The Big Day

1000 cranes (folded by Hannah and Nori) spread
all around the restaurant

20th January 2012...this was the BIG DAY!. I woke up at 5am in the morning, went for a short walk by myself to the coffee shop and have a cup of coffee, thinking to myself, THIS IS THE DAY.

At around 8.35am, I went to meet Hannah and her parents mid-way between my parent's apartment and her parents hotel. I know things are going to be great today, I had all the major events for the day timed and planned. We stopped for a couple of minutes discussing what was going to happen at the tea ceremony at my parents apartment. What seemed to be quite a complicated process turned out to be a easy ceremony. We served tea to my parents, then to Hannah's parents and we received their blessings. My nephews greeted us, and Hannah gave them a red-packet each.

Around 10am, Hannah and I headed out to Villa Halia. Candy (make-up artist), K'ley (photographer) and Linda (my friend) were already at the place when we arrived. Hannah proceed straight to make-up, while I had a drink my Linda. We catch up a bit, talked a bit about what would be happening at the solemnization ceremony and before I knew it, it was 11.05am! The solemnizer would be here in 10 mins and I am still in my jeans and t-shirt,with a beer in my hand! Did a quick change into my shirt, tie, pants and a fedora. Linda graciously helped me to take the solemnization table to the Band Stand and reserved the place for the next 30mins.

I met Mr. Simon Sim (the solemnizer) and realized I left the marriage certificates at the Band Stand. Holding my anxiety behind, I told him to have a drink while I go and fetch the marriage certificate for him to go through. However, little did I realized that not only he needed the certificate, he also needed our IDs, which I left it again at the Band Stand! He was kind enough to agree to check the ID later to save me the agony of running between the Band Stand and Villa Halia in the hot scorching sun.

11.40am...time to head off to the Band Stand. Most of the relatives had decided to stay in the comfort of the Villa Halia. I was glad they made that decision because I wouldn't want my relatives who were at least 60 years old and were handicapped to walk to and fro the Villa Halia. I headed over to the Band Stand with Simon Sim. My friends, Jeffrey and Alfred (thank God for them) agreed to help get the rest of the gang to the Band Stand, and Nori would be bringing Hannah and her parents over in 5 mins.

Here I am at the Band Stand, doing last min adjustment with my tie and taking a quick picture with Simon Sim.... and when I looked over my shoulder... there was Hannah and her dad, followed by a bunch of my nephews running around in front of them! They should be 5 mins after the whole crowd, not with them! Well, let's improvised - I quickly signalled to Jeffrey to tell Hannah and her dad to slow down so that the rest of the people could gather at the Band Stand first. Simon Sim asked for the witness (Nori and my dad) ID.... well, Nori left it at Villa Halia and my dad left it at home!... uurggghhhh... Simon Sim was kind enough (again) to let the matter rest..after all, he had met Nori the other night, and I looked like my dad.

Ok... things settled, time for the walk-in...then I realized..Hannah and I NEVER had time to do our wedding vows! I turned to Simon Sim quietly to let him know, and he pulled out a laminated sheet of paper with a sample wedding vow! Thank God! Hannah arrived by my side, her dad gave her hand to me, we exchanged vows... oh, where are the rings? Oh..Linda was holding mine and Nori was holding Hannah's. By mistake, I took my own ring rather than Hannah's and she took hers... we quickly swap it and proceeded with the ceremony.

Solemnization done, and we went back to Villa Halia for lunch. Along the way, a group of strangers cheered for us, people were smiling at us, giving us their best wishes....

Well, it couldn't be a more perfect wedding. The Band Stand was beautiful with yellow leaves falling from the surrounding rain trees, food was excellent, Villa Halia was superb with greenery all around the glassed wall and excellent service, a down-pour came after the solmnization ceremony brought some cooler weather, got to meet some of the relatives whom I had never met for ages, great friends to share the special moment with me, Hannah and my family were happy and excited for us and Hannah - she just looked gorgeous.

Singapore, here we come

Merlion..icon of Singapore

Clothes packed
Dogs are at the dogsitter's house
Documents for wedding etc are ready
Hair trimmed
Dishes washed
Rubbish thrown away

... and we are ready to leave for Singapore first thing tomorrow morning. This is the first time in 15 years I am home for Chinese New Year. It will be exciting as the family has just got bigger ... there are 5 nephews ranging from 10 years to 1 month old, and now we are expecting Nori, Hannah and her parents to join us for reunion dinner as well. Wow... for the fist time, we may have too many people to fit around the small dining table at my parents place!

Another exciting thing about this visit is of course, our wedding. Simple, classy solemnization ceremony at the Band Stand in Singapore Botanic Gardens, followed by lunch at Villa Halia. Will post more pics of that day ... we have been under quite a bit of stress for the wedding, but we are determined to enjoy ourselves on that day. It is rumored that Villa Halia serve some really delicious food! :)

The Band Stand @ Singapore Botanic Gardens

Villa Halia @ Singapore Botanic Gardens

I was back in Singapore on September 2011 and the country looked a lot different from I left it!.. Hannah and I visited Singapore five years ago, and she will be surprised to see how much it has changed in these five years! Some of the highlights which I had planned for Nori, Hannah and her parents are : zoo, bird park, night safari. sentosa, botanic gardens (tourist attractions), chinatown, little thailand, little india, holland village, orchard, CBD, east coast (areas) and pulau ubin (if we have time) and some of the food we will be EXPERIMENTING.. (well, actually they..I have tired them before!) are durian, chicken feet, Sir Lanka crab, frog leg, frog split, tim sum, coffee in a bag :) , lamb bone marrow... And of course, FOOT REFLEXOLOGY.

