an evening cycle and we both miss the smell of sea water and the lovely breeze.

Taking a break and enjoying the sea breeze
Then on the third day of CNY we had this for dinner.

Wahahaha!
LOL. So much for exercising the previous day. Then again, who can resist KFC? ;) Not me!

We were suppose to go back to work on Monday but the power of laziness overwhelmed us so we slept in for another day. And went back to work on Tuesday. Ha. Not surprising :P

Yey, still got mandarin orange to eat :D
Sally cooked spaghetti for me :P
Ok, so that's about it for CNY 2011. It's like a short, relaxing break from our (actually more for Sally) busy work life. And what more with all the planning for our house and wedding. Weee.. Alot of exciting stuffs coming soon!

Oh and I got surprise ang pow from the directors of my company. Fancy that! And a bar of chocolates too ;)

Happy New Year people!
Coming up next! Valentine's Day! ;) Stay tuned!

Chiang's Wedding

2011-01-29T00:22:00.020+08:00

This entire month has been a busy one for us. We've been occupied with our house reno matters, shopping for furnitures & electrical appliances, preparing for our own wedding photoshoot and also attending wedding dinners! It's been the busiest of our busy period. My brother's wedding was held in KL in mid Jan. Qi's wedding was two days later. Marcus and Jamaica's wedding was on the immediate weekend. Like the whole world is suddenly getting married! :D Wah, happy for all the newly weds!

I'm going to talk abit about my brother's wedding here because I've got some photos to share and leave the rest for later.

Sally and I flew in to KL two days prior to my brother's wedding on a Friday morning. We took our usual Jetstar and the flight was ... alright, not too bad :P Though we did come across a lady sitting beside me whom we assume was on her first flying experience. She was looking out the window excitedly and told me to help her take a picture even when the plane was still on the ground.. Well, I thought people usually prefer some nice little clouds as background? LOL and she was also anxiously hugging onto her handbag though a stewardess politely and repeatedly told her to put it under the front seat during take off :P aiseh. relax la. Then half way during our journey, she ordered coffee but couldn't finish it because the plane was going to land soon! hahaha :P she thought she could enjoy a nice cup of coffee but the journey was too short, she had to keep the tray and hold on to the cup until the plane landed :D LOL! Anyway...

Sally enjoying her breakfast at Crystal Jade
So we reached about 230pm due to some delay and Fuon picked us up at the airport. It was like a 45mins drive before we reached Chiang's home. My parents were already there a week earlier. My elder bro, erm.. well, a whole month earlier. LOL. Chiang was running in and out buying and preparing stuffs for his gate crash the next day.

The groom's car
Two bears stuck at the front :D
Just married!
We rested for a while before helping to set up tables for food catering.

All lined up nicely!
Food, food, food!
Tireeeeeeed :P
Here, have a drink
Wahaha! Wash it! Wash it!
The next morning when we woke up, Chiang's 'xiong di' for the gatecrash session already arrived. Two of them happened to be my college classmates, Joo and Eugene.

Chiang with the 'xiong di's (some not in the picture)
Uhh.. Here we go!
While they went out to fetch the bride, the rest of us stayed back to do a second round of table setup for food catering and to hang the firecrackers :D Damn, we don't get to play firecrackers in Singapore :( Damn loud and powerful stuffs. Ok so, about two hours later, the gatecrash team came back all 1 piece. My elder bro lighted the firecrackers with a lighter because for some reasons, the joss stick didn't work. Whoops :P

Firecrackers! Red, loud and fun!
Sally and I helped with the tea ceremony for Chiang and Irene to serve our many relatives, oh and I got served too :P Haven't got the picture from him yet! Hehe!

Sally and I preparing
to help with the tea ceremony
The tea set :D
Everyone's doing this :D
Aiya, my elder bro didn't rotate the photos!
We had lunch after that and cleaned up the place. By the time we're done, it was almost around 4pm. So we rested for an hour or so before quickly jumping onto the couch for a few rounds of Need for Speed. That game is quite addictive and Sally tried it out too. She managed to finish the races so it's quite an achievement. I was half expecting her to quit abruptly :P Jia you, Sally! :D Haha! But I believe using a racing steering wheel would be a better controller for her. I guess non-gamers need some time to get used to ps3 controllers.

For dinner, I insisted we have KFC on top of the leftovers from lunch :P Everyone was like Huh? What? Really? .. You know lah, wanna eat but pretend to be health conscious :P We went ahead with KFC and everyone enjoyed it. Ohh, and those little KFC egg tarts are surprisingly quite good!

Some of our dishes :D
KFC egg tarts. Surprisingly good!
Really sinful stuffs..
But who cares? :P
Everyone's enjoying their meal
Eating all these food didn't stop us from going out for more. There was a night market nearby so Chiang, Irene, Big Bro (hm, how to address him in this blog huh), Fuon, Sally and I went out to explore. So when it comes to night market there's always the urge to try some food there :P

I can see the night market!
Bought a cold drink :D
And some little pancakes
with different flavour
Random people on the streets
Sally trying out some asam laksa
On Sunday morning, it was pretty relaxing. While Chiang and Irene were preparing some guest list stuffs, we were practically only playing ps3 games waiting for the wedding dinner :P We soon got bored and decided to go have tea break at PappaRich. Niceeee..

Steamed bread with peanut butter
PappaRich's white coffee is good
It's official. We're always hungry
Slurp!
freaker and Sally
About 530pm, we got ready to go to the dinner but not without taking some photos first :D We seldom dress up so everyone's excited and wanna have a picture taken :P

Mom and dad
It's us again :D
Everyone together now!
Overall the dinner was not too bad and I must say I'd give credit to the MC. He acts and talks like a lady, wears bling bling outfit and a pair of funky glasses, but he's a real funny guy. Very entertaining indeed. Even my parents and grandma were so amused by his jokes. He even speaks and sings fluently in multiple dialects. At times I felt like I'm attending one of those Taiwanese variety shows like Power Sunday or something. Haha.

Chiang and Irene
Chiang and Irene
in their second outfit
First dish came! I always forgot
to take photo of the rest :P
Waiting for more food!
Anyway, the following morning, it's time to say goodbye. Everyone woke up earlier to send us off. Kinda miss them because family gatherings like this are so hard to come by :( Sally and I took a cab to KLIA for our flight back to Singapore. So I'll be seeing my parents and Chiang again during Chinese New Year (yey! nice long break) and my elder bro during my wedding in May. Yep! My turn will be soon!

From left to right: Fuon, big bro, mom,
Irene, Chiang, dad, freaker and Sally
Ok that's all gotta rest. Will find time to blog again soon. Too many things to do and so little time. And I have so many things to talk about. Our wedding photoshoot, our house, etc. And yes, I'll find time!

Seremban Trip

2011-01-03T22:46:00.017+08:00

It's been awhile! :D

This round I'm gonna talk a little bit about our Seremban adventure! It was kind of a special trip because of the great company and yes, the food we had there. But let's talk about the entire journey rather than always quickly jumping into the yummy stuffs!

So, the purpose of this trip is to attend my colleague's wedding. We were invited and Vincent (oh the groom) helped arranged for transportation and accommodation. Now I guessed this whole trip wasn't just about attending his dinner. It was our first trip to his hometown and we get to hang out together with some other colleagues and his friends. And EAT.

The journey started on a lazy Saturday morning on December 18th, 2010. Sally and I met Alex and his wife, Janice, at Kranji MRT around 730am before we headed across the causeway on 170. There was a crowd but wasn't as bad as how we imagined. You know, pushing and shoving and screaming and biting. The crowd was all calm and quiet. Everything went smoothly and we exited Malaysian Customs at 830am. Too early. Our bus to Seremban was at 1030am! So we over-estimated the time but simply blamed Poh for it :P

Anyway, we decided to go to City Square for breakfast. Went to Old Town for a quick bite before we hopped on a cab to Larkin bus station at around 930am. Again, we reached at 10am which is still too early for us. Since the place stunk like crap, we decided to go to the nearest air conditioned area which happens to be KFC :D My favourite.

Ok, KFC is beside Pizza Hut
Waiting eagerly for our bus to arrive!
The bus came exactly at 1030am and we left 10 mins later. Nice. I like it when buses or trains leave on time. Ever waited for a bus for more than an hour? :P I bet all Malaysians do, at some point of time in their life. Ho Ho Ho.

Our Plusliner bus tickets :D
It's here! Double decker bus :D
Took a break from the 3-hour bus journey.
Here's the view from the resting area
We reached Seremban's ~~Terminator~~ Terminal 2 at around 230pm. This place is definitely bigger than my hometown :P We took a cab from the bus station to our One Heritage Hotel. Yes, the One and only Heritage Hotel. It was a new hotel, opened around Feb 2010. Room size was alright. Shower heater, check. Toilet bowl, check. Water, check. TV, check. Air-con controller, err they didn't have an air-con controller. I gotta climb on a side table to reach the air con to adjust the temperature, which by default was set at 20 degrees celsius. Brrrrrrr. Cold.

