monday surprise

To Keep Your Marriage Brimming

by Ogden Nash

To keep your marriage brimming,

With love in the loving cup,

Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;

Whenever you’re right, shut up.

via Life, Love, Lipstick

Lolz.. I love this reading. It's blunt without being too serious and it's short which in my books are perfect. Plus, the fact that it's just a lil bit different to traditional readings. Actually, you know what, it sounds like those advice men get when they just get married. Those "The wife is always right" ones. Too funny!!

I've collected a couple of long readings for the wedding but I'm not entirely sure how long is too long. How long are your readings going to be?? Anyway, this one is definitely joining the rest in the shortlist.

the uniform project

Check out The Uniform Project!

Sheena Matheiken has pledged to wear one dress for one year (that's 365 days, guys!). But she's making it fun by trying to make it different each day with different combinations or accessories and what nots.

And it is also a year long fundraiser for the Akansha Foundation, a grassroot charity that is dedicated to funding the education of children in the slums of India.

What an awesome way to raise money for charity!

position filled

have you heard the good news??
i just got a job! and i start on monday!

***dancing with joy***

woo hoo!!

so i guess, it's no more living like a lady of leisure... *sigh*
i was kinda enjoying it....

jimmy choo...

... for H&M.

Urmm, why isn't H&M in Australia yet???

picture credit: Luxist via notcouture

monday surprise

I'm going to start a weekly post on my blog called Monday Surprise. It will generally be anything on the blogosphere that is interesting, maybe quirky, could be related to weddings (since it seems like that has predominantly taken over my life lately) or not.

So for my very first Monday Surprise, I'm going to share Daniel Merriweather with you. I've never heard of the guy before but I was looking for some easy music and chanced upon him on ITunes. Love the song Impossible on the album. He's Australian (why haven't I heard of him here?!) and he's just debuted his very first album in the US. Go check him out and let me know what you think.

blog award

Long over due but I received my first blog award during the holidays!! Thanks Mo!! Absolutely giddily thrilled with it. :) If you haven't check her site out yet, go check it out now!! She have the loveliest site detailling her wedding planning and everything else in between. She's an avid photographer too!


I think the rules are to recommend some lovely sites out there but since I'm really late on the bandwagon and I'm still playing catch up with all the blogs on my Google Reader, do check out my pretty much all the links on my sidebar. They're all awesome!

singapore sling

The last of our holiday instalment. ;) Singapore was awesome!! It was fantabulous because the Great Singapore Sale was on while we were there and the Aussie dollar rose favourably against the Singapore dollar which is another big plus! So we caught up with more friends, ate till our tummies can bulge no more and shopped till we dropped wedding-wise!!

The first thing we bought was Ryan's suit. I can't find a picture of it on the website but it's grey so I just sorta picked something similar as the picture. Wanna know the best thing??? It's Hugo Boss and we got it at 40% off. *woot*woot* We were ecstatic!!

My shoes. They are Miu Miu and were at 50% off. And I still umm-ed and ahh-ed before I got it. I have to say, I have never spent that much on a pair of shoes before. Even with 50% off. It probably sounds unbelievable seeing that we've bought some pretty expensive stuff this trip for the wedding but really, the sale discount and strong Aussie dollar helped justify it. And they were within the budgets we had set.... except for the shoes. *guilty smile* Those shoes are going to last me forever!Lastly, because they weren't on sale, our wedding rings from Tiffany. It turned out to be way cheaper than if we got them in Australia tax free so as you can all imagine, with all our buys, we're grinning like Cheshire cats. *grin* And the savings more than cover my blow out on the shoes. Phew~

picture credit: Vintage Glam, me, Tiffany

before the heat

That's me literally two seconds before we rushed out the door to meet Ke Wyn downstairs. Don't I just look amazing?? All credit to my makeup artist, Angela for transforming me though - I have tried and tried and have never ever been able to achieve this look! Not only that, my face has just been breaking out due to the change of weather and she has managed to hide all of that too!

And you get to see the cheongsam I found at the very last minute in KL too for the photoshoot. Lolz... there was a lot of 'last minutes' this trip.
We melted during the photoshoot though, sweating profusely in the afternoon heat. Now I know why most couples here go to the studio for their engagement shoots! Lolz... oh well, it was an interesting experience. Let's hope Photoshop is able to make us look just as good as before we left our room!

pearl of the orient

Then it was off to Penang for four days to relax and while our time away and also do the photoshoot. We were so nervous about the photoshoot and having two days to 'try' slim down after eating like a horse in KL, we actually ended up doing absolutely nothing except hang around the hotel and chill. We even had some spa treatments done. It was pure bliss! That was exactly what our room looked like, though all photos shown here are off the hotel website. We stayed at the Rasa Sayang Resort and this was the venue we were going to hold our wedding at until we changed our minds.

Wait a min, aren't you holding your wedding in Sydney?? You've showed us your venue. I'm a lil confused.

You're right! We're still having our wedding there and no, we're not having two weddings. This was before we booked Gunners Barracks. We were keen on having a wedding overseas and I thought it'll be perfect to have it in Penang, where I grew up. And Rasa Sayang would have been the ultimate venue. It's the most expensive hotel on the island and they pride themselves on being 5 stars and exclusive. We met up with them, got sucked in and before we knew it, we'd put down a deposit for a June 2010 wedding. Now in that first meeting, he promised to furnish me with all the information required for the wedding and you know what, 3 months later, after countless emails and phonecalls to him, I still hadn't gotten anything from him. I was mad as a hatter I tell you. I had a bridezilla moment where I decided if this is the kind of service that I'm going to get, no way in hell was I having my wedding there and no way in hell will I be just forfeiting my deposit (wouldn't you?). It was quite a lesson learnt and I have to say that we were very lucky to even get our money back (even in the form of credit). That was why we were there this trip.

