The slimmer me
I use to eat whatever I like whenever I like and the weight had been creeping up on me.... Decides to lose weight for the wedding and I have now hit my target of losing 2 stones (13 kg!). Took me about 14 months to lose all these weight and it wasn't easier....
My method :-
- cycling on the bike machine to burn off 400 cal about 4 times a week
- Breakfast consist of either a pot of yogurt, a portion of wheetabix
- Lunch consist of either a pot of yogurt, healthy sandwich, philadelphia cheese with crackers
- Mid-day snack is only allow if I'm hungry, consist either banana, apple or a pot of yogurt (I do love yogurts!!)
- Dinner is what we use to have but a smaller portion for me
- Supper/ dessert, can't have any on a weekday! Did bend the rules on some nights though.
- Weekends is a treat as I can eat what I like.

Hope I wouldn't stuff myself too much in SG and be able to maintain the weight.

A trip to the Ice bar London
Quite an experience to be in an ice bar, the chairs, tables, bar and glasses are all made of ice!! We paid £12.50 each (for Sat before 6pm) for a duration of 40 mins in the Ice Hotel which includes 1 free drink. Purchase of additional drinks cost £6 each.

Wedding song

It got to be our song 'The day I fall in love' from Beethoven's 2nd.

Just an ordinary day
Started out the same old way
Then I looked into your eyes and knew
Today would be a first for me
The day I fall in love

On the day I fall in love
Sky will be a perfect blue
And I'll give my heart forever more
To someone who is just like you
The day I fall in love

People all say love is wonderful
That the bells will ring
The birds will sing
The skies will open
I wonder where's that great big symphony
Roll over Beethoven
Won't you play with me

And I'll never promise to be true to anyone
Unless it's you
Unless it's you
The day I fall in love

Just an ordinary day
Started out the same old way
Then I looked into your eyes and knew
Today will be a first for me
A first for me
The day I fall in love
I know you'll be there
Ooh....I know...
The day I fall in love

Wedding cards
Had our wedding cards printed from T-dragon and Sam's mom had sent us a few for distribution to my colleagues in UK who will be attending our wedding!!

We had booked/ pay the deposit of wedding stuffs through internet and sometimes I start to worry that things doesn't turn out the way we expect. I think I shall stop worrying as this wedding card design was selected from internet website and the results were better than we expected.

It's less than a month to our wedding day........

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Go karting
After long and hard search, we decided on the go-kart place close to us, Kartsport (Caxton).

15 mins for safety video, 15 mins drivings, 15 minutes break, 15 minutes driving. All in all, 30mins of driving for £32. You are given a suit, gloves and helmet to wear for safety but there's no saftey belt!! Sometimes you do get the feeling that you might fly out!!! I drove very poorly on the first 15 mins as I wasn't very daring, but on the last 15 mins, I gave my all and got myself a decent time score (I think).

Great fun but my arms are aching now as I was holding onto the steering wheel for dear life....

Visit to Southend
Late posting of our trip.

We drove to Southend on 25/10/08 for a day trip. Managed to walk the Southend Pier (world's longest pier, 1 and a third mile) to and fro. It's too windy, that's why we have our hoods on to cover our ears from the cold winds. You can have the option of paying and take the train to the pier, but what's the fun then.... plus we really need to walk off those fish and chips we had earlier.

Pandan Cake
Obtained the recipe from this website (Baking Mum). Best recipe for Pandan Cake I tried so far and will be using this recipe from now on!! Too bad, my pandan paste is running out soon....

Baking is also one of my way of de-stressing from the wedding planning. Not sure why me sooo stress too, just kept thinking everything is sooo going to fall apart on the day... :(

Cabin luggage
Been thinking about how to transport the wedding dress back to Singapore. No way was I going to check in the wedding dress!!

We were out shopping last weekend at Braintree Outlet Village and we found the perfect cabin luggage (think it fits the cabin luggage measurement for SQ just nice) at Bags etc.

Hopefully all the wedding stuff (including Sam's suit) will fit in.

Hair cut
My long hair is driving me nuts!! Uneven, fizzy, unmanageable, ....... you name it!
Didn't want to go to a hairdresser to just trim my hair, quite a waste of money in my sense plus you see, I'm suppose to keep my hair long for the wedding. So I decide to get Sam to trim my hair last Sunday!! Very brave of me, or perhaps I'm just desperate for a hair cut!

