Back from the Land of the Rising Sun

One word to describe the trip: F.A.T

I ate so much Japanese food in the 2 weeks while I was in Japan that I think I’ve surpassed an average Singaporean would eat in 1 year.

I’m not kidding. Somehow, my stomach was tuned to the geez-im-never-full-until-im really-going-to vomit mode. Very unhealthy… Hubby and I wana try so many restaurants that we ended eating 2 sets of dinners most of the time.

We would hit this Unagi restaurant and order 1 bowl to share and then hit another sushi place to whack on more sushi. Or I could eat 1 huge bowl of ramen and when I walked past a really delicious-looking pastry shop, I just had to sit down and eat another huge slice of cake.

I can’t believe how almost everything we ate were so freaking good. Even milk from the supermarket was like the best I’ve ever drank in my life.

Foodies aren’t no foodies until you have been to Japan.

OMG. I'm married!

Ok, below is the video that I wanted e groom and his brothers to do during the gate crashing and their expressions while they were watching the video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeRGd4Rn7fA

I love the expressions...

I hope my hand bouquet will look like the one as the 1st pix. So green and pretty... I will not get a chance to see the actual hand bouquet until the day my groom picks me up.

Talking about flowers... Geez, how much did these angmohs spend on the flowers manz. Look at the tons of flowers! I've learnt that flowers are like damn bloody expensive... *ouch*

My mum loves me and gave me the wedding that I want.

I’ve always been willful and head-strong since young and so, when it comes to the planning of my wedding. I’m driving my mother (the tradition-ist) up the wall.

I told my mum that I’m going to have both luncheon and dinner, so that I can have a cozy dinner with friends ONLY. Ie: Even she will not be invited to my dinner. She was like “huh”, but she agreed.

I told my mum that I want a small & intimate lunch of only 100 pax. She requested for 5 tables to contain our relatives and I was “No Way!”. I’m not going to invite those distant cousins and aunties whom I spoke less than 5 sentences in 5 yrs. My mum was upset and said that it would put her in a difficult position but I insisted and even made her made phone calls to tell relatives that they are only allocate to 5 seats per family. No maids and “extra” persons are allowed. She wasn’t very happy about it, but she agreed and did it for me.

I told my mum that she will be sitting at the VIP table with MY relatives instead of the hubby-to-be’s parents. She once again “huh? But that’s not the norm”, but she agreed.

I told her “NO Yam seng” during Lunch and she was a tad disappointed, but she agreed.

I showed her our unconventional wedding photos online and she was like “huh, no albums??” But she’s ok.

She requested to go for food tasting and I told her that we have actually went ahead with another couple friend of ours and ate everything liao. She was like “huh? I didn’t get to eat??” But she’s ok.

She gave me so much room in the planning of my wedding that I truly enjoy the process and am grateful. I know my mum loves me and this is the greatest wedding gift that a mother can give.

I begin to feel like I’m a horrible daughter.

Looking forward to the cold

It has been 5 years since I last visited a country during winter. I think I’ve forgotten how it feels to have snow melts in my hand…

Thus, Im looking so forward to a cold, cold winterland trip to Japan! Wooyoo! I’m NOT going to Hokkaido though… yeah, I know that’s the REAL winterland. But, Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, Kinosaki and maybe, Hiroshima will be good enough for me!

I really do hope that there will be snow though!

I can’t wait to freeze my ass off!

Last night, I had so much fun digging out all my winter stuff, my knee-high boots, my scarves, my overcoat, my gloves, my hats….. On top of my new, kick-ass jacket from Mango and 2 new additional sweaters, I am good to go!

Although I have to admit that my winter overcoat looks so passé that I’ll most prob save that for a trip to Russia instead of Japan. To go Japan, gotta travel in style!

Fishy business

It felt really weird to have fishes nibbling at your feet. Took some time to get used to...

Weird things that girls do for the name of beauty!

Friendship

I don’t know whether my friends know this, that I really treasure the relationships that I have with my friends. As long as it’s within my means, I will definitely try to help if a friend is in need. But since I might come across as independent/insensitive/unemotional, maybe some of them didn’t dare to approach for help…?

Looking back, I realize that I didn’t really get to keep in touch with my secondary school friends, and thus, it turns out that I only have 2 surviving friends. That’s kinda sad since I’m from a girl’s school and usually girls from girls’ school have very strong bonds. Hmmm, sorry to say, I only have strong bonds with only 2 girls and 3 of us are leading such different lives right now, I can’t help but to feel that we’re all drifting apart.

Turns out that my closest group of friends is from my uni days. Thank goodness that I stayed in a hostel to cultivate these friendships with this bunch of crazy people, or else, I think I really wouldn’t have many friends.

As I’m growing older, I begin to realize how vulnerable friendships can be, and how one has to “work” to maintain the relationships. Frequent meet-ups, frequent catch-ups are indeed necessary to ensure that there is an exchange of ideas, feelings and thoughts to keep that connection going.