The world is really coming to an end in 2012!

Oh no!

Twinkies Maker Preparing for Chapter 11 Filing




















And this is a video tribute to the last twinkie

All the drama in the house

Now I am sitting on the deck, although it is cloudy and may even look like it is going to rain any moment, I feel much more peaceful than last night. Therefore, sitting down, with a "Waikato Draught" I can write a bit about the drama last night... Before that.. "Waikato Draught" is known to the Kiwis as the local red-neck beer...to us, it is cheap and delicious .. nothing can beat a $12.99 for a 20-bottles pack (meaning each bottle of beer cost about 65cents!).

Here goes the drama - the evening actually started off really nice. We bought 4 corn on the cop which cost 95cents each and mince beef for $6 which was enough to last us 2 meals. We made sloppy joes and corn on the cop. We were all happy and proud that we can make such delicious and yet inexpensive food. The evening ended even nicer after watching the cheesy action movie "Fast Five". It is one of the most cheesy action movie you will ever see...a great combination of all the Fast and Furious series, Die Hard and The Expendables.

The better part of the night - Sloppy Joes and Corn on the cop

Well...then I called my mom, and here is where all the drama started! My mom was pretty stressed these few weeks - she had to take care of my sister's new born baby, the older kids..bringing them to school and other activities, and then my sister's whole family got chicken pox! Now, the additional stress from my wedding which is about 1 week away. I am sure the relatives has been calling her as well to check on the wedding and what time they should turn up etc.

Hannah and I had originally wanted to keep the wedding simple. We had decided not too many people, no crazy Chinese traditions etc. Somehow, without any of us noticing, the guests list had slipped from 30 people to 45 people! This means more costs and more hassle! Hannah's wedding dress had not arrived yet, and even though she had been tracking that dress every single moment it left the dressmaker, it was still in the NZ customs! We were too late in ordering items for decorating the location, nor did we bought any thing as favors for the guests! Dogsitter is also getting married in a couple of weeks, and she had not decided whether she can help to take care of Jet and Kaly while we are gone.We wanted to have a simple wedding cake, but it costs $282 and the champagne cost a whopping $800! What are these items made of? Are they dipped in gold and framed up with diamonds!? Scheduling the wedding event is quite an operation... who is coming at what time, what are we doing at any single time, where is the location? How to get directions for people? What type of food? Any allergies and preferences? The sitting plan - will the guests who are sitting in the same table ended up fighting with each other? What about the music? What about streaming a video so that overseas friends and relatives can watch the event as well? etc...No wonder average people only opted to marry once because planning for the wedding is crazy! So a quite happy night ended up with my mom and I having a shouting match over the phone!

Well, I am sure after this beer, I will call my mom to say I am sorry for losing my temper. We will work things out eventually. The wedding dress is finally here. While we still do not have the favors nor the decoration, we will try to pull something together when we reach Singapore. Breathe...

Toys for the big boys

Woke up this morning and while I was going through my daily emails, this offer came in on one of my email alerts. Oh boy, if only I had $1000 stash away somewhere :P
AUCTION : Space Invaders Machine

Then, when I was waiting for dinner to be ready, I went to the NZ "ebay" equivalent website to check on some of the auctions I have been keeping a look out for and this came up on the side!... Wow.. must be one of those days!
AUCTION: Star wars vintage action figures

Not for the faint heart!

Warning : The following post may contain some images which so people may find disturbing!

Anyone who knows me well enough knew that I think Twinkies are one of the best food invented in US! The other food I swear by is fried chicken, especially Southern fried chicken. So today, I had a bright idea!... why don't I combine the two food I love most into one! Thus, I decided to make deep fried twinkies. According to a "reliable" website, here is the breakdown on the the amount of calories we ingested yesterday.

1 Twinkie = 150 calories
Batter and oil = 275 calories
Total calories added to our body = 425 calories!

Fried twinkies... absolutely appetizing! 

Hannah all thrill to ingest 425 calories of goodness!

Some people would probably wonder how I stay so slim when I loved calories so much! :P ... well, a very strict regime of exercise - running and P90x! and of course, Hannah's lovely and delicious quiche helps as well :) Hannah made a delicious ham quiche for dinner in between the sampling session of the fried twinkies. We got the Christmas holidays left over ham for $14 from the supermarket (originally a whopping $50) . We presume it should not go bad since ham is already well preserved! After making ham quiche, and previously split pea soup and hopping john etc, we still have enough ham to last us for another week or so!... Thus, here is a quick tip for money saving - buy lots of ham after the Christmas season!

Delicious ham cheese quiche

Yummy!

Happy Me