I must say, Sam did a brillant job!! I tied up my hair and let him trim it bit by bit using his hair clipper. My hair is now even and manageable and most important of all, I feel better!

Flower Decor
Had been sourcing for hand bouquet and car decor for the wedding. Email a number of contacts as obtained from SGbride forum but only 2 responded. In the end, have decided on rosebay flower. Just awaits paying the deposit.

Pine Garden Cake
I'm seriously considering the Lychee Martini wedding cake from Pine Garden @ AMK, all because of Naomi's recomendation on Pine Garden and the good review on internet/ forums. For example, the Lychee Martini cake was featured in Sunday Times as one of the 50 yummiest cakes.

Anyone of you out there in sunny island Singapore had tasted this cake from Pine Garden, please leave a message here or drop me an email (see link at the side) and let me know how was it.

How I wish I can be in SG to taste the cake and make the decision faster.

Air ticket
Was trying to hold off buying our air-ticket back to Singapore as we were trying to wait for some sort of promotion/ discount. However there was NONE and the prices seems to be increasing as days goes by, so we finally decided to buy the ticket yesterday.

Flight details :-
Arriving in Singapore on Christmas Day in the evening
Departing Singapore on 30 January 2009 (Friday) in the evening

Had booked both flights on SQ A380!! Hopefully it wouldn't be a full flight on the trip to Singapore as I can't expect much people would want to travel on Christmas eve/ day. As we are flying on Christmas eve/ day, the air-ticket price was the cheapest compare to other dates which we consider. Saying that, it's still not cheap as it cost us £870 return each!! Ouch!!!

Friday night

Organised a curry dinner at Gandhi in Cambridge as a get together with my colleagues (due to the nature of our work, we don't see each other often) and in celebration of my success in getting the perm job.

Was introduced to Peshwari Nan (seems to contain almonds), love it!!

My colleagues were very kind and bought me a few things to congratulate me on getting the perm job. Presents include :-
- A box of chocolate from Hotel Chocolat (as in the picture above)
- A bottle of champagne
- 1000 point of airmiles

PS : Sam & I had ate half the box of chocolate last weekend. Oh God, I will try to remind myself that I'm on a diet.... Self control.... cannot resist the chocolate....

Car tyre
Since my last post on Agyo, our current car is jealous and decided to go on a strike by giving me a flat tyre this morning!

This morning, as usual, I walk to my car , didn't ever notice the flat tyre on the front driver's side (I know that's obvious and you should check all your tyres before your car journey but who doesn't that, plus I just assume all is well and good). Started the car and drove out of the parking lot, the car felt weird, strange rumbling noise.... Stop and thought I must be mistaken and drove abit further.... Stop just outside the building carpark and this time, I definitely think something isn't right. Step out of the car and staring in front of me is the flat tyre!!

Luckily Sam was still in and he came down to reverse the car back into the parking lot. So how now, we got a few options :-
- to replace the tyre which will cost about £100 to £150 (tend to replace 2 tyres)
- to rely on spare tyre for the time being and not go so fast on motorway
- to buy another car and not fix this car. We were thinking of buying another car to replace this car for quite sometime now, but we can't seems to make up our mind about which car we want (Actually, it's more on difference of opinions!)

Anyway, I didn't miss a day at work today cos I took the train in the rain....

Nevertheless, Sam will be going on & on & on about the countless items I broke (e.g. this incident, the last car breakdown, the more than 1 lightbulb)

Sam, FYI, you were driving the car when it got hit by a bus (I know you are going to say that you were picking me up on that journey) and when it broke down because the car battery was flat (I know you are going to say that we knew about the problem, but just had not fix it yet).

Update : Sam & Jaster drove the car (after fixing it with the spare tyre) to Kwik Fit to repair the puncture on tyre, costing 15 pounds in total. So the car is mended.

Toyota Aygo
I want a Toyota Aygo!!!

Specifications
- Length = 3.4m
- Width = 1.6m
- Height = 1.47m
- Weight = 1,180 to 1,245 kg
- Fuel consumption = 61.4mpg (combined)
- CO2 = 108
- Engine = 1.0 Litre VVT-i
- Maxi speed = 98mph
- Acceleration 0-62mph = 14.2sec

The running costs are low with road tax (Band B) of only £35, insurance class of 1 and high mpg.