Although I am keen to keep that connection going… how many of them have the same thoughts in return? Expectations and disappointments can affect the friendship and it will be such a pity to lose a friendship due to a misalignment of expectations.

Sigh.

Can I live without friends? I don’t think so… Without the support of true friends, I don’t think anyone can function normally! All I can do is to treat my friends with love and respect, and hope that I can get that in return.

His name is Lawry and he's a handsome, white pony at RDA, but he really looks daft with that hood on, doesn't he?

Lawry might looks cute but he's a tad grumpy and tends to bite. Esp when u place your hand on his neck... he just doesnt like it.

What i've learnt about horses...

[1] When horses snort, do try to stay clear, or else you'll be covered with horse mucus. Pray that you are wearing an old t-shirt.

[2] Horses do bite and they are not like those cute little ponys from the cartoon "My little ponys". They can be grumpy, kick or stomp their hooves to show their displeasure.

[3] DO NOT STAND behind a horse at all times. Once again, they do kick.

[4] Horses can shed TONS and i mean TONS of hair/fur. There are many times I wish that im wearing a mask when im grooming them.

Ahh... the joy of having dogs is when you can dress them up in silly costumes for Halloween and they will still love you for it. Cats, just dont quite have that kinda love nor patience for these costumes.

These pictures totally made my day!

Isn't that a pair of, really cool red shoes?? Check out the feathers!

I've alwas had a thing for red... then some Fashion Guru told me that one has to be tall to wear red well... Like Julia in Pretty Women when she went for her opera.

Hmmm... I'm not exactly tall. Just barely average height. Haiz, I can't wear red well then.

But.... I can still wear red shoes!!!

As for the other 2 pictures, just feel like posting them... to celebrate my love for the color red.

These dolls seem very scary to me, they are like the bride and groom version of voodoo dolls... YeeeeeeK!

Saw these dolls at a wedding website and they arent selling cheap, I tell you! Gives me the goosebumps. and I can so totally imagine my enemies sticking needles into a version-of-me doll.

No dolls for me.

Marley and Me

After reading this book, I wish I have a dog.

Nope, I don’t think I can handle a dog such as Marley. I’ll most probably kill him when he destroys the sofa for the 3rd time or eats my 50th pair of shoes.

But for all dog lovers, this book is a must-read. It’s such a touching story and best of all, this story sounds really REAL. (Although I wouldn’t be surprised if parts of it are made-up for entertainment value)

Nonetheless, I truly enjoyed myself and the book also reminded me of my dog, Puggy.
I had Puggy when I was a little girl, and being too young (like 5 yrs old), I couldn’t take good care of her and my mum simply couldn’t handle 3 young kids AND a dog. Thus, Puggy had to be given way.

I only had Puggy for only less than 2 yrs but I remembered that she was my best friend and we had so much fun at the beach, riding in my mum’s car, our moments when we shared our food (she basically ate everything that I hated). She was such a comical dog and I remembered many moments when my mum and I would just laugh at her for all the silly things that she had done.

Puggy was eventually given away to a neighbor, and I remembered missing her very badly and would run over to the neighbor’s place when ever I could until that neighbor moved away and I never see Puggy again.

I still think of Puggy once a while and I sincerely wished that she had a good life and died as a happy dog.

Above are some pictures from Cameron Highlands. Decided to escape with E to somewhere cool and nice for a short getaway and Cameron Highlands come to my mind immediately. Since I haven’t been there before, thought that a short 3 days 2 nights will do me some good.

Weather was really indeed cool, in fact, temperature dropped to about 13 dc at nights. During the day, it was really pleasant at a comfortable 20 dc as well…

Nothing super exciting to do at Cameron Highlands, except visiting strawberry farms, eat tons of strawberries, eat tons of fresh sweet corn (really sweet!), and look at veggies (and eat them too).

All in all, it was a really pleasant holiday. Except for the treacherous, agonizing, 8-freaking hours bus ride from Singapore.

That sucks

Some other pixs from our pre-wedding series. Above shots havent been edited by our photographer yet... so, these are as raw as they get. ;P More pictures are available in my Facebook account, so friends, do check them out!

As the date draws nearer, I'm getting more excited... not that I'm in a hurry to be Mrs. Tan. But I'm just curious how our actual day photos will turn out... ...

I'm so glad that I have a photographer whom I can count on. To me, he's as good as it gets.

Wisdom tooth saga

It has been almost 3 weeks since I extracted my right, lower wisdom tooth and… … … my gum around that area still hurt?!?!

Geez. This wound is really taking a LONG time to heal. Well, it doesn’t help that my wisdom tooth was actually FUSED to my lower, right jaw bone. And thus, the dentist had to drill into my jaw bone to release the tooth.

From the pix above, the blackish part of the tooth is actually the bits from my jaw bone. By the way, the pain was so bad during the extraction that I thought I would faint.