Enough of the rant. Even with the negative connotations of this trip, we tried to enjoy our time there since we would never have stayed there under normal circumstances. The Chi spa that they run really was heaven. Ryan had an Asian Blend massage and I had an Aroma Algae Wrap which was meant to flush toxins out. We were in the couple chalet and being pampered after the photoshoot, it was absolute perfection.

Ultimately, it's not a place I would go back to stay. It was great while it lasted but the room rates are high and the service is no different to what you will find at the other hotels on the island, be it by the beach or Gurney Drive, so maybe it was a good thing what happened with the whole wedding fiasco.

picture credits: Rasa Sayang Resort

happy dance

Apart from food, I think this deserves a post of its own too while I am on holiday.

I present to you...
... my bridesmaids' dress. I found it in Topshop in KL and I love the colour. I think it's perfect though we haven't yet decided on our wedding theme colours. Well, pink is just going to be one of 'em now. And my bridesmaids.... oh well, they'll learn to love it. :P







Of course, I did consult the two of them before I bought it and they both gave the go ahead. I'm ecstatic... another thing on the list ticked off. Yea!!

picture credit: Topshop

food affair

It's the thing to do when you're in Asia.... eat!!! Ryan and I definitely put on some weight while we were there... but it was sooo worth it!
Nagomi Shabu-Shabu
PG-02B, Ground Floor
Jaya 33
No. 3 (Lot 33), Jalan Semangat
Section 13
Petaling Jaya

It's like having your own steamboat since each person gets their own hotpot to cook in. The soup was flavoursome and we ate up an absolute storm. We had all the meats - duck meat, chicken and beef and loads of vegetables, mushrooms and tofu. The meat is sliced really thinly so you literally just dip them into your soup to cook them and then into the sauces given for even more flavour.

Delectable

S-213 Second Floor

The Gardens Mall

Mid Valley City

She was going to be our wedding cake person until we changed our mind about having our wedding in Malaysia. I didn't think I was going to be able to make it to her shop but as luck would have it, my aunt brought us there and her cakes live up to the name. I think the flavours were orange ginger, chocolate and maybe vanilla. Loveeee the orange ginger!

La Bodega

14-16, Jalan Telawi 2

Bangsar

59100 Kuala Lumpur

Ryan was craving for some Western fare after all the Asian food we'd been having so we gave them a go. Their Spanish tapas is meant to be really authentic though we didn't try it. I wished we had now but oh well. Ryan loved his wrap but I thought my meal was just mediocre. Oh well... tapas next time!

And all the rest that we had at places we didn't catch the name. I love how food is so easy to find there and cheap too. Everything is open till very late each night which meant that I could still catch up with friends anywhere after work hours and maybe slot in even more shopping after a meal. I think I'm missing Malaysia already....

feet up and relax

Ahhh... it feels good to be on holiday. You know you've arrived in Malaysia when you see the haze outside the window of your plane and feel the heat and humidity even before you get onto the tarmac. :)

KL was awesome!! I know I've 'disappeared' yet again but the holiday didn't quite turn out the way we planned it to be - going slow and steady, doing touristy things, shopping and spending some quality time together. Instead, it was a friends and family affair, juggling to catch up with absolutely everybody and finding time to also get some of our things done. Sorry guys....

We stayed at the Prince Hotel and Residences. I can't rave enough about this place. For one, they upgraded us to a room with a view of the Twin Towers. *swoon* Secondly, being the klutz that I am, I left a bag in the taxi the day before we were due to leave. It didn't contain anything valuable, just a guidebook and a notebook with my personal jottings. We got back to the hotel at about 1am and we just casually enquired if anyone have came to hand it in (clutching at straws really) and lo and behold, the taxi driver did come back to return it. Apparently, the taxi company is affiliated with Prince Hotel (and honest and nice) so I was extremely lucky!!


Some of the touristy things that we managed to squeeze in include the Twin Towers and KLCC Aquaria. The towers were pretty impressive. We were only allowed up on the skybridge of the towers and that is halfway up and the view was awesome. Just imagined if we were all the way up the top! Honestly, I wasn't too impressed with the aquarium. The corals and plants in the tanks were fake and some of the creatures are displayed in tiny lil' aquariums where they can barely move let alone roam. I was appalled!! Sydney Aquarium is wayyyy better and animal friendly. They had a fish spa centre though with a promotional rate for aquarium visitors and we did at least enjoy that. It was ticklish fun... :) And Bangsar's night market. It was like a open air grocery and thrift store. There was fresh fish and vegetables, fake mobile phone accessories and children's toys, cheap clothes and food. It was buzzing with life!! I coudln't figure out why people would wanna buy any of the fresh food late at night but oh well. I was looking for my mua chee or tau fu fa but sadly didn't see any. *gutted*
As I said before, the trip was heady blur of catching up with loads of friends and family. These are some of the people I caught up with at home - school friends from my time in Malaysia (I went to a convent school). We all brought our other half to the meetup session this time too which was great coz I get to meet them after hearing about them for so long and them, Ryan. And all that catching up equates to food. A BIG affair with food!! And that will come up next...
picture credits: first one by Prince Hotel, last one by Marcus, all others by me.

my 'after exam' present

We're back! Badly jetlagged... getting a shock to the system with the cold while trying to get back into the hang of things. It's 14 degrees outside today! Brrrrrrr....

I got these babies just before we went on holidays. My first digital SLR. I brought it along hoping to take some fantastic pictures but it's not really been used to its full potential since I obviously know natch about SLR. And to also claim the GST which I didn't get because of a name technicality. Not happy about it but lesson learnt for next time. Tsk!