The cost of the new car (Aygo Blue, 5 door, manual) = £8,395 (includes aircon, bluetooth)
AYGO XtraProtected Blue = £365 which includes :-
- Rear parking sensors
- mud flaps
- unpainted rear & side protection mouldings

We test drive it at Cambridge Toyota last Sunday and the salesman was brilliant and very patient with us. We love it (guess I love it more, Sam still love his big, luxury cars, like Ford Mondeo...) but it's too noisy in the interior.... I can live with it, but don't think Sam can....

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There goes my Aygo...... guess I better go frame the Aygo catalog as that's all I'm going to have....

Tesco Cath Kidston Bag update
I checked on ebay every now and then to see if the new design is out. Whenever the new design is out in Tesco (sometimes not even in the store near you), someone is already selling them on ebay.

Found a new design (Mint Green Floral) on ebay today and I rushed to check out in Ely Tesco (found none) and the Tesco near us (bought it!!). Thanks ebay.

My collection so far :-
Vibrant Flowered
Blue Polka Dot
Pink and Blue Striped
Mint Green Floral

Eureka
It's a great drama series, about a town which is very high tech but there's always some accidents/ problems. I think it's abit of x-file + sci-fi + comedy. Definitely recommended.

Tesco Cath Kidston Bag
There's a total of 6 designs and are priced £3.50 each with 50p going to Marie Curie Cancer Care. There are many other wonderful features about this bag including the fact that it is made out of nine recycled 500ml bottle, see Tesco website for more details.

The first 2 design (as above) were launched in Jul 08 (I got them both!) and I just got my hands on the 3rd one (the stripe one), there's horizontal and vertical stripes one and I got them both too!)


Not sure why I need soooooo many bags.... Sam had not said anything so far, perhaps I hide them well...... or did he just 'gave up' on me and my bags....:p

Will make sure I get the reminding 3 designs and I bet there's a design for Christmas.

Perm Job
Finally I have a perm job, will start wef 11/8/08!!

I had been temping with the Company ever since we arrive in Cambridge, over 5 years now. Due to various reason (e.g visa issue, no vacancy), I was not make a perm staff. Ever since the visa issue was sorted out last year and vacancy for the position came up, I had been trying for the Company's assessment centre. However, it turns out that I'm rubbish at interviews and assessment centres, thus didn't manage to get through. Disheartening, I decided to look elsewhere....

Had been to a few interviews elsewhere and sometime in Jul 08, I was persuaded to try for the Company's assessment centre again. Thought I give it a go again.

This time I got through the assessment centre and was offered the position!! At the same time I was also offered a position somewhere. What a dilemma... which one should I go for...

Eventually, I went for the Company's position as the pay and benefits was much better and I love the work I'm already working on.

Finally, it felt like all my efforts paid off.

Seventh month
Ok, it's the seventh month, so wedding preparation will be suspended for the month, will resume after that. Will not blog about wedding stuff too.

Kua
Found a few places which rent out kua in SG :-
- Bridalcloset. Price very reasonable at only S$80 per rental. However, despite numerous emails, the lady kept delaying response with details on kua's measurements. In the end, I gave up.
- Weddingkwa. With my bad experience in dealing with bridalcloset, I decided to go to someone with a proper website, thus this website wasn't considered.
- House of Etiquette. Not available online.
- The red wedding. Price more expensive than the rest, but response from the lady was quick and helpful. The rental price also come with one time rental of Tang jacket for the groom. Will be fun if I can convince Sam to wear it!

I hope the kua will fit and looks ok on me as I had order and paid the deposit solely based on measurements and pictures on the website. Cross my fingers and toes!!!

Evening Gown
Didn't think I was going to buy an evening gown as I already decide to rent a kua in SG. However one of the evening gown (only 1 left in my size or should I say, the size I want to slim down to) in Cambridge TK Maxx catch my eye and I had to buy it. It's the dress in this picture except it's light blue in colour.

