interesting! changi prison version anytime soon?

We finally filed our notice of marriage at the ROM website. Doing something simple, just his parents, my parents at the registry. Sign the cert, and off to makan!

Odd timing, 1:25pm. Where could we possibly have lunch later?? Most restaurants close for their break around 2:30pm, latest 3pm.

And I didn’t know we had to do some verification/statutory declaration a few working days before. And my appointment is at 8:30am, there goes another day of leave.

Nowadays, I’m just fretting over the hotel ballroom and packages. Having a small wedding, which means I don’t qualify for the nice gorgeous, pillar-free ballrooms most hotels have. One of the choices, Carlton Hotel is already taken up for all the dates I have on hand.

Off to view Fairmont tomorrow.

Now I know why there’s such an occupation called wedding planners. (Nope, not hiring one, think I should be able to handle it.) Keeping my fingers crossed.

Yep, been busy with planning again. I went to 2 wedding shows – Grand Copthorne Waterfront and Hotel Intercontinental over the weekend. One of them was very disappointing. Wasted my money.

Never knew there were so many details when it comes to weddings, I have my head bursting just trying to think of everything. No point hiring a wedding planner, ain’t that cash rich. Fortunately, friends have offered their help. Thanks girls I think things will all start falling into place soon. At the moment, there’s still uncertainty as we have not fixed a date yet!

But despite being busy.. there’s one thing I can’t help dreaming about! The honeymoon destination!!!

At the moment, I have my sights set on Orlando, Florida, USA. There’s Disney World, Universal Studios, SeaWorld, Titanic the Experience and….. outlet shopping!!!!

But it seems like there’s no direct flight from Singapore to Orlando, so it seems like I need to make a short stopover somewhere, might as well tour that city too right? So I am thinking of…

1. Anchorage, Alaska
2. Las Vegas
3. New York
4. Los Angeles
5. Washington DC

I wonder whether there are direct flights to & fro from those cities and what other cities are there with connecting flights to Orlando…

Well, at least I have a long long time to plan and do my research. Can’t wait!

2 weeks ago, I woke up realllly early for the Shape Run 2009. As the bf would tell others, the only thing I could say that day was, ” Why do I do this to myself?” He is probably asking, “Why does she do this to herself and me?” Because he had to wake up really early to pick me up. But I had to turn up, especially since I had dragged 2 other friends into the run.

But the thing is, once I plug into my music player – in this instance, my lovely iPod Touch, and start running with many others, I just wanna keep going. Never mind if I slowed down and walked a little, somehow after a while, I would find the energy to start running. And boyyy, once I saw the finish line in the distance, there was some kind of adrenaline rush and I just chionnnngggg all the way there. Very very very satisfying!

Looking all bright and cheery and dry before the run.

Our finisher bracelet from Nike. They were given out by ‘tuxedo-wearing’ men.

I ran pretty badly that day, can’t believe I took around 50+ minutes to complete 5km, when I had only taken 1h 40m for the 10km Standard Chartered run… I really need to train before running. Yes, lazy me procrastinated again and didn’t bother training before a long run. After the run, went to find the bf who waited for me at Starbucks, who happened to meet Kok Ling there, waiting also… Apparently, Starbucks was full of bfs/husbands waiting for their other half to finish the run. One guy who shared their table even commented, ‘Maybe see you again next time when our gfs decide to run again.’ Hahaha.

Now I’m just thinking.. Standard Chartered 10km, should I or should I not? Maybe I can run under 1h 30m this time. I can hear the bf grumbling in the distance again…

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to visiting MegaZip with some friends later this month. Yippeeee!

Signed up with Bluebay over the weekend for a pre-wedding photoshoot in Taiwan! Yippee..

Went with the bf and mum, and went through the albums, tried on a few gowns. It was a nice experience and the people there seemed genuinely nice.

Can’t wait to set off for the trip next year! But first… need to lose weight!

Despite the recent trail of happy events, there’s been a lot of uncertainty for the past few months. (It ain’t about the wedding or the house.) That heavy feeling just doesn’t go away and I’ve been trying to keep my mind busy with other things. It helps at times. But thankfully there’s someone understanding to support me through.

Just because I don’t talk about it, it doesn’t mean I don’t worry or think about it.

Hopefully, the uncertainty will end soon. I know it will, I just don’t know when.

太残忍了。

Found out about this tool from Google, which allows me to draw 3D models.. Best thing? It’s free!!!

My first tryout with the tool and I’ve got my living room/balcony area out, there’s supposed to be a window where the bar table/stools are, and the sofa is blocking the door to the room. More adjustments required!

Pretty darn excited about getting a place of my own. So excited that I’ve already started planning the layout even though we might not get the keys till November, and not forgetting that we haven’t exercised the option yet.

Worse still… I’ve no idea how much renovation is going to cost me, at least the balcony and yard have already been converted by the current owner.

Can you spot the differences?

Original floorplan

And after some tinkering around with floorplan.com…

This is soooo fun!

Yes, I disappeared again for weeks again. It’s been 2 – 3 weeks of highs and lows. But I’m glad to say that we finally managed to sign and have the owners grant an option to purchase a 5 room HDB resale flat!

More details in future, now I’m already starting to dream about how I want to renovate and decorate the house.

My ROM date has also been set for later this year and it’ll be a purely immediate family affair. Both sets of parents and us are just going to head down to the registry, sign the paper and end it with a nice simple dinner. Saving all the money for the wedding banquet which will be much later, probably 2 years later. But I’ve gotta start attending all those wedding shows, browse through bridal magazines, gosh, there’s so much to be done!!

More details in future too! For now, I just need to survive my 5km SHAPE Run next weekend.