Seremban's Terminal 2!
Taken from the cab on our way to the hotel.
The driver told us alot of Vietnamese stay in this building?
One Heritage Hotel. Our destination!
The toilet. Ok, clean!
Not sure why they put this picture in our room
Brought two small packets of Cheezels (just in case)
It was only 3pm then, so we decided to look for food nearby. The neighborhood was relatively new and most shops were closed. We just wanted to fill our tummy so we decided on a simple coffee shop for late lunch.

Eat abit before dinner :P
By 4pm we were back at the hotel. Time to take a short nap, which is the best thing to do after a meal :D Yes, my tummy has grown. At around 540pm, I went down to the front desk to arrange for cab to bring us to the restaurant. What I thought would be a quick task ended up with me spending about 20mins sitting at the hotel lobby. There was this customer, a lady, hogging the front desk apparently upset over an issue. I sat on a sofa nearby and from her conversation with the receptionist, I finally figured she was upset because she wanted to book NINE (9) rooms and wanted SPECIFIC room numbers, which the receptionist was unable to provide. Some of the rooms were taken and some rooms don't have those numbers. Duh. Get over it. Loser.

Hmm. Then I wondered, why would anyone choose their room numbers? Feng shui meh? Cannot be lar. You stay in a hotel for 3 nights only. The Sha-Qi won't have enough time to turn your life upside down. Stupid. What else? Did she belong to some devil's cult? Maybe she needed the necessary room numbers to perform a ritual. Sure bo? Strike TOTO not so easy le. She didn't look like a witch. A bitch more like it.

Dropped by 7-eleven and guess what we saw!
Getting ready to go for dinner!
Small Christmas tree at the hotel lobby
Ok, so fast forward to 7pm, we reached the restaurant and er, couldn't recognize the groom. He looked very different without wearing his glasses. So now we totally understand what the director of Superman had in mind. He sure ain't kiddin us.

Took a picture with the groom
And of course, not forgetting the bride!
Waiting for dinner. Hungree!
First dish came! And I forgot to take
pictures of the other dishes :P
After the dinner, we took a cab back to our hotel. Instead of heading STRAIGHT back to our hotel, we were taken for a short joyride because the driver didn't know where our hotel was, despite insisting that he knew before we hopped on his cab. Fortunately, we did it the Malaysia-Boleh style and paid only the agreed RM8 for the ride instead of following the meter. What meter? No idea.

The next morning, Sally and I woke up earlier and went out for a morning walk. We explored the nearby rows of shop houses and dropped by a shop selling toilet accessories and sanitary wares. You know lah, now renovating house, suddenly got interests in all these stuffs. Ah, everything in RM :P Too bad they don't send these stuffs to Singapore.

Quiet morning around our hotel
Anyway, by 1015am, Vincent and the gang arrived at our hotel in a schoolbus. Woo hoo! School bus for us! Our goal of the day was to eat as much as we could. Try as much food as we can before we head back to Singapore :P Yes. Now this is interesting. Vincent promised Seremban would have nice food and fortunately his hometown didn't disappoint :D

So we hopped on the school bus, traveled from one location to another, trying out food from various coffee shops. It was pretty interesting because we don't get to do this very often :P And the old school bus seem to travel abit slower after each stop. Haha :P

First stop! Yi Poh 'Rat Tail Noodles'
Our noodles. Chewy to the core!
Preparing to eat!
Mixed pork organ soup :P
Special chilli! Fresh and potent but we didn't buy :P
Next stop! Another coffee shop.
Some kinda fishball soup dish. Very nice!
Ewww, what's that?
There! Our yellow school bus!
Ok, third stop! Bak kut teh!
One big pot for us to try
No, just kidding. Two pots!
After the bak kut teh,
Vincent insist we continue eating!
Ohh, and while waiting for food,
we noticed this public phone :P
Here comes the dish. It looks simple but no, it's not just simple.
It's evil! No words to describe. Must eat to try. Seriously!
Ok, time for Seremban Siew Pow!
Got website one. Dun play play.
Heee.. Let's go in and buy some Siew Pow!
People buying Siew Pows
Gigantic Siew Pows. There's a whole chicken
inside each of these buns.
Candies for us, courtesy of Vincent/Shirley
Finally after stuffing all we could into our tummy, we headed to Vincent's new house to rest. His house has very high ceilings, which I like, and which is something HDB flats don't have :P Ok, ok, let's not make comparisons or else this would go on forever! :) We spent about 2 hours at his place talking the usual nonsense until 5pm before we got ready to go back to Singapore.

Awww.. Time to go home!
Snacks, anyone?
Taking a break from the bus journey :D
Like all good things, this trip must come to an end. Hopefully we'll be able to do this another day, hanging out at a new place and just devouring as much food as we can! Or I don't mind if we could go hiking or something. Don't always eat lah, ho? :P

Our Very Own!

2010-12-06T23:29:00.004+08:00

The day we got our house keys! :D Happiness! Now waiting for renovation to commence.

Soon we'll have our own fridge. Our own TV. Our own air con. Our own study room. In fact, our own EVERYTHING! No more fightings for space in fridge. No more noise. No more toilet hoggings. YES!

Can't wait! :D :D

Another Year Older

2010-10-25T22:23:00.008+08:00

Well, what can I say? I'm another year older now :D More and more exciting things are coming! Sally and me are now busy planning our dream home and we're getting married next year! :D And we all know how time can just zoom past very quickly so it's good to try to slow down and enjoy the moment.

Try this. When you're idling, instead of letting your thoughts dwell in the past or future, try to just look around. Stop thinking and just observe your surroundings. It feels different :)

Ok, lets talk about my birthday.

So last week was actually a busy week for me. But a birthday's a birthday, so as usual I celebrated with Sally. It was kind of a two-part celebration like we always do :P And we had an early preemptive celebration on Saturday in case I'm forced to work like a cow on my actual birthday. In the afternoon, we went to collect our wedding bands, which we then decided to send it back to resize for more comfort. Nonetheless, we were very pleased with the bands! Then we had our lunch at Out of The Pan.

Me presenting the fish masala crêpe. Ooooh nice.
And Sally with her much healthier sliced chicken breast
Out of The Pan wasn't too bad. In fact I loved the fish masala crêpe. Quite powderful. I was like going "Whoaaa.." with every bite! Really nice!

Right after lunch we went to watch 'I love you, Phillip Morris', a gay comedy. Well, ok, so there wasn't any other interesting shows to watch. Some scenes were quite funny. And most other were rather ... hm. You know. I didn't puke but I have to admit I almost fell asleep. ALMOST. And Sally slept soundly.

For dinner (you see, we're both always eating so much), we made our way to Valley Point to have our Kuru Kuru (sounds cute!) Japanese buffet! Ok, a picture speaks a thousand words, so here you go! Two thousand words!

Meeee.. The lady behind spoil this otherwise perfect picture :-/
And this possible lobster culprit
that caused Sally her hives! :P
We ate and ate so much I actually felt guilty. And my tummy was so full I had a walk very slowly after that :P Lovely dinner!

Three days after that (we're not done with food yet), on the actual day, we met up again for dinner at Pizza Hut. This time to try the over-hyped 7 Cheese Pizza. 7 different cheeses on a pizza. Sounds dangerous :o Or is it?

Err. 7 cheese? Mana?
7 cheese? Well, beats me. I can't see or taste the 7 different cheeses. You won't even know if they only mixed TWO different cheeses and go "Hey sucker! Here's 7 cheeses!". Nice try Pizza Hut. Verdict? 4/10. Fail. It would have been 0/10 if not for those little cream cheese balls on each slice. Damn. They didn't meet my expectations.

While waiting for our desserts, a group of people nearby started singing a birthday song. Another Libra at Pizza Hut :-/ So I thought. Then came this bunch of Pizza Hut staffs singing and presenting me with a small slice of brownie with a candle. Oh it's for me. Paiseh. Thank you Sally ;) How sweet.

My birthday brownie :D
But of course that's not the end. She gave me a birthday present too! It's small but heavy, with a nice little card stuck on it :D So what's small and heavy? I guessed it was perfume.

Nice little present with a birthday card!
So what was it? *unwrap unwrap*

Err, how come got a Gundam on the wrapper!
*unwrap unwrap*

iPhone4!
Ok, I was really surprised. Didn't expect that at all! But yey! New phone :D So now I'm officially one of you iPhone addicts out there. To be honest, I didn't think I'd need an iPhone but it's been a week now and I'm like a hopeless addict. iPhone itself is nothing, but the apps that power it are life-changing.

And now I get to FaceTime with Sally too!

