Sunday, 8 September 2013

2nd phase to States: Shipment boxes are here!!!

The 1st phase to States, administrative work is 90% done. The 10% left is Ju's visa application. The US embassy needs a copy of our ROM certificate to process our paperwork. 2nd phase just kicked start last week. The boxes for shipment are here! This meant that we have to start packing the stuffs we needed. I was thinking of taking a break but seems like it is pretty hard as there so many things need to be done.

1. Packing stuffs to the States.
2. Bring Chelsea for vaccination
3. Buy a certified kennel for Chelsea's shipment to States.
4. Scan ROM certificate to my admin
5. Submit Juliana's passpost for visa application.
6. More admin stuffs to settle..

Wednesday, 4 September 2013

23 Sep Team

A successful event requires a strong team to complete the task. Just like a successful restaurant needs a team to run it well. For our ROM, we have identified key personnel to ensure the event goes smoothly.

Here are our team members:
1. Aunt Dorine - Wedding planner
She is our wedding planner and will be ensuring the function room is well decorated and assist the Coordinator.

2. Rui Cheng - Coordinator
Young and energetic are his strong points. His inexperience will be buffered by Aunt's vast experience. He will definitely show people that despite his relatively young age, he can handle the big task.

3. Shikai - The Replacement Killer
He will be standby if the main photographer play us out. Besides, he will be taking care of taking the video for our solemnization. The man all suitable for the job.

4. Ouyang - Music Deejay
He will be the main deejay but will be responsible to coordinate which songs to be played. Ultimately, he will also be helping to play the video montage I've made.

5. Ai en - Ring Bearer
She is Juliana's youngest cousin and yet handed a very huge but simple task. To bring the rings to the hotel.

6. May, Cindi, Aidy - The Receptions
They will be taking note on the guests arrival and collect gifts from guests. Besides, they will be taking polarite photos for the guests, paste them on the guestbook and remind the guest to sign it off.

7. Elmo - The Expediter
Elmo will be fetching Shikai (the videographer) and assist to expedite in the event.

P.S. Our wedding bands are ready for collection. Stay tune folks!


Monday, 26 August 2013

30 days and less

Time flies. We have less than 30 days left to our ROM! We met up with Alina last Thursday to finalize on our ROM event. (Phew! I almost lost my mobile phone again! Thanks to the awesome taxi driver!) Alina was really nice to allow us to check in to the hotel at 9am on the actual day and even agree to allow us to have a rehearsal in the function room.

We have identified my main coordinator for our ROM, Rui Cheng. This will be a big challenge for him as he is inexperience and young. Being his elder brother, I would want him to take this event as a learning process and I believe he has what it takes to handle such huge responsibility. The rest of my guest will be handed simple task on that day as I do not want to tired them out. I want them to enjoy the event.

There are few things left outstanding and need to be settle soon. First of all, we need to find a projector to project the video montage I specially prepared for my guests. I have one available at work but need to get approval from my boss. Ju will help to find other alternatives and at the same time, I will approach Aunt Dorine on this issue. Next, we need to burn an audio CD for Alina so they can play the entrance song of our own. Last but not least, the guestbook needs to be prepared. We spent quite an amount for the items to make the guestbook with polarite pictures. We just need some inspiration to have it set up.

Audit at my workplace is finally over and I can now focus on our ROM and our departure to United States. The killing paperwork for the departure to US is almost settle and we are waiting for the boxes to arrive for packing. Besides packing, we need to get Chelsea to take the necessary vaccine for US and book a airline slot for it.

So many things were involved in the past few months.. I can't wait to depart to US with Ju and Chelsea..

Is our rings ready....?

Monday, 22 July 2013

Addictions Cafe @ Marina Square

As Elmo just returned from a trip to Myanmar, we decided to meet up for dinner. As we have no preference on where to have our dinner, we browsed through Marina Square directory and found this eye catching restaurant called Addictions Cafe.

We made our way to Addictions Cafe where there were a few other restaurants like Canivore, Bangkok Jam were located. When we reached there, we totally overlooked the cafe as the interesting road signs in Thai of Bangkok Jam caught our attention. We kept on searching for the cafe till Elmo pointed out that it was right in front of us!

It was Sunday evening and we could see Bangkok Jam was very crowded as compared to Addictions which only had about less than 10 diners. Firstly, there was very few diners and we thought it was some desert shop. Secondly, the name of the shop could not be seen as it was on the podium at the entrance. We were a little worried but Elmo was very optimistic and decided to go ahead with Addictions Cafe. The service was pretty good as they allowed us to bring in the drinks we bought from Starbucks but had to transfer them to their cups. The waiter recommended to us some signature dish but I decided to order an Angus burger with sweet potatos chips ($21) as I had been craving for it sometime ago. Elmo ordered a spaghetti with crab meat in traditional sauce ($23) and Mich ordered a grilled cod fillet (close to $25).  Ju decided to give it a go as the food are too expensive!

We did not wait long for the food to be served. When Elmo saw his entre, he was so surprised! The serving size was so small that it looked like a kid's meal. That was followed by my Angus burger which looked slightly better and I cut it into halves to share with Ju. Mich's grilled fillet looks way better than ours.