Wedding dress
Didn't want to spend a fortune on the dress, thus I decide to look in the high street:-
M&S - wedding dresses are only available for buying online, nil in-store.... weird.... spoke to one of the customer service lady in London and she said that the decision must had been made by a MAN cos any women will know that you need to try on a wedding dress before buying!!! Likewise thinking.
Monsoon - One of my favorite store. Had tried on almost all of their wedding dress collection but just didn't fancy any as the dress cutting seems unsuitable for me.
BHS - Had also tried on almost all of their wedding dress collection. Decide on this one (see picture in this blog entry) after showing it to Sam.

Photographer
Had rely on forum in SGbride.com for recommendation of photographers. and the following were considered :-
- fotowerke - The photographer we wanted (Celestine) wasn't available for our wedding day and photos taken by his colleague wasn't placed online for viewing, thus we didn't sign up with them.
- Black box Photography - Really like the photos taken by them and the package deal with 2 free parent's albums. But the price was just way too much for us....
- foto-u - Quite like their pictures, but not as much as am.pm.
- am.pm photography - Love the pictures and prices seems reasonable, good review on SG bride forum, thus we signed with them.

Make up artist

Didn't source for this. Naomi had highly recommended me her MUA (Qiqi) which she used for her wedding day, therefore had signed her up immediately.

Hotel stay
As our number of tables for wedding dinner is small, it doesn't come with some of the peaks (e.g. hotel stay, wedding cards, wedding favours, etc), thus we need to source for these separately.

We were thinking of going for the deluxe room, however Goodwood Park hotel itself only allows booking of hotel stay 3 months in advance, thus we look at some other website on hotel stay in SG. Came across some hotel websites (e.g. www-singapore.com) which states 'Rates are not applicable for domestic market'....... What do this mean??? Singaporean cannot have the hotel stay at this rate?? Emailed to the website but no reply, thus decide not to play, play lar and look at UK website instead.

Found that the split level suite one beadroom apartment is shown in UK hotel website but not in SG hotel website!!! A check on Goodwood Park Hotel website shows only one suite with split level, i.e. Parklane Suite - Housed in a separate wing, the 64 split-level one-bedroom Parklane Suites cater to the needs of long-staying guests, delivering the many comforts of home away from home. To complete the gracious apartment-style living, each unit comes with a well-equipped kitchenette and spacious balcony. Sound fantastic and can't see any restrictions, thus had booked this at lastminute.com.

Wedding Dinner package
Numbers of tables
Not too difficult for us. Given that we are both overseas and only want a simple wedding (which both parents agreed too), we decide on approx 6 to 8 tables.

Location
Sam decide that it must be in City area......

Which restaurant/ hotel?
This is the difficult bit!!! Most of the hotels/ restaurants require minimum number of tables of 15, 20, etc, nothing like the number of tables we decide on....

With advice from SGbrides, and countless times of looking up individual hotels/ restaurants, these are the few which we considered :-
- Peony Jade - Will allocate one part of the restaurant with constraints ie no march-in, no speeches and no Yum Sheng (but only after 9.45pm).
- Hai Tien Lo (Pan Pacific) - The restaurant do not actually gather for wedding banquet, but do have private dining room can hold private function maximum for 10 tables with round tables of 10-12persons each. Located on level 37, fantastic view!!
- China Club - Minimum 8 tables, sited on the 52nd floor of Singapore’s premium commercial tower!! On a clear day, Malaysia and Indonesia can be glimpsed!
- Min Jiang (Goodwood Park Hotel) - Min 6 tables, maxi 8 tables + Brother can help...

Finally decided on Min Jiang @ Goodwood Park Hotel and the menu, etc were agreed with the help of my beloved brother.

Wedding date
It's not easy planning for a SG wedding when we are not in Singapore. Thanks to all friends and families for help. I finally got some time on hand, thus decide to update the wedding planning so far, starting with the wedding date.

We wanted to have the date of 09/01/2009 as it will be our 5th ROM anniversary. However we also decide to consult a fortune teller to check if this is an auspicious date, if not, to recommend one that falls in Jan 09 (which we planned to be in SG). Better to believe than not to...

Sam's parents consulted the fortune teller and we were informed that 09/01/2009 isn't an auspicious date, thus we selected 03/01/2009 (Sat) instead.