That wraps up my birthday celebration nicely. Good food, nice present and a sweet companion :) Now who wouldn't want time to slow down just abit?

Long Time No See

2010-10-14T22:11:00.006+08:00

Whoa, better blog now before I start to get busy again! Well, it depends. In the next few weeks, depending on fate, I'll either become extremely busy or I'll just sit back, relax and play some ps3 games I stole from my brother.

This month, we managed to catch up with a lot of our old friends and family. Some of whom we haven't seen in ages.

Last Tuesday, we had dinner with Alicia and Roseanna at the legendary GuoFu. Yeah, it's like everyone's favourite :P Both of them look happier and more relaxed now. But, of course, everyone who left GE indeed looked better than ever :P Working there with all the cowboys can be so unbearable :P

Anyways! On Friday the same week, we went for another round of steamboat, buffet this time at Joaquim. Met up with another bunch of ex-colleagues from GE! Well, some are still working there :P There are about twelve of us, everyone turned up so I was kinda glad. Half expected some of them not to turn up, but everyone did! (not in order): freaker, Sally, Chan Yee, Wan Yee, Chee Yong, Merwin, Naing, Amy, Mai, Mai's hubby Willy, Tony and his very tall girlfriend which I forgot her name.

Steamboat buffet @ Joaquim
Before we parted
Everyone look different now. More mature I'd say. Or old? I don't know. But everyone's still very chatty so it's a really good sign :) Sometimes it's not easy to maintain these kinda friendships. Everyone has a dream to pursue and that naturally causes people to drift apart.

So, I'm really happy to see everyone. Hopefully we can continue this for many more years to come!

The following day, me and Sally flew in to KL to attend my brother's ROM. It's a mass ROM for the 10.10.10 couples. On the morning of the flight, Sally suffered a nasty tummy ache and ended up eating very-drowsy-pills that made her sleep almost the whole day. She slept like a baby during the flight, in my brother's car and at home. Zzzzz...

Chiang's home in Setia Alam
We had dinner in a restaurant and celebrated my dad's birthday at home afterwards. We ate too much as usual, so no big deal. Too bad my elder brother isn't around to celebrate this event together :P So the very least we could do is to upload the photo to Facebook and tag him to the cake. Taa daa!

My dad cutting the cake with his
trademark I'm-very-serious look
Ok, that's everyone minus my elder brother
The next day was the 10.10.10 mass ROM thingy. A staggering 285 couples. Luckily my brother was .. erm, no.25? But yeah, it was pretty fast so there's no hassle at all.

Chiang and Irene before the event started
Family group photo. My dad looked surprised
We flew back on Monday and now it's all back to work again. Sigh... And all of a sudden, I have this urge to go for a holiday in Phuket again. The beach, the spa :o Yes, we're definitely going back there!

Ok, that's it.

Mom's Birthday 2010

2010-09-21T21:25:00.004+08:00

Earlier this month we made a trip back to Segamat. It's been the longest time! Things look the same at home. Both my parents are still busy as usual, in fact busier than us. Good to know that because an idle mind is the devil's workshop.

So me and Sally went back to celebrate my mom's birthday over the weekend. It's kinda short really, but still good enough. Here's some photos of the food we had :D

My mom with Fuon and Sally
CURRY! Eat, eat, eat, eat...
Simple and delicious!
Looking forward to our next trip back! But the next stop will most likely be KL first :)

A Quick Update :)

2010-09-01T22:44:00.003+08:00

Hey all, ok so it's been a quiet August. Actually we've been busy running up and down settling our house matters. Weekends are totally packed. Whew.

Anyway, it's still too early to blog anything about it now. Still going through the official paperworks and also exploring various ideas for the internal design. Modern contemporary. Cosy. Affordable. Hmm, hopefully it's all good.

Work, as usual sometimes busy like mad, sometimes not too bad. Can't wait for another trip wherever it is. It's been some time already and we miss phuket very much! The Deluxe Plus room :o :o

I've been playing Peace Walker recently and that somehow got me very interested in the Cold War topic. It's an era of tense relationship between the US and Soviets, the age of spies and espionage, and the situation was so bad it almost led to a nuclear war. It's amazing I only learn about it now. I wonder why our history lessons didn't teach us about it? Or I wasn't paying attention?

And more interestingly, we'll be heading to Segamat Resort this week. Yes! It's been a long, long time. Home sweet home. It'll be only over the weekend but it's definitely something we look forward to. No tall buildings, quiet streets, spacious and relaxing home, away from the hustle and bustle of everyday city life. Sweet.

The next few months will see us continue to run back and forth all the way until we're officially hubby and wifey! Time flies. My proposal to Sally 6 months ago felt like yesterday. The whole Mount Faber thingy. Amazing :)

Alright, more to come soon!

Second Year Together!

2010-07-29T20:19:00.007+08:00

Ok, this entry is way overdue! Freaker & Sally is two years old, exactly two weeks ago! Great thing is we're still as mushy as ever and it seems like only yesterday we first held hands at Clarke Quay. And now, two exciting years just zoomed past!

So we've been busy looking for house :D Yey that's a really wonderful thing though the whole process can get a little bit tiring at times. But we'll leave that for another time.

For this entry, I'll just recap on the nice little dinner we had to celebrate our two year old relationship :D

So the best way to celebrate is to go back to where it all started! Clarke Quay. Nothing beats the riverside view at night but more importantly, this place carry so much sweet memories of our earlier days :)

So we went to Peony Jade and ordered a 6 course dinner. While waiting, I passed my bag to Sally and told her to get the camera inside. And inside, I hid a present to surprise her ;) Well I've used this kinda trick before, hiding a box of Brilliant Rose ear studs under my pillow for her last year. But hey it still works :P To my surprise, Sally actually bought something for me too. And that's really sweet because I actually didn't expect it! :P

So let's see what we had!

Our gifts for each other!
Godiva chocolates for Sally
And a watch with a FoxHound emblem for Freaker!
Never mind if you don't get it :P :P
Ok, I actually bought a card for Sally this time and guess what? It'll probably be the last time I buy a card. No, not because I won't be giving her cards anymore, but I'd rather really buy materials and make my own. Why? Because commercial cards come with pre-written messages which, unfortunately do not convey what I truly want to say.

So next time, Sally will be getting hand made cards from me, but they will be simple ones like the previous few that I did :) Ok. Now. The food!

Stir-fried Boxer Chicken and
Crispy Soft Shell Crab
Braised Shark's Fin with Crab Meat
Baked Cod Fish with Chef's Sauce
Baked Pork Rib with Garlic Sauce
Crispy Noodles with Seafood Soup
This dish is actually quite potent despite its humble look!
Pan-fried Pancake and Lemon Grass Ice-Cream
Hehe! I'm having nice food!
Two year old Freaker & Sally. Still the same!
Hanging out after dinner to enjoy the night view

Alright! That's it. I'll be posting again soon!

Oh. One more thing. I actually wanted to put up a new banner for our blog to mark our second year, but I kinda like the current one, so we'll leave it for now :)

Sally's Birthday!

2010-07-07T22:28:00.005+08:00

Last week was Sally's birthday. We celebrated earlier on a weekend so that we can have the whole day to ourselves. Since we're both on super-savings mode now (for our wedding and house), celebration also have to tone down abit la :P

Fortunately, a small celebration is not necessarily uninteresting. Haha. So, Sally came down to town around lunch time because I wanted her to have enough sleep. Then, instead of my usual tricks of hiding things around, I left her a self-made birthday card on the table. And inside, a list of dates (important dates!) of the memorable milestones in our almost-two-year-old mushy relationship!

Kick start budget celebration with Gummy!
When I wrote down the list, it didn't all just come naturally from my memories. Two years is a long time, so I had to dig, double-check and confirm the dates were right from MSN chat histories, SMS messages, blog entries (here!), letters, train tickets, etc. And some from the dark recesses of my subconscious mind. But I still got one of the dates wrong (the xmas eve event), which was quickly spotted by Sally. Oh well. :P My bad.

For lunch, we went to Crystal Jade, which we both love for its steamboat, minced chicken with tofu and fatty pork :D

After that we went to Cathay for Toy Story 3! Now, the first two movies were shown so long ago I even cannot remember their storylines. Not that it matters anyway :P

Highlight of the day is our dinner of course! I did a little bit of research to find a nice, quiet place for the both of us. And I wanted something different. So I brought Sally to the Old Parliament House to have Vietnamese cuisine @ Viet Lang. Not too bad at all! Nice and cozy couple seat. We had their unique Imperial rolls, braised cod fish and mango salad with shrimp. Here's some pictures, though I missed out most of the food :P

On the outside!
On the inside!
The mango salad with shrimp :P
Both of us sitting on a nice and cozy seat!
Our second year together is about a week from now. Let's see how I can plan for another small and nice celebration :)

Our Phuket Trip

2010-06-07T22:08:00.021+08:00

Hehe, both of us have been very busy recently. Wedding's a year away but we're already on full-steam planning for our big day. Piece of cake? Hardly. It's no easy task but to be involved in the process itself is quite enjoyable, though tiring. Appointments, decisions, dates, budget, etc. It's like managing a big project. Mission critical too. Hehe :D

Two weekends ago we manage to find time to make a trip to Phuket. Well, actually not exactly the case, because we planned this all the way from January this year. It was a 5d 4n trip. We stay at Baan Karonburi for the first night and then at Hilton Phuket Arcadia Resort for the subsequent nights. We made it a point to relax the entire trip because we didn't wanna go back feeling tired from running around. This in fact is a very much deserved break from our work and wedding plans.