I'll just share with you guys on my Angus burger with sweet potato chips. The angus beef is really juicy and delicious. The bun isn't burnt or soggy. It is cooked perfectly. However, the sweet potato chips is dry and it doesn't even tasted like sweet potato. $21 for an Angus burger is way too expensive even for such good qualities.

Ju was glad she did not place any order as the portion was small and too costly. Now we understand why the restaurant was so empty in a Sunday evening. God bless!

Addictions Cafe @ Marina Square
Service:9/10
Food: 7.5/10
Price: Too costly
Recommendations: Just try once..and that's it!

Sunday, 14 July 2013

Putting things in place

As we were both free last Wednesday evening, we decided to meet up with Aunt Dorine, our wedding planner, to discuss about our ROM. We have only 2 months left to our ROM and there were some things left undone.

During the meet up, Aunt Dorine gave us some advice and also helped us to assign different roles to our identified helpers. At the same time, we also discussed about when to meet up with the photographer and solemnizer. The reason for meeting up with the photographer is that we need him to know what is our expectations. Next, we need to meet up with the solemnizer as we needed him to sign our consent form as we are holding our solemnization outside ROM. These are the key things to settle.

The following day, Ju and I went to the bridal shop to pick a photo for our portrait and a dress for ROM day. The photos which were taken were quite below my expectations. Maybe they were not edited yet but I am not happy with most of them. I want them retaken! Out of those photos, we were lucky to find one adorable one as our portrait for our solemnization. It will be edited and be shown to us (as we requested for it) in the coming week. 

Wow... two months left. 60 days seemed really long but there are so many things left undone... 

Monday, 8 July 2013

The Viet Scooter

I was in Ho Chi Minh City for holidays a couple of days back. Ju did not followed as I went with all my guy friends. As it was my first time going to HCM, I was excited to see the life in Vietnam and it was really an eye opener. The traffic in the city was horrible! It was packed with lots of scooters and you can listen the non-stopping horns of the vehicles. If you want to arrive at work on time everyday, it is recommended to get a scooter as the public transports will be blocked by this little scooters.

Vietnamese culture is quite admirable. Even though the scooters were honked off the road, there was no staring sight, vulgar hand sign or arguments going on. They seemed to get used to the honk and really patient. While on our way to the hotel, I saw a lady fell off her scooter and had knocked her face to the ground. In no time, I saw 2-3 riders stop by to help her up. Impressive, isn't it? I could not stop observing the life of the Viets along the way as it was so interesting. Scooters were like part of the Viets' life. They can carry a family of three which was quite incredible!

If you have been on the scooter before, you should know that there should be chemistry between the rider and pillion to have a smooth ride. For example, if the rider is turning right, the pillion should just follow the flow and put his/her body weight to the right. There should not be too much fidgeting by the pillion as it may distract the rider.

A relationship is like riding a scooter, when our partner is in the driving seat to deal with some stuffs, eg.planning a holiday, we should just take a back seat and provide any support when he/she needs. If he/she is going the wrong way, we should direct them to the correct way with the least possible 'fidgeting' or else like a scooter, the relationship will lose control and both will end up injured. The most important thing in a relaitonship is chemistry. I am really glad that Jul and I have very good chemistry and that would definitely benefit us as we grow old together. At some point of time, there will definitely be arguments and it is our understanding in each other that will help us to solve problems and move on together.

If love is a journey, I will hold your hand and continue the path together. Love you, Ju!




Wednesday, 3 July 2013

Gordon Ramsay

I believe people who have watched Hell's Kitchen or Kitchen's Nightmare would know this celebrity chef, Gordon Ramsay. If you have watched the Hell's Kitchen season, you would notice that this guy has a foul mouth and is extremely crude to the participants. Every sentence that came out from him would mostly consist of the 'F' word. From another point of view, he was actually trying to grind the best out of every contestants and picked the winner to be his head chef in one of his restaurants.

Juliana loves Gordon Ramsay's show so much! She can spend the whole day watching his shows. I know about this famous Michelin star chef but I don't watch his shows until JuJu introduced to me. After watching a few episodes of Kitchen's Nightmare, I find this guy is quite amazing and nice. In Kitchen's Nightmare, Gordon would visit the troubled restaurants and find out what is the cause of the restaurant's downfall and solve the problems with the restaurants' owners. Juju and I had been watching the show and taking down the location of the restaurants he been to so that when we are in Idaho, we can travel to those restaurants for dinner.

Gordon Ramsay could just be a celebrity chef but to us, he is our link. We believe that to have successful relationship, we need to have something in common. After watching GR's show, both us are looking forward to cook together. As we were both staying with our parents, cooking might be a little troublesome here. Therefore, having a house of our own in states will give us the opportunity to 'compete' our cooking skills.

We just can't wait for the day to come where we'll be going to states and live together. There will definitely be ups and downs in these two years, but with our strong understanding in each other, we will definitely solve all the problems together.

P.S. Our BIG day is about two months away. There are few things that needs to be sorted out.
Hopefully we can meet our wedding planner next week so that we can get more help from there. Vows... vows..