Day 2 (10 May 2009)

Was up around 6+ and dressed in preparation for the hot weather – dri-fit top, shorts, cap, hair in a bun. With an empty backpack, we headed to Citi Bistro for our daily breakfast. The spread is the best I’ve seen in a hotel. There was a wide selection of bread, pastries, condiments, cereals, yoghurt, fruits, western, Chinese, Japanese, omelet station, half-boiled eggs, soups etc etc. I loved the miso soup, cold soba and somen, tamago maki, ham in pineapple gravy, crispy bacon, omelet with the ingredients I chose – ham, bacon, mushrooms, cheese etc etc. We had 3 selections of fruit juices everyday, my favourites are the orange and guava juice. Other choices included apple and pineapple.

We filled ourselves up and walked out of the hotel to the nearest BTS station – National Stadium. Usually we can access it through MBK, but as the building wasn’t open so early, we went around. It only costed us 35baht each to ride to Mo Chit station, this included changing trains at Siam station, a very kind Thai guy directed us the right way to go, he was very helpful, even sticking his body halfway out the train door at us to make sure we don’t go the wrong way.

I’d never go on a trip without mopiko, i’m a mozzie-magnet!!! Walking to the station alone earned me round 2 – 3 bites!

Walked about 5 mins from Mo Chit station to Chatuchak. Most shops weren’t open yet but we found the pets section with many adorable puppies, kittens and squirrels. It’s not very advisable to stay too long here, cos they aren’t exactly living in the best conditions, any pet lover would feel upset. My first purchase of the day were doggie caps in different patterns. It was really warm in there, even my fan couldn’t help me much. The best relief we had was when we stepped into a doggie apparels shop about 1+ hrs into our walk. It was air-conditioned, thank goodness. We took our own sweet time to choose, and when we had to leave, you can imagine the difference in temperature the moment we stepped out. Throughout our trip, the temperature forecast was around 35 – 37 deg C!!! It was weird, we couldn’t really find stuff we want to buy. Nothing seemed to catch our eyes at all! What’s happening??

After just 2.5hrs there, we called it a day and popped into a cab to travel to Yaowarat, White Orchid Hotel. This has always been the landmark I choose to get off at, cos that’s where the restaurants are!

*Tip: Always ask if the cab will go by meter BEFORE getting in. Even after he agrees, when you get in, make sure he does turn it on.

The cab fare was 83baht, but he rounded it off to 100baht. We just gave it to him, we were actually prepared to give 120baht as an extra tip, but since he added it himself, then so be it. He didn’t stop us where we wanted anyway, he stopped across the road. Took us a while to cross the junction, we didn’t really understand the lights. We headed to Hai Wai Tian, a place we usually go to for Sharks Fin, first thing to order, a bottle of coke and sprite. The bf finished his drink in record time.

Exhausted and burnt… but a nice cold Coca-Cola sets things right!

We ordered for ourselves a 500baht claypot Braised Sharks Fin each. It was delicious…

He wanted birds nest so I suggested going a few doors down to Nam Sing. It was not bad, quite yummy too. They gave us free ice-cold chrysanthemum tea. We ordered the 300baht bowl. After that, we asked for directions to Sampeng Lane.

Managed to find Sampeng Lane without much problem. It is a narrow lane with shops on both sides selling anything you can think of. There was even this cute Wall-E robot toy which dances to music, but I didn’t get it cos it was priced too high! Sampeng Lane can also be quite crowded and takes a bit of getting used to jumping out and back in from the shops.

Bought some accessories here – necklaces, hairbands, earrings etc etc. When we decided it was enough, we hopped onto a cab back to the hotel. It was only about 56 baht back.

After freshening up, we took the BTS to Siam station (lazy to walk) and headed to Central World, the walkway extends all the way up to there. If only Singapore has a walkway to connect the entire Orchard Road, heehee. There, we saw a company’s event which had this display of many many PINK flowers. Of course we had to pose for pictures there.

After that, it was some shopping around at Zen and Naraya for their affordable pretty bags (I bought 4 bags and spent only 900baht) and we started feeling hungry. At the food level, we saw the place called Pizza Pizza, which serves thin crust woodfired pizzas. We ordered a pizza and some garlic fries to share. It was one of our best meals for the trip.

Garlic fries

Can’t remember what pizza this is, but it was thin and yummilicious!

*Tip: According to a fellow blogger Matt, Zen Japanese food is at Central World. We would have gone there if we knew it was there. We just assumed it closed down as we couldn’t find it at MBK. It supposedly has cheap and good jap food. We went to another place which has sub-standard jap food, more on that in future posts.

Walking around, for some reason, I started feeling very tired and didn’t want to walk back. So we headed to the taxi stand, which till today, we still don’t understand the system. You tell the guy where you’re going and you sit down nearby. Cabs come in, they go down their list of places and beckon the passengers over. It was confusing as people coming after us were going off first. Probably they forgot about us until the guy noticed us sitting there for a while and reconfirmed our destination again.

Now, at such a place, you would probably expect that the cabs they talk to will use the meter. Noooo. We got in and I realized the meter wasn’t on. I told him to go by the meter and he said, “holiday holiday, no meter, 100baht.” I was tired, but I ain’t gonna get ripped off without a fight. I figured, I know it would probably only cost us less than 40baht, but I’ll just offer 60. NO. 60baht, its so near. “Nono, okok, 80baht”. NO, its so near, I know its not so expensive. Finally, he relented to 60. WTH, 100baht, even Yaowarat back to Siam area was only 50+, don’t think of cheating me of my money. Will avoid the taxi stand at Central World from now on.

It was quite late already, so the rest of the evening was spent slacking and watching TV, plus an aromatherapy massage. RELAXING!! (I didn’t manage to find the guts to do Traditional Thai Massage, I’d freak out once they start the ‘cracking’.)