Early on Thursday morning, 27th May, we took a cab to Changi airport. It was already pretty crowded. Public Holiday on Friday (Wesak) so not too surprising. We had a quick but yummy BK breakfast before flying off. Actually any breakfast is yummy to me :P

BK breakfast!
If you like Coke Lite, you'd probably
wanna try TayHongHuei Lite too!
On the way!
We reached Phuket around 930am. After checking out and grabbing a Phuket map from the airport, we took a cab to our first stop - Baan Karonburi. We reached by 11am after a wild & bumpy ride and manage to check-in immediately because there were few customers :P Nice. Everyone loves early check-ins and late check-outs.

Fooooooood. Ok, actually this one abit extreme.
Too many things on the plate we didn't know
what we were eating :P
mmotthh..thoof..fummll
(That's exactly what I said)
Seaview from our room
Small swimming pool
After our meal, we rest for a while before heading to Jungceylon. It was one of our shopping destination and we wanted to see the night life @ Patong. Here are some pictures.

Sawadee Ka.
Bet a million you didn't know Ronald McDonald is a Thai!
Me @ Jungceylon
Elephant engraved onto the wall?
Live Thai kick-boxing. But quite expensive ah
Fish spa is cheaper :P
Looks like Ikan Bilis. It's quite ticklish too!
Oh, and when you walk into Jungceylon,
the security guard salutes to you.
But that's me :P
Some small night market behind Junceylon
The stall owner deep frying some food for us
We walked around Bangla road and managed to buy some food and souvenier for our friends before calling it a day. Patong is more lively at night compare the Karon beach, where we were staying. And the traffic is horrible too. There were zebra-crossings but motorbikes and cars zoom past them like nobody's business. Something like what you will get in Malaysia too. Perhaps they think it's really for zebras :o

The next morning, we had breakfast before heading out to the beach. The sea was quite rough and there weren't many people.

Hello superstar!
By noon, we had a quick lunch before saying goodbye to Karonburi and made our way to Hilton Phuket Arcadia Resort. It was a short distance away so we carried our bags and walked all the way there. But by the time we reached the back entrance, we were already drenched in sweat. To make things worse, the resort was so huge we lost our way inside looking for the reception. Really.

Back entrance
Fortunately, we bumped into a staff there who told us to wait for the next erm.. transport (actually a bigger version of tuk-tuk) to take us around to the reception wing. Whew. Hot. Sweating. Need aircon.

After I checked-in, the receptionist told us that we had to wait for 30 minutes before the room is ready. It was 2pm (check-in time) and we have to wait another 30mins?? Out of this world. We asked for another room but were told that it was impossible because they were already full. Seriously, a 5-star resort telling a customer they had no choice although this booking was made since January? We even requested for early check-in! Puit!

Sally was so furious her eyes were blazing with fire. The receptionist trembled with fear and had no choice but to get the manager to talk to us. The manager tried to explain but it wasn't acceptable. Reputable hotels like Hilton shouldn't even try to explain! They should solve the problem immediately, which fortunately the manager did :D - by upgrading our room to a Deluxe Plus and giving us a complimentary bowl of fruits. OK, that's better. No. Actually that's how it should work. Customers are always right!

The very comfortable bed
The "in-door" reading area
The bathtub. My favourite
The wash basin
The shower area
The bowl of fruits we deserve
The balcony
The seaview from our room!
Ok, I missed out a picture which is the small pantry area. Damn! Never mind, next time we'll go back there again :P After a quick shower, we're venture out to Phuket town. Well actually to be more precise, we went to Central Festival Mall. It's .. erm like a big shopping mall that you can find in Singapore actually. Haha.

Tired. Need a drink :P
Then we had yummy food again.
Here's a sample. LOL
Highlight of the day - Cheraim Spa
Yes, we did a 3-hour super satisfying Spa. Amazing. Though quite ticklish for me at some point. After the 3 hour massage, we felt totally relaxed! This is my first time doing massage/spa and I was quite reserved at first, but the experience is so good I'll definitely do it again :o

After the spa, we went back to our resort around 11pm and watched TV until we fell asleep. We spent the next two days hanging around the resort relaxing, eating, swimming, reading, sleeping, etc.

Paradise is right here!
Love the pool and waterfall!
A huge lake in the resort
Small lil' hut for spa
Someone enjoying life
Tea time!
Followed immediately by dinner :P
Thai girl showing some skills

On Monday, 31st May early in the morning, we dragged our reluctant asses out of bed to catch breakfast before heading to the airport. Like all holidays, there's always the time when you have to pack and go back home. Well, it's not all bad really. More importantly we managed to relax and spend some quality time together.

After this trip, it'll be awhile before we fly again. Now we're back to our busy schedule and I already can't wait for our honeymoon!

We've Got Our Dates!

2010-04-20T22:32:00.004+08:00

And now... the real planning starts ;)

Here we go agaaaaain!

It's About Time

2010-03-29T12:49:00.026+08:00

Adventure of a lifetime!

Ahh, too much energy to expend. Need to get some sunlight too. No, not just some sunlight. I need all the sunlight I can get! Let's go hiking maybe? Nope, Bukit Timah is a bit too hardcore. I'm a lazy bum. But I reaaaaally need to climb on top of some hill. To.. well, get the sun. Mount Faber sounds good. I heard the air up there is quite fresh too.

Last week, I suggested to Sally that we should do something different for our weekend. Our weekends have been quite relaxing but routine. Movies, jogging, going out for breakfasts, watching TV at her place and sometimes shopping. Perhaps it's time we do something more adventurous. Let's go hiking! We can explore nature. We can see the different trees and animals *ahem* :) and we get some sunlight too! Yes. Sunlight.

Sally thought that if we really wanna go hiking, we should try Bukit Timah. Honestly, I didn't expect her to be so hardcore. But I insisted that we should go Mount Faber. Well, firstly, it's not too high and we're not very experienced hikers. I don't really wanna hike, I just wanna exercise abitttt. It's near to Vivo City too, so that means we get to have lunch at Kim Gary after our climb :P More importantly though, is the fact that we get to climb up some hill and get the morning sunlight. I find myself acting weird but she didn't suspect a thing. Of course not. There wasn't anything suspicious. Maybe she did, but I looked totally innocent.

On Saturday morning, March 27, 2010 both of us form the "Mount Faber Team!" (yes, the exclamation mark is part of the name) and left for Vivo City around 645am. Haha! It was easy to find our way there. Exit D. We reached Marang Trial, one of the many different entrances to ascend Mount Faber. Nice. The morning air was fresh and I was totally looking forward to this moment!

Vivo City in the morning
Mount Faber Team! Go!
We wasted no time and went off eagerly along Marang Trail. Then for some reasons, we started sweating profusely on the 3rd flight of steps, hehe, no that's not because we lack exercise! Must be the humidity in the forest. But the air around us was so cooling we didn't mind the sweat at all. Here are some photos I took along the way.

The entrance! Beware of hungry and ferocious
monsters awaiting brave adventurers!
And the various deadly traps along each flight of stairs!
Yey, half way through and no monsters sighted!
Eh, where's Sally?
Oh there she is. Are we lost?
Sally thinks we should go this way.
Right. There's only one way.
A signboard! We're safe!
Ah, nice view. And the air
has never been fresher!
Oh wait, there's civilization right ahead of us!
Is that a ray of sunlight? Let's go check it out!
I mean check out the sunlight.
I bet Sally's checking out some hunks.
Ahh, finally. So we got to the spot where the morning sun was shining brightly. It was about 8am. While Sally was busy looking around, taking photos and enjoying the fresh air. I took out a small brown box and opened it for her. What's inside?

Energy bar snacks?

Morning breakfast sandwich?

Or, how about a Brilliant Rose solitaire diamond ring?

Well, it's about time :)
You can imagine the amount of "Gasp!" I heard from Sally. I didn't count :) I told her to stand properly as I was about to pop the question. Then I went down on my knees, facing the sun so that the diamond ring could shine in its awesome and stunning brilliance.

Will you marry me?