Now, I’m so obsessed with dental hygiene that I kinda rinse my mouth with Listerine at least 6 times a day and brush my teeth like 4 times a day…

I just wana be pain-free again. ;(

That's one of my pre-wedding shots. Love it.... ... ...

Conclusion: Both JW and I simply couldnt do those "lovey-dovey" shots, we either burst out laughing while trying to look loving, or we would end up looking as if we were trying to beat each other up instead of loving.

I felt that I was taking pictures with my best friend. Yup, he's my best friend.

Saw these tiffin tins in The Museum shop of the National Museum… thought that they looked really pretty. But the price tags aren’t…

Bet I can find cheaper ones from Chinatown! But what can I do with these pretty tiffin tins?

1) Use them to store salt, sugar, pepper….?? But I will then need a retro theme for my kitchen?
2) Use them as “Ang Pao” box for my wedding? But the theme of my wedding isn’t Oriental…
3) Use them as tiffin tins! Hrm… not that I pack food from home either…

End of story. No use for these tiffin tins. Argh….

Museum Day 9 Aug 2008

9 Aug is our Motherland’s National Day, and on this day, quite a number of places of interest actually offer FREE admission.

Yup. FREE. FYI: usual admission to Museums is about 8 -10 bucks per adult.

So, I dragged JW along to the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) for a quick dose of art. Wanted to take a look at Xu Bei Hong’s works, then I realized that I mistook his pieces as Feng Zheng Jie’s works. Feng is a modern art Artist, currently still alive and his signature pieces are usually faces of women painted in very bold and bright colors, such as pink face, with green hair and with the eye balls far apart.

Unfortunately, I missed the exhibition. DANG! I thought Xu Bei Hong was the artist who painted those devilish-looking girls! (1st picture above)

Anyway, it was still very enjoyable viewing Xu Bei Hong’s works (2nd pix). Well… Xu is already dead, but also a Chinese artist and his style was more towards the Chinese style of painting (water colors on scrolls), but his later works were really interesting as he stayed in India for a period of time and he painted Indians in Chinese’s “water-color” style. How often do you see Indians in Chinese watercolors? Not often at all loh….

The rest of the exhibits were pretty crappy though. Singapore really needs to feature more quality art works… and maybe more Southeast Asian artists, instead of some really try-too-hard-modern pieces from weirdo Singaporeans.

Well, won’t complain too much since it was FREE.

So, within an hour, we were done with SAM, we then took a quick walk to The National Museum instead. Also took the opportunity to check out Novus’s newly renovated dinning room, where we will be holding our wedding dinner later this year.

The dinning room turned out much better than expected! *phew* In fact, it was really nicely done up, so we don’t even have to spend much on décor or flowers… Yeay!

Anyway, back to the newly renovated National Museum, it was definitely more enjoyable. The exhibits were quite interactive and I think it can be really interesting for children from the age of 7 – 12. However, I missed out on the main exhibit, “The Singapore History” gallery as the queue was like SUPER long. So, too bad. FREE admission, so cannot complain.

After a mind boggling afternoon at museums… we headed for MengKee Seafood for dinner to celebrate National Day! Haha… another lousy excuse to pig out and once again, the crab beehoon was TO-DIE-FOR!

If I were to really get a tattoo…

I’ll get a tiger! Yeah… not some cute little Hello Kitty, but a fierce, mean tiger. In fact, I liked my fake tattoo so much that I almost didn’t want to wash it off! But I don’t think my boss will appreciate my fake tattoo as much though… …

Anyway, doubt I’ll ever get a real tattoo… too chicken to endure the pain. In any case, there are always fake ones to satisfy my longing for some prints. Heh…

Wedding bands…

Both JW and I have been looking around for our wedding bands for quite sometime… and to date, nothing really caught our eyes except rings from Tiffany…

Haiz, why must it be Tiffany? Why can’t it be Soo Kee or Goldheart or some other shops that wouldn’t burn a hold in our pockets?

I have to admit that Tiffany’s design is really unique and intricate. And now, I finally understand the reason why and how Tiffany can get away with such ridiculous pricing. Previously, I’ve always thought that it was all marketing of the little blue box with the white ribbon.

But after looking through the whole catalog of rings… Tiffany really sets a class of its own. After making a few phone calls to shops that customize/design rings, the designers also commented that complicated designs from “established brands” are very difficult to replicate and even if that were to be possible, it will cost as just much anyway.

As we didn’t want to get the normal looking wedding bands and were looking for something a bit different and fashionable. Tiffany’s rings are by far, the most interesting.

Yeah… everyone was saying that we should get a “classic” design but seriously, all the classic designs are damn boring. We really like the “mesh” design from Tiffany, aka the Signature series. In fact, the rings are really cool as they are actually stretchable (yet still made of white gold!), and that makes the ring really comfortable to wear, as compared to a solid piece. However, not all rings from the Somerset Series are stretchable, as usual, only the higher-end pieces are stretchable. Haiz…

To splurge or not to splurge…? Now, that’s the question. Gotta spend sometime to chew on it.