22 Apr 2007 — Strange how easily one’s perspective of things can change when you are cooped up, deprived and desperate. Remember how a few months ago, I completely dissed the Molton Brown shower gel we had in the gym showers? Well, having long ran out of my favourite natural bar soaps and having gone through several bottles of sodium laureth sulphate-laden, tuckshop-acquired Lux bodywash, last night after a long day at work, I thought I’d treat myself. And instead of tucking into a pack of cookies or chomping down on a bag of chips, I popped down to Secrets & Dreams and surprised myself with a bottle of Molton Brown’s “Heavenly Gingerlily Moisture Bath & Shower Gel”. A mix of Tahitian gingerlily, Indian tuberose, ginger and cardamom — I was completely seduced. Oh, and take my word for it, that night in the shower, I WAS in paradise. Sigh… the simple pleasures of life’s little luxuries. Artificial fragrances and colouring? Bring it on! And sure it costs me US$17.50 with staff discount, but you know, I felt like a princess and I TOTALLY deserved it.

20 Apr 2007 — OMG, OMG… the date draws nearer and nearer… yes people, William and I will soon be wed, the customary way that is, since we have already signed our legal binding papers back in January last year. The preps for that event was nothing compared to the monumental task at hand. But I’m glad to say that endless heated discussions and sleepless nights later, William and I are finally seeing eye to eye and making some headway at long last.

For one, we have finally compiled our guest list, gathered all their postal addresses (yah, like who even sends snail mail anymore these days?!?) and even finalised the wedding card design. Like geez… who would have thought that even the words on the card had to be sooo precise, like whose names comes first, the proper terminology of our ranking in terms of siblings, etc, etc.

Haha, and in line with our whole Oriental theme, we have opted to keep the traditional Chinese wordings in the cards. I love it! So campy! Now all that’s left is to get them printed and sent out… I know, I know, even our wedding co-ordinator is hurrying us, so not to worry, if you’re on the invite list, you will be getting them very very soon, and once you do, please RSVP ASAP. Wah liao… take our own sweet time to send out the invites but demand guests to reply immediately… like dat oso can?!?

Another thing that’s moving along rather than stagnating and fermenting is the layout of our wedding album. Yes… believe it or not, we are paying other people but doing the job ourselves. The designer that J&M got us just cannot make it lah… the way she designed the album was sooo cheena, and not in a campy way either! Just very very salah. It’s a very very thin line between what is campy and what is LC, and far too few people tread it well. Definitely not her! For instance, look at this one page:

Alamak! So secondary school autograph book right?!? So many “special” effects, somemore kena cheesy love poem?!! How to make it you tell me?… And the more pages I saw, the more my blood boiled… somehow or other, this designer with her putrid bad taste has succeeded in transforming our rather tasteful photos into a very run-of-the-mill JB-studio album!!! Argh!!!! And after several failed attempts of trying to convey the clean, slick look we’re after, William was so frus he decided: forgit it, we’ll just do it ourselves! Grrreat, another colossal project I have to somehow orchestrate remotely. But yes, weeeeks later, we are almost done.

We’ve also decided on the caterer for the day’s buffet — Elsie’s Kitchen. Yep, both mum and I somehow ended up picking the same company. Came with the recommendations of my Sam Yee; she’s gone through tons of caterers with all the parties she’s organised, so Elsie’s must be good! Peranakan food = lots of yummilicious spicy lemak stuff… sedap. I had a grand time looking through their various buffet menus to pick out the items we’d like. Top on my list: Sotong Youtiao and Or-nee (Yam Paste)! How long has it been since I had any of these things… TOO LONG! That’s how long!

Being rather productive during our last trip home, we have also settled on our actual day videographer and photographer. The former’s gonna be The Wedding Paparazzi and the latter, Tinydot Photography. TWP was friendly enough and we really dig their upbeat snazzy style of videography, but with Tinydot, wow… I really liked the guy from the get-go. Yu Hsin, the photog, was sooo affable and down-to-earth that he put us at ease from the very first, or actually our only, meeting. No airs about him whatsoever. And even with his busy schedule, the guy makes time for a blog (anyone who’s got a blog is naturally in my good books), where he talks passionately about his work, the couples he work with, and most importantly it seems, his family. Awww… you gotta love that! And of course he’s got a great eye and flair for capturing those special moments too. Oh, and I must admit, for the amazing work he does, his rates are still very very affordable.

Peiling was so pleased with the job he did for her ROM (sample above), she’s flying him all the way to Bali for her actual day, and she has confessed that she has utterly fallen in love with him too. Really, go check out his site oredi!
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11 Apr 2007 — One of our Thai spa receptionists, Jeab, just came back to the resort after a month. Other than the mangers who got mini elephant statuettes, the rest of us were each given a keychain. “Typical” you’d think. Well, there’s nothing typical about this keychain. In fact, I’ve not seen anything like it…

…and don’t think I would be using it anytime soon. Erm, yeah. I’d probably get one too many questions and/or stares. And I was thinking to myself, “Really Jeab, of all things out there, you really thought the tamarind fruit was the most appropriate thing you could give us as a keychain?!?” Why not a harmless apple or an innocent strawberry or even a banana? A tamarind. Really.

And then…

Wow, it really looks like the real thing. As it turns out, Jeab has tons of tamarind growing in the garden in her house. She brought lots back for the other girls – apparently, it’s a favourite Thai snack. They were shocked I’ve not had it before. I had to explain that no, tamarind does not grow rampantly in Singaporean backyards. In fact, most of us do not stay in houses with backyards. So they nudged me on, “Try, try.” Erh, tamarind? Isn’t it supposed to be real sour? Eeew… doesn’t sound appetizing ley. But ok, I’ll hazard a go, not the whole thing, just one teeny segment will do.

For all of you who are as suaku as I am, this is how it’s done:

Hmm… well, it wasn’t half as sour as I had thought. In fact, it was quite sweet, and actually very tasty! Ok, I’ve changed my mind. I will have the whole thing after all. In fact, pass me another two, or three. Fantastic, another au natural healthy snack. Lesson learnt — get out of your comfort zone, there’s loads of good stuff waiting to be discovered!

6 Apr 2007 — The mood has been kinda heavy around here recently, so I thought I’d lighten things up a bit by blogging about Hiromi’s birthday which actually happened couple of weeks back. Cause you know, birthdays always involves food, and food always makes for a happy, lighthearted occasion. On this particular night, we managed to get reservations for yet another restaurant — Vilu! First time for all of us again… yipee!

So before we went over to the other island, we gathered next door in Hiromi’s room. Opening a mystery gift from an anonymous sender — can you tell that the girls were filled with slight trepidation even as they unwrapped the present. Well, these days anything unlabelled is rather suspect, isn’t it? But it’s ok, it turned out to be a harmless little clock.

Moving on to more important things… like getting your mascara done just right. Heather at 18 needed some coaching from us lao zha-bor.

So as mentioned, Vilu is situated on Rangali island, the smaller one, so since we were dressed so prettily, we took the dhoni instead of walking. Oh well, 10 minutes on the dhoni, what to do leh?…

Take pictures of course!

Me too! Me too! Oh by the way, it was only 4 of us tonight. Yukiko had to work late, and Yukari so sad, she went to Male in the day to visit the dentist, and was meant to take the last flight back, but kena bumped off! Somemore she went shopping in the Italian boutique and specially bought a dress for tonight! So sayang…
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