Sally was so shocked she looked at me for a moment before nodding her head quickly. I bet she didn't expect that! Gotcha right there! I didn't quite expect her reaction too. Given her jovial and playful nature, I expected her to at least throw some tests on me to proof my sincerity. But I guess I moved too swiftly and my secret mission was kept under wraps all too well. Priceless. Since I was in a naughty mood, I didn't accept her nod as acknowledgment.

I can't hear you? ;) I continued to prod.

Yes, I do, she said, looking more composed this time and smiling away.

I win. Again.

So I revealed to her the reason why I wanted to go on a hiking trip to get the sunlight. Sounds crazy because people usually catch sunrise or sunset. Well I wanted direct sunlight so that the diamond can bling bling to the max in its own glory. It worked out pretty good in the end. Did she cry? Well, that, you will have to ask her yourself ;)

It's all hugs, kisses and alot of photos.

A closer look.
Another one.
All smiles!
Then actually we continued to ascend :P
No, we're not done yet.
A bus load of tourists coming!
Footpath to the peak.
Ehh, this guy looks familiar.
What's he doing up here?
Both of us sitting at Mount Faber peak.
We've finally conquered it!
Diamond ring with the sky as backdrop.
Satisfied with our adventure this morning, we descended happily towards Vivo City to have our Kim Gary lunch. I'm a big and loyal fan of Kim Gary's Iced Ying Yong and their Chicken Chop Baked Rice with Cheese. Delicious. Sally as usual, had very spicy stuff :P

Ooo, spicy stuffs
My cheese baked rice!
Vivo City is a place we used to hang out very often when we started dating. So we just stayed awhile and took some photos.

Makes me feel close to the sea again!
Is that universal studios? Not sure leh.
A cruise liner docking nearby.
If you think it's all over, I actually have one more little surprise for Sally. Last week on Tuesday, I went out to buy materials to make a personalized card for Sally. Since this is a special day, I wanted to write down a few words about how far we've gone in our relationship. Here are some photos taken during the whole card-making process.

Roughly dot the outline of a fat heart shape.
Then connect the dots like a schoolboy.
Cut it out nice and easy.
Stick it on the front like this!
Inside is a polaroid photo of us when we started dating.
That was so long ago and now we're engaged!
It's amazing to see how far we've gone :)
To the left side of the card will be
my mushy message to Sally.

Polaroid photo taken by Huili at Ben & Jerry's
Gotta make my own envelope too.
There, nice and easy.
It is a really simple card with a short message, but Sally was clearly touched by it so that's the most important thing.

Whew! After all the effort, we ended our day nicely having international buffet at Olive Tree @ Intercontinental Hotel. Who cares about weight now? We're engaged so let's eat, eat and eat!

It's us again!
At 815pm, a hotel staff approached us to inform us that the hotel is participating in Earth Hour, therefore all lights will go off from 830pm to 930pm and candles will be lit on all tables. Nice! That's exactly what we needed for a romantic dinner. We help to save the earth too :)

Romantic candle light!
Now that we're engaged, our next concern will be wedding dates, dinners and more photos! But for now, we're just gonna sit back, relax and enjoy abit more before we start planning again!

Ready? Get Set! ...

2010-03-22T15:15:00.025+08:00

Ok, looks like there's alot to catch up after the CNY holidays. Let's recap on the things I did. During the week-long break, I spent like four days in Malacca. When I was like 10 years old or so, CNY holidays were the best days in my life! I would play firecrackers with my bros and cousins, swim in the sea, collect seashells in the evening during low tide, chase my grandma's dogs and eat alot of junk food!

"Ting Ting", my grandma's doggie
Those were the days. But we're now all adults and things changed. I still love CNY holidays, but not because of the same crazy fun I had when I was a kid. I love it because it's our longest annual break from our daily work and routines. It's also the only time when I get to meet most of my high school friends, since everyone is now scattered all over. And when we meet up, our conversation topics are pretty much limited to our working life and job locations LOL. Well, that's because everyone is just moving around. I guess the topics will change when we all get married and have a family. Perhaps some people might not even have the time to meet up in the future.

My Meh Meh's (aunt who took care of me
when I was a little kid) cooking!
I spent all four days in Malacca doing pretty much nothing except eating, sleeping and playing my PSP. Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops. Nice game. In fact I played through the entire game within that period. Nothing much to do anyway. Due to land reclamation activities, there's no longer a sea behind my grandma's house. Now there's only streets and lights. Kinda sad when I think about it but hey, nothing is permanent.

When I got back to Segamat, Sally came by to stay with us in Segamat Resort for the remaining days. I brought her out to meet some of my high school friends, some of which were already introduced to her in Singapore. LOL. Anyway, so we spent the time relaxing, going out for breakfasts and watching TV! Here are some random photos.

Mom & Dad's passion fruits are growing!
Something made my dad suggest we get red wine.
Hmmm..
Heh, took both me and my bro to
open the bottle. Noobs!
Segamat big wanton noodle! Not bad, not bad
My dad's ultimate cooking
Eat, eat, eat!
Proof that the food is really good!
Two weeks after the CNY break, my parents made a trip down to Singapore. Amazing. Although my dad came to settle some stuffs, it's still remarkable. He's someone who rarely travels and coming to Singapore is like a big thing! I managed to persuade him and mom to stay for two nights so that they won't be rushing and Sally can bring them around :P

Mom & dad. Awww.. so sweet!
Just like old times eh?
We brought them to Science Center to watch the Body Worlds Exhibition. Too bad cameras are not allowed so I can't post any pictures here :P But honestly I kinda enjoyed the section on animal anatomy more than human anatomy :P Maybe animals are more interesting creatures. Have you seen Avatar? Hehe, their creatures are kinda cool. Hehe, anyway the exhibition was quite educational and I think my parents enjoyed it.

The remaining time was spent on shopping and food. 10% shopping and 90% food. Crystal Jade, Jumbo Seafood, Din Tai Fung and the amazing wanton noodle that my mom loves so much :D Well there isn't much we can do anyway. I don't think my dad likes shopping centers so... the next best thing to do is to explore Singapore food! The next time they visit, we'll probably bring them to try out street food :D yum yum reminds me of the food we had during our KL trip @ Petaling Street!

A week after that, we traveled to Malacca to celebrate my grandma's birthday. I wanted Sally to come along so that she could see the place where I spent most of my CNY holidays. Hehe, and also for her to visit Malacca too :P It was quite a short trip really. We had to stay a night in a nearby hotel because there isn't enough rooms in my grandma's place for everyone.

The day we arrived, we had breakfast right opposite the house.

Duck noodle opposite my grandma's house
In the afternoon, we went out with my bro and his fiancee, Irene, to Jonker Street to try out some of the food there. It rained a little but didn't bother us too much. Hmm yeah food again :P No wonder we're all putting on so much weight hehe. We didn't do much in the afternoon except just hanging around the house. Sally tried to play with the doggie but was ignored most of the time hehehe.

Food galore! Non-stop action! :P
Malacca river? Eh.. not too sure :P
At night we had a 10-course meal in a Teo Chew restaurant. The food was alright. In fact, this is the very same restaurant we come year after year to celebrate our grandma's birthday. Maybe Teo Chew people just gotta eat Teo Chew food.

Grandma making her birthday wish :D
The following morning, we had breakfast at the hotel but I'm not gonna elaborate further because it was horrendous. Awful. Totally evil. The only thing good about the hotel is the room size, super strong air con and high ceiling :D We left Malacca right after lunch. Weekend is over so everyone's gotta go back to their own routine. Time flies when you're enjoying yourself eh?

This weekend we're planning to go Mount Faber. Not the highest peak in Singapore though. Probably nothing interesting there except for scenic view? Hopefully there's fresh air up there. But that's not the point. I kinda thought that we should do something different and it's been a long time since we took alot of photos together. And I haven't been there before so I'm sure it'll be one of our memorable moments :P Let's see if we can catch sunrise!

Avatar 2: Freaker loves Sally (version)

2010-02-18T12:07:00.003+08:00

If you haven't heard of the Avatar blockbuster sequel already, here's a leaked preview of the new casts in the much anticipated movie of all time.

Freaker and Sally, the new casts in Avatar 2.
LOL. Groundbreaking. Coming soon to cinemas near you!

Before The Fearsome Tiger Year

2010-02-11T19:30:00.008+08:00

I'm in SEGAMAT! It's been a really long time since I last came home. I guess, 3 months? Yeah, I didn't manage to arrange a time to come back, so it kinda delayed until the new year break. So since now I have all the time in the world to blog, let's see...

Last weekend, me and Sally decided to celebrate our Valentine's Day earlier. No choice ah, since it's on the same day as CNY and I gotta go back to my family and spend some time in Malacca. But yeah, she's still gonna join me in Segamat Resort on the 17th. Meantime, we'll just stay at home and miss each other. LOL.