The fortune teller also provide the following information :-
-安床 (Setup bridal bed), 31/12/2008 (Wed)
- 过大礼 (Betrothal), 27/12/2008 (Sat), 9 to 11am
- Age group to avoid when bride is leaving the house = 35 & 47 years old.

Wedding shoes

Grabbed some great bargain at the UK Summer sale and was pleased that I found the wedding shoes I love.

Busy

Been really busy with work the week before, trying to clear all my work so that I can go on leave last week when Sam's parents were over.

Now still busy, trying to plan/ organise the wedding stuff.

Fortune cookie
Do you believe in fortune cookie prediction?? Think we have to now....
We went to a Chinese restaurant near our place sometime late last year and Sam had a fortune cookie with this

'Your wish will be granted after a short delay, prosperity will come your way in the month of May'

I remember asking Sam what his wish was and he replied 'to be promoted to Consultant'. We didn't think much about this fortune cookie prediction since but I knew that Sam kept this piece of paper in his wallet. Recently Sam was informed that he's promoted to Consultant wef 1 May 08!!

How true...

Test drive

The air con in our car isn't working and it's boiling hot in UK (abt 27 deg cel). Thinking that the air-con unit is spolit and will cost us alot of money to fix it, we thought of prehap replacing the car with another second hand car. Shortlisted a car (Ford Mondeo) at Peterborough and we drove there on Saturday. The car dealer location was a petrol station turn into a second hand car sales.

The car looks what we expect, looks new and we made a request with the person-in-charge (seems to be only 1 person and we think he's the owner) to have a look inside the car. A moment later, he hand us the keys and left us alone to look at the car and he carry on with vacuuming his office...... Weird, shouldn't he try to sell us the car?? Or is vacuuming his office too impt... or prehaps he thinks that we wouldn't buy the car, so what's the point???

Anyway, we were satisfy with the car after inspection and process to ask him for part-exchange for our old car and to test drive his car. Because the MOT of our old car is running out soon and the air-con doesn't work, he only quoted us £200 for our old car!!! The annual road tax for the car is new which cost us £185 and is only 10 days old.......... deduct the road tax, our old car value = £15!!! OMG!!

We didn't bargain the price yet, thought we test drive the car first. However the owner wasn't keen for us to test drive cos he want us to decide on the part-exchange price first and that test driving his car will dirty the car.......What???? Nevertheless, we managed to persuade him to let us test drive the car. He drove the car out for us, place the licence plate, etc and with Sam at the driver seat and me near the passenger seat, he said 'ok, it's all yours'...... Errrrrr, he's not coming with us to test drive the car?? He's trusting us not to drive the car away and never come back?? Or is vacuuming his office that impt!!

During the test drive, we realise that the air-con in the car wasn't working too and it seems there's a intermediate problem with the car initially when the air-con is switch on. We were too honest lar and returned the car back to the owner and queried him as to the air-con and the intermediate problem. He mentioned that the air-con just need re-gassing and will be fully re-gased after we bought it and the car comes with 3 months warranty, so no need to worry. As for the intermediate problem, it was working fine when we show him what we meant, so unable to get an answer.

Anyway, we didn't buy the car cos why didn't he re-gas the air-con beforehand and want to wait till we bought it and that intermediate problem, hmmmmm, all too dodgy. Prehaps all along, he knew that he's not going to sell the car, so vacuuming seems to be a better option for him than a wasted time with us.

However, his response made us think that our car might also just need re-gassing in order to fix the air-con. So on Sunday, we drove to Halford for their air-con servicing which cost us £50 and the air-con in the car is fixed!!! Finally!!!

Drove the car today (Monday) to the garage for full service + MOT and received a call later in the afternoon that the brake pad needs changing. All in all, the full cost of change + service+ MOT comes to £311. Ouch.......

Looks like we might need to replace our old car soon as repair cost are on the increase.

Wii Fit review
Play for 2 hours todays and I love the step plus!!!

Wii Fit
My belated birthday gift from Sam had arrived.
Sam pre-order the Wii Fit from Argos and it was delivered to his office yesterday (launch date). Tried playing it today. Hopefully this will keep me in shape for the wedding.

Review of Petite Anglaise book
I was really excited when I got the book and can't want to start reading the book. The first few chapters talks about how she started blogging, rather interesting read. However it goes downhill from there and at one point, I was struggling to read it, cos Petite was unfaithful....... I knew she left Mr Frog for someone but it didn't cross my mind she cheated on him. Those few chapters were the killer of the book.