On Saturday, we went for a movie in the evening. We watched Tooth Fairy. Erm, okok lah, not a very serious movie but it managed to tickle my funny bone abit. After that, we went to Tao's Restaurant for dinner. We needed good and affordable food, so I did abit of research on the web and found that this place has got quite a few good reviews. Modern pacific cuisine. Yum yum, take a look..

Hmm, I wasn't looking at the camera :P
A couple of refreshing love potion.
Bacon and mushroom gratin.
Fruit and salmon salad.
Mushrooms! Sally loves 'em.
Ah.. They call it the rose apple tea.
But it's not made from the rose apple fruit.
It's just rose and apple mixed together.
Very refreshing nonetheless.
Cream mushroom and sharkfin melon herbal soup.
Very nice and tender pork rib.
Highly recommended!
Sally had a little lamb... little lamb... little lamb
Poached pear.
Cheese cake, which is not as good as Sally's.
Ok, so as usual, like last year, I went to the florist again to get some red roses. When I was at the counter, I saw this really cute, white teddy bear. Being my usual self, I gave it a gentle pat on the head. LOL. The lady behind the counter found it amusing and thought that I liked it, so she brought me to see a few "rose patterned bear" to go with the flowers. Well since this is the first time I've heard of such plush toys, I thought it'd be a really nice surprise for Sally.

On Sunday morning, I went to collect them before I headed to CCK. The florist kept both the flowers and the bear in the refrigerator. I wonder why. Was the weather too hot for the bear? Did the bear refuse to let go of the flowers? Ok, never mind. Thankfully the journey was bearable, unlike last year when I sent flowers to Sally on her birthday. Ok not gonna repeat the story.

Sally looks happy with her flowers and bear.
Aww... Forever friends!
I've got a gift and card too! Luxury bed sheets :D
For lunch, we met up with Sally's friends to celebrate Juliana's belated birthday at Watami in Central. The food was good. Lian did a good job selecting all the dishes and you should really see her kung fu style of picking. Extremely fast. Give her the menu and she goes like "I want this, this, this, this and this" and before you know it, all the yummy food appeared! This one must learn from her ah. Very convenient. Usually I have a hard time trying to decide what to eat.

Juliana making a million-dollar-wish.
Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the food we ordered in Watami. So yeah, that's about our weekend. I'll blog again after CNY so hopefully there'll be more stories to report!

Another Year Is Almost Gone!

2009-12-28T23:05:00.013+08:00

Wheeeeeeee! Time FLIES!

Another year is almost gone now. Kinda speechless actually.

Ok, we had a few gatherings because we're all in a holiday mood. That's a good thing. Sometimes we need these occasions otherwise it'll be quite difficult to catch up with everyone.

I think I'll start with Fang's birthday. We celebrated earlier on a weekend. Went out with Sally and a group of friends for a drink. I think that birthday girl looks kinda happy. Of course we're all happy too ;)

There IS a reason behind that smile! ;) *ahem*
On X'mas eve, we're given half day off so I met up with Sally in the afternoon and we started our gift exchange immediately :P Haha! No need to wait for x'mas :P Too eager!

Mine's with the small small writing
I've got my kick ass Razer Naga!
And Sally's got her Coach!
And as usual, my second little surprise for Sally!
Some chocos on X'mas to sweeten it ;)
Later in the evening, we went over to Huili's place. Sally and myself had our dinner before heading there so we just played some games. Ok well I didn't really play because I can't drink (yeah, drinking games) so I ended up as a time-keeper :P It's kinda exciting too. All I have to do is look at the hourglass and scream "Yo, time's up!" and see those disappointed faces LOL.

ZhiWei took the photo so he's not inside
The girls also had a gift exchange session. And oh yeah, we did a count down too. But not sure if Huili's time was accurate onot :P Looks like we're the only bunch of rowdy people screaming Merry Christmas in Punggol. Too quiet leh :-/

Then finally on X'mas itself, we hang out Xin Lerh's place for dinner. Nice place and alot of yummy food and desserts. Everyone promised to exercise after that but not sure how many actually did it :P Definitely not me hehe. Totally unforgivable.

Kinda like the decorations :P Got X'mas feel!
Trying to make "popiah" but turns out to be slightly squarish
Cheesecake and fruits
This weekend will be the end of the year 2009. Woo hoo. Still holiday mood. Then Chinese New Year. Yey, another week long break. But once that's over, it's gonna be full steam chu chu train ahead.

Let's hope we all get a good year ahead. As for this year, let's try to remember all the good stuffs, throw away all the bad ones, and pass all the smelly ones to your enemies.

Enjoy the last few days in the year folks!

Food For Thought

2009-12-08T23:42:00.004+08:00

Sally preparing the dishes
When I left GE, I told Sally I'll make it a point to see her on weekdays at least once a week. We used to see each other everyday, so in order to keep a healthy, loving relationship, some things gotta be done. That's when the whole "Sally's cooking tonight!" thing came about. I go over to her place, she cooks for me :D

Now, I kinda think that I should tell the whole world that Sally's done an extraordinary job. She cooks great dishes, I tell you - especially her humble-looking soup, damn good ah! And cooking for someone shows a great deal of love. So, really, she's been such a wonderful girlfriend.

Some fish :D Hehe!
Humble-looking but delicious-tasting soup
When I look back at some of the photos of the dishes she cooked, I think I should at least post a short blog about it. All those efforts must not go unnoticed and I appreciate every single bowl of soup she has cooked.

And not every guy out there gets these kinda treatments from their girlfriends :P Muahaha..

So yeah, love ya darling Sally!

Our Second KL Trip

2009-11-25T22:47:00.019+08:00

Yep, our second annual trip! Haha! Our stay in KL is slightly longer, but that's because we deserve it :P

We flew in this time because taking a coach would mean a longer journey, so we thought we should try out something different. Turns out to be quite good :D The flight itself was like 30mins or so, and then the KLIA express train to KL Sentral was around 25mins so it's all good.

Our flight tickets :D
On the KLIA Express train
Imagine taking a 5-hours bus journey. Whew.

We stayed in Corus Hotel, which isn't the best hotel out there, but it's really convenient for us because we wanna run up and down. Hehe. After checking-in and rested for abit, we walked around Bukit Bintang. It was like a shopping heaven for Sally but the only place there that excites me was Low Yat. Hehe, big difference huh? :P Hahaha.

When I was studying/working in KL, I don't really hang out in B.B. but I've definitely come here a few times. Since then, alot of things have changed and everything looks almost new to me. Well, except Sungei Wang. Yeah, same old Sungei Wang. It was so nostalgic even when we just stepped into the building. Same colour, same smell :) Aww..

Inside Pavillion, but can't see what's behind :P
Christmas decoration outside Pavillion
Oh yeah, and we bumped into Greg and his girlfriend.

But as usual, that whole B.B. area is totally crowded and when it started raining, the traffic was horrible. There's mud and water even on the pedestrian walkways so it's kinda difficult to move about. Not surprised. Nobody bothers about pedestrians in Malaysia anyway. LOL :P

Oh yeah, somehow, that kinda reminds me of something which I MUST say. The first time I came to Singapore - and the first time I took the escalator here, I felt that it was abit ... too fast. No seriously, the escalator in Singapore is FAST. When I go up an escalator in Malaysia, I can almost doze off.

It ... is ... very ... the ... slow.

Yeah, or maybe it's just me. But try it for yourself. And the LRT .. it smells. The lights are dim, maybe because they don't bother to clean it. And when you take a train, it's almost like you're in a dark/horror movie setting. Like from Max Payne? Have you seen it? Yeah something like that. Ok enough complains. If you wanna read more, try this and see what I think about the KTM service in Malaysia on our first trip. Not gonna repeat the whole story again.

Anyway, on the same night, we went to Petaling Street. Weee, crowded as usual but we're there for the food! Unfortunately, quite a big part of it was closed down due to renovation. But guess what? We still managed to get this so called famous Air Mata Kuching, which is reaaally good. So good we bought 4 packets and 1 extra cup to drink while we waited for the famous Wantan Mee and famous Hokkien Mee. Nabeh, everything here seems to be famous.

Sally @ Petaling Street
Yeah, that's the famous Air Mata Kuching :D
I highly suspect all these famous stalls are self-proclaimed :P Don't trust them k? But the famous Wantan Mee is damn good. The char siew is totally heavenly!

Looks disgusting, but trust me it's reaaally good!
On Day 2, we hanged out at Sunway Pyramid to meet my ex-colleagues. Had Hong Kong food for lunch. Not too bad, but the star of the day is this cute little boy. Check him out! So cute eh?

LayKhuan and KiatHin's baby boy.
He kinda look more like his dad though :P
I kinda took a few photos of him but totally forgot about our group photo :-/ Too bad, gotta wait until next year then :P Hehehe. My fault. Right after lunch, we went shopping and then stopped by A&W for tea break. Yep, there's no A&W in Singapore so this is like our only chance to eat it!

Root beer float, curly fries and ice-cream waffles.
What else can be better?
Around 4pm, we headed back to prepare for my cousin's wedding dinner @ Hotel le Meridien. So yeah, this is the first time I introduce Sally to the family members on my dad's side. The food and ambience was really good and comfortable. And we've got a live band too. Here are some photos:

A quick couple photo before we left the hotel ;)
Together with my dad, mom and bro
Sally and mom after the dinner
Another couple photo after the dinner
Day 3! Our most exciting day, which we planned a Genting trip. We bought a 9am bus ticket and when we reached the station at exactly 9am, we saw the bus departing right before our eyes. Holy shit. A bus departing on time in Malaysia? I almost died laughing.

Fortunately, there was a couple of seats left on the 930am-bus so we took that instead. The bus journey was OK and it took us like 30mins to the Genting Skyway, which we then took a cable car up to Genting. Overall it was quite smooth and convenient.

Yeah we love couple photos!
Nope, not afraid of heights ;)
Feels like heaven!
The air up there is cold and refreshing but that whole place looks old and worn out. Again, I guess nobody bothers to maintain it. Even Sally mentioned that the colours of First World Hotel is dull. The theme park looks boring and totally lifeless.

We had lunch at "Restoran Good Friends" but I don't wanna be friends with them anymore because their food sucks. Dry and tasteless. Don't ever go there.

Good Friends? Well, it depends..
Ok lah, the claypot chicken rice is not too bad
After lunch we headed straight into the casino for some little exploration :D But that's when the problem starts. That whole damn casino is filled with smoke. Everyone is puffing off some cigarettes. We wanted to see the whole places and the games they play so we stayed about an hour, but Sally started coughing and choking on the smokes so we went out for some fresh.

Sally looking sick :P
Sally's coughing didn't get any better, even after we had some hot tea and went through her shopping-therapy. She looked sick and a fever came so we headed back to KL. I went out to buy some cough medicine for her, thinking that she'll be fine. But it didn't seem to help and she coughed throughout the night.

But as sick as she was, Sally still drag herself out so we could have dinner. And guess where we end up?

Sushi King! Who would have thought?
Golden Ball! I haven't had these for ages
Looks damn good right?
The next day, which is our last day @ KL, Sally seem almost strength-less to go shopping. Even her favourite malls failed to tempt her to walk in. We had a simple lunch @ Spring Garden and sat outside of KLCC for some fresh air. But again, there were lots of people smoking outside so it didn't really help.

Porridge. What choice does a sick person have? :P
My special fried rice (not sure if it's famous)
And some yummy soup!
Hmm... Nothing too special actually.
Finally when it was time to go fly back to Singapore, we headed back to KL Sentral for the oh-so-convenient KLIA express train. We checked in just in time and flew right back to Singapore. Sally went to see a doctor immediately when we got home. She was diagnosed with bronchitis and was given 2 days MC. Hopefully she'll get well soon!

At KLIA. Sally still look sick :P
Fantastic view from the sky
So yeah, that's our trip this time round. Fun and enjoyable. Only the last day was abit unexpected. But now I'm back to work and will be going full steam ahead in the coming weeks. Jia you ah!

Oh wait...There's More!

2009-10-21T00:06:00.004+08:00

I love the SEIKO watch. And I'm soooooooooo happy with it.

But just when I thought it's over, I got a second round of presents from Sally! This time she really surprised me. She actually dropped by my office around 8pm (while I was still working my ass off) to personally pass me the gifts.

How sweet! ;) Best girlfriend in the whole world.

And guess what was inside?

A pair of Murlocs and a Succubus!
Ok, no worries if you don't understand (or can't appreciate) the gifts - that's probably because you don't play World of Warcraft. LOL.

Nice!

Watch Me Celebrate

2009-10-18T21:29:00.005+08:00

Whoa, been a really busy month! Recently I've been working my ass off daily. Tight deadlines, endless list of to-do items, and a missing colleague. But well, work's like that. Ok, enough about work.

This month is my birthday. And I know very well that Sally would plan something for me :P So weeks in advance, I told her to make it a small one. Small like you know, just a simple dinner. No presents, no trips. For two reasons - First, we gotta save alot of money for our future (well, more for our future home actually) hehe. And secondly, we had a really big and wonderful celebration last year so .. lets be a bit humble this round ha!

So Sally made an arrangements for a quiet dinner at Satsuma Shochu Dining Bar @ Gallery Hotel. I kinda like the ambiance and the food was quite good (I enjoyed the cheese-rolled pork. Yes, how can I say no to cheese). And yep, that's it for my birthday celebration. Nice, sweet and simple.

Or so I thought.

Then Sally said "Oh yeah I have something for you". Taa daa. Hehehe, I didn't quite expect a birthday gift because I ... well, I told her not to buy me anything. But she thought that it was really important to buy gifts so let's see what we have yeah?

Nicely wrapped!
Oh and it comes with a card ;)
From the look of it, I can't tell what's inside the box. If there's anything I need, it's $1,000,000 in cold hard cash. But a million dollars can't fit into that box. So I decided to just open it and see what's inside :P

Unwrapped
Nice!
A watch! A SEIKO watch to be specific.

Here's a closer look.

Can't take my eyes off it!
I love it! That's actually the last thing I'd expect to receive from her because we've been on a month-long hunt for the perfect couple watch. It's really difficult because we both have kinda different tastes for watches. Maybe she gave up and decided to just get me a watch because I always complain about the inconvenience of using my phone as a watch :P Haha.

Need to know the time? Take out my phone, remove the cover, look at the time.

Need to know the date? Take out my phone, remove the cover, look at the date.

Rinse and repeat daily.

BUT, now it's different. Need to know the date or time? Just look at my watch. LOL. Really nice. And I think the watch suits me too. Personally, I think Sally made the right choice :)

In my whole life, I have only owned 3 watches. The first one, I got it when I was 15 years old. That watch stayed with me for a good 8-9 years. My second watch was a gift from my mom just before I came to Singapore. And I actually still have it with me, although it ran out of battery already.

Looks really simple and humble
but it's one of my favourites too!
Hehe, now the third one is a gift from Sally. How sweet :D It sure takes a bit of time to get used to the new watch, but it's definitely going to make my life alot easier! :D

Say Cheese!

2009-09-10T23:03:00.002+08:00

Whoa, long time since I wrote an entry.

Anyway, we both made a trip back to Segamat last weekend to see my parents. Well, actually it's been a while since we went back and when it comes to Segamat Resort, there's always the relaxing environment and good food to look forward to.

But this time, Sally specially made a blueberry cheese cake (ooh sounds familiar? heh) for my parents :D and they fell in love with it almost instantly.

Sally presenting her best cake yet
Cheese cake up close and personal. Ooh, blueberries :D
Mom and pop enjoying the cake.
Look at my mom's happy face :D
My mom loved it so much she actually intend to learn from Sally how to make it. I thought it was really, really good too :D And yes, I'm such a lucky person :P blek

And my dad of course, again cooked some really amazing food for us. And it's a pity again (think I mentioned this in one of the older entries) that my elder who is still stuck in Canada don't get to eat all these :D Muahaha. Happiness.

Nothing beats home cooked food!
And the chee cheong fan too!

Ultimate chee cheong fan
If you like food, try Segamat Resort :D

First Year Together!

2009-07-22T23:33:00.023+08:00

Sorry folks, can't help but to show off my girlfriend's ability to make cheesecake.

C H E E S E C A K E.

It tastes so good you can keep eating it (which we did). Check it out.

The Cheesecake :D
Well, we celebrated our first year together and that cake was actually a really sweet surprise for me :D I felt abit guilty eating so much but that guilt didn't last long :P

Anyway, 1 year is over and we're still lovey dovey so it's really great. We decided to "relive the moment" when we first got together. We went back to Waraku (we had dinner together there just before we officially became a couple) and to TCC @ Clarke Quay where I asked that earth-shattering "Can you be my girlfriend?" question LOL. Sounds kinda cheesey now.

At Clarke Quay, still together ;)
It was kind of a shy moment for me. And now it feels abit funny. Haha, can't imagine I gave a short speech and stuff before everything happened. Hm. :P Truth is, sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. Can't image if I didn't do all these things and nothing happened between us. It'll be so different! I'll probably continue to camp at home and play game like a mad man.

Ok! Since 1 year is over, I think I should randomly pick some photos from our albums and post it up here. Let's see what we've gone through!