If you can go past those 'killer' chapters, you will be on course to finish reading the book as I realised that she would have still left Mr Frog with/ without the Lover (he was just a catalyst). I do felt that justice was being served when the Lover dump Petite, but at the same time, I did feel sorry for her too.

I do admire Petite for baring it all in writing this book, it can be difficult for her but hey, she's paid for writing the book!!

Overall, I wouldn't recommend it unless you are a fan of her blog, or you are extremely free.

My Birthday
On leave for this special day of mine. Yes, I'm offically thirtysomething!!! So my plan for today is to shop in London for a wedding dress. Not to buy yet, cos I still want to lose some weight but to shop around for design and style. Think it's a good way to enjoy my birthday by shopping. Then will meet Sam for dinner this evening.
Ok, off to catch the train now.

PS : Have plan for a wedding in SG in Jan 2009.

Easter Sunday
I'm sitting in the flat typing this while looking out of the window, cos it' snowing!!! Yes, it's snowing on Easter Sunday and the snow sets, everything looks white outside, lovely!!

F1 Night racing Singapore

Initially, I thought it's night racing in Singapore so that it wouldn't be soooo hot and it will look brilliant with the lights, etc. However upon reading the BBC, did I then realise that the reason that sound more likely was so that the time of the race suit the timing of Europe.

Comment by on BBC website by Patrick Head, co-owner Williams team

Will the night race in Singapore be a success?
I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be a good race. If I was Singapore, I'd be saying, well, we're putting up all this money, why don't we have a Grand Prix at the time that suits us? I'd be rather nose out of joint if I was told the only reason you're having the race on at that time is to suit Europe, or someone else.

Petite Anglaise
Saw Petite Anglaise blog in a magazine (think it was ACCA mag, due her legal case) and was hooked to her blog ever since. Her book is out in UK but I forgot about it when I ordered other books last weekend!!! Errrrrr.... Oh well, I will wait for the paperback to be out then.

Update : Can't wait, bought it last week from Amazon! First edition and hardback!!

Tour around Cambridge

We always embark on a tour around Cambridge whenever there's visitor and Eagle Pub is always a convenient stopover for a pint plus it's a touristy place.

Happy New Year everyone
Hope the year of Rat is going to be a fantastic year for everyone!!
As UK don't celebrate Chinese New Year, it's not a public holiday so got to work....:(
We did however have a steamboat dinner with Jaster last weekend as a reunion dinner, hope everyone enjoy their dinner.

恭喜发财！！！

The song I was looking for
Finally found the song title for the song I was looking for

But Sam can't find it!!! Got to buy this album when I'm back in Singapore!!
专辑：阿杜新歌+精选
发行时间：2004-12-21

《爱不难》-阿杜
来不及告诉你
不想让你走
来不及找到可以
原谅的理由
空荡荡的双手
抓不住这借口
有句话好久好久
都说不出口
爱不难，爱就在
我和你谁都无法承担
爱太难，到弊端
到最后，我只爱着简单
来不及告诉你
不想让你走
来不及找到可以
原谅的理由
空荡荡的双手
抓不住这借口
有些话好久好都
说不出口
爱不难，爱就在
我和你谁都无法承担
爱太难，到弊端
到最后，我只爱着简单

Can listen to the song here.

9 Jan
Our ROM anniversary!! We planned to go out last weekend to celebrate but as we were down with the stomach bug, we stayed home instead. So yesterday I bought pork crackling to roast and make some soup, instead of eating out. A simple meal for Sam and some roses for me. Job done!!

Sightseeing

Jess was here for Christmas & New Year and we took her sightseeing in Cambridge, Woburn Safari Park & London.

Cambridge

A shot of the view of Kings College in Cambridge.

Woburn


It's best not to walk in when the animals are looking at you as thought you are their food!!

London

Train ride to London Kings Cross Station


The crowd at Buckingham Palace for the change of guards.


Big Ben


House of Parliament


London Eye


Westminister Abbey


Tower Bridge


At Piccadilly Circus Tube station, waiting for the train.

And of course, the shopping experience in UK (including queuing in the cold for NEXT sale at 5am in Cambridge)!!