The sign of love appeared before me, as I was sitting
beside my office window (well, now ex-office)
Something wonderful happened and we got together ;)
Had this photo taken in White Dog
Got our first photo taken by Huili using a polariod camera.
It was my first time meeting Sally's friends
Took this photo together when we saw the heart shape
in the sky again! Heart shape similar to the first photo ;)
Took a photo of Sally while waiting for a bus to the
Singapore Flyer. I think this photo is sweet.
Took a photo together just outside the flyer.
Well can't really see the flyer LOL.
Went to Vivo with some colleagues for lunch!
We were still together in GE.
Had a yummy NYDC dinner with Sally. Look at the cheese!
Had Sally's favourite Guo Fu for dinner ;)
Her eyes sparkles when you mention Guo Fu!
LOL. Sally waiting anxiously for my turn to
collect my PR identity card.
Went for our first Sentosa trip together and I love the beach.
Damn my hair looks weird
Sally enjoying her Dao Xiao Mian.
Had this photo taken at Vivo's Food Republic
I decided to take a photo with Eve :D Oops
Accompanied Sally to GE's D&D. Took this photo in a cab.
Celebrated our first Valentine's Day together!
First time I carried a flower all the way from Bugis to CCK
Went to KL with Sally to meet my friends.
Had chicken buffet for lunch
And manage to find time to catch
up with my ex-colleagues too!
Haha, Sally checking out her TU-LONG noodles ;)
My birthday trip to Batam :D Love the trip!
And look at all the gifts I've got from Sally! So sweet ;)
Attended Chan Yee's BBQ gathering.
Celebrated mooncake festival with Sally's friends.
Haven't played laterns for a long time!
Took a picture of my mom & pop when we were in Segamat
Went out for a drink at Old Town in Segamat.
My bro and Irene was there too
Just wanted to take a photo ;)
At the living room's sofa in Segamat
My mom started showing Sally photos when I was a kid :D
Sally cooked.. erm, eggs? Yeah that's in Segamat
We went cycling at ECP! Had to do
some exercise after eating all those cheese-y stuffs
A Christmas present for Sally.
Used up quite abit of creative juice there :D
Took a photo of Sally on my last day at GE.
I sat opposite her in office ;)
Went for a very relaxing trip to
Mayang Sari during Sally's break
Check this out! Won our first plush toy
on a catch-toy machine
Celebrated Sally's birthday last month
Went to Hilton for their cheesecake. But now
we all know Sally can make one too!
The Brilliant Rose finally came ;)
Went for a trip to Bintan Lagoon Resort
to wrap up Sally's birthday celebration
That's quite alot huh? Some of the photos may be familiar because I've posted them before. When I read back all the previous posts, I realize we've actually been through alot together.

And that's the whole purpose of this blog :D It will go on and on and capture all the moments we spent together until many many years to come!

Can't wait for all the new things that we're going to experience soon! Love ya Sally ;)

Oh yeah...

2009-07-15T00:04:00.006+08:00

We had Hilton's cheese cake and Tiramisu on Sally's birthday too! Kinda forgot to upload the pictures, so here they are!

As usual, a picture of us first!
Looks nice huh?
Yep, that's the cheese cake and Tiramisu
Ok, can't help it so I'm gonna upload a few more pictures of the earrings from Sally's camera :D

The treasure box!
An artistic shot. LOL.
Brilliant Rose. The real deal
And finally, the roses that distracted Sally :D

That's How It Should Be Done!

2009-07-09T23:55:00.011+08:00

Hello people! I'm back from the void! Well not really. I've been kinda busy with lotsa stuffs recently. Work is gaining pace. Learnt some new StarCraft strategies. Kicked some asses but sometimes got my own ass handed back to me. Well work = play and play = work.

But that's not all I've been busy with the entire month. Well last week was Sally's birthday. Roughly a month ago, I started wondering what we could do to make it a memorable celebration. But as usual all the boring ideas came about, so I decided to think reaaaaally hard about what she likes. Well handbags or those fashion shoes are Girls' Best Friends but for some reasons, I think generally guys just can't tell the difference between a good and bad handbag (or shoes). Maybe it's my problem :P but to think about it, those are really boring stuffs too.

Then I suddenly remembered walking with her past some jewelery shop and she seem keen on those sinful shiny stones. Well.. Hmm.. Maybe this is it. Girls like shiny stuffs, ain't? But buying diamonds and wrapping them up nicely, then presenting it as a birthday gift is boring as hell too. So what we really need is to add a lil' bit of twist into the whole action ;) sounds like an ultimate evil!

First, research on diamonds. This is absolutely essential so that I won't get scammed by those sales attendants. And I gotta find out more to understand my side of the bargain and whether the price I'm paying is worth it. Also I can act like a pro when I go shop for diamonds :P It's no easy task but sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. Actually I could have just brought a friend who knows all about diamonds to help me out, but for such a delicate job, who else can I trust but myself? LOL spoken like a true evil mastermind. Anyway...

For a few nights I read up on diamonds and the different brands in the market. When Sally called I just told her that I'm busy playing games :P and she didn't suspect anything. Yey. Sometimes you gotta resort to such evil trickery. I guess I can't recycle this technique anymore but let's worry about that later. Muahaha :D:D

Ok, so on a Wednesday night after work, the evil side of me lied to her saying I'd be staying late for work. Oops. Then I went shopping for diamonds like a dirty rich man. Well not exactly shopping-spree kinda shopping, but careful and selective-kind of shopping LOL. So this sales attendant @ SooKee came to me and I asked to look at their range of earrings. She looked at me for a moment then brought me some very childish earring samples. WTF.

"Nono, not these kind. Do you have like.. better ones?" :-/ Nabeh. Maybe I looked like a noob.

LOL. Fortunately she got the hint and apologized, then she brought me to one corner and showed me their range of Brilliant Rose diamond earrings. Yeah! Now that's what I'm talking about! Shiny!

The cut of ultimate brilliance!
Woooo..
Actually I'm kinda impressed with the earrings myself. But unfortunately, my lame camera couldn't capture it's brilliant sparkle in real life. Still looks quite good though! :D Ah, satisfied. But that's not all. It's only part of the plan ;D This is suppose to be a big surprise so I need to add abit of smoke.

So I went to this shop to order a bouquet of flowers. On the morning of Sally's birthday, I collected them and went all the way to Choa Chu Kang. Well this is the second time I'm doing this so... it's all good, except that the experience was slightly different. Heh. On my way, I saw this guy and his kid. The kid was crying for some reasons and his dad was obviously trying in vain to calm him down. Then when he saw me, he told his kid "Look! Look! Nice flowers. Veeeeeery nice flowers".

The kid cried even louder.

:-/

Duh. Of course. Kids don't appreciate flowers. They like Power Rangers.

Then came another awkward moment. This old lady standing beside me was staring at my roses. As in... really staring at them with very big eyes. It was a really hungry look and at times I thought that she was going to eat them up. Sigh. I should have told her that flowers aren't very nutritious and they are kinda expensive to be eaten. Weird huh?

Anyway, more importantly the roses reached Sally safely and as planned (or just my assumption), she thought that those were her birthday gift :D

Deja vu
After hanging around for a while, we came over to my place. We were talking about some stuffs when I suddenly said...

"Eh, my pillow ah. Kinda uncomfortable. Recently sleep already ah, got headache leh"

"Huh? Then change pillow lah", she replied coldly. Damn. Never mind, try again.

"No leh, you try to see the pillow. Think something wrong leh" :P Think I can be an actor!

Then she replied the same thing saying that if the pillow is uncomfortable, I should just get a new one. Problem solved. Actually that wasn't the problem because I hid the diamonds under my pillow hoping that she'd go and find out herself. Who knows she can be so reluctant to check out her poor boyfriend's pillow :P Since I had no backup plan, I continued to nag her until she finally gave up, sighed and went to pat my pillow. LOL.

What happened next was totally out of my expectations. When she felt that there was something underneath the pillow and took it out... there was a moment of silence for like 2 seconds. Maybe that's when she realized that those are real shiny hardcore diamonds inside and it's not a dream. Then I got a really big hug from her and it's all tears of joy. Awww.. Mission accomplished ;) She said I was really corny but who cares ;) The winner is still me :D

And the best thing is, this wasn't the end of our celebration! We celebrated the other half in Bintan Lagoon Resort. Extremely enjoyable, relaxing and full of sinful fatty food! It was a 3 days and 2 nights trip. Here are some photos of the stuffs that we did there. Woo hoo!

A mushy kiss for the birthday girl ;)
Seaview from our room
The swimming pool
The beach is just so peaceful and beautiful!
Yeah that's us!
Interesting stuffs that crabs do on the island
This is even more interesting ;)
One of our buffet breakfasts ;) Yummy!
There are a few hundred more photos and I think it'll take about 2 years to upload everything :D So if in any case you're interested, just get them directly from me or Sally ;)

Next Wednesday will be our first anniversary. Time really flies! By then, we'll take a step back and look at all the things that we've experienced together as a couple. And I bet it'll be really interesting. All the fun. All the fights.

Stay tuned!

Love ya Sally!