April and Chong's wedding (Alwin's Pictures)

More pictures of April and Chong's wedding on Alwin's blog (who is apparently indonesian too!)

You can just feel the love of the couple don't you! I sincerely wish them all the best! Have little ones soon cos the world could do with more Aprils and Yew Chongs.

the Great Wall Conquest

I sort of did it, i climbed the great wall.

Jo's in Beijing for the weekend. Don't believe i've mentioned Jo before. Say hi... Jo and I got to know each other through Hazel (part of the dive kaki group). And then Jo and I learnt that we have tonnes of common friends, which really isn't a surprising.

Okay so i've never been to the great wall. Les warned that it'd be tough, life endangering, and at any moment i'd have to maintain my presence of mind or its byebye...(or rather, "bye byyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeee" as i fall off the great wall).

There are 3 main parts of the wall, in order of increasing difficulty...

1. Badaling

2. MuTianYu

3.Simatai

Jo's fit as a fiddle, so no prizes for guessing which wall she chose. Not only did she just choose Simatai, she chose a 10KM hike to Simatai. And it's no ordinary 10km, its about 70degrees incline, on unrestored bricks, and upward climb on stairs as narrow as 10cm but as high as 50cm.

This is part of the unrestored wall. The bricks are all loose.

This is one of the steepest towers, and there are 30 of such towers. and its was about 32 degree celcius. Actually, this was the point i had to admit i'm not naturally athletic and gave up. But by giving up i don't mean packing up and going home. The great wall doesn't make exits for weaklings like me. I had to take a shortcut which was about an hour long detour through the forest. it wasn't easy at all! It required a certain level of skill to climb down the earthy slopes.

This is the view of the great wall from the "short"cut.

We got back unto the wall at tower 26. By then i was smashed. My thighs were shaking, my head was spinning from the blazing sun. But my heart was humbled by the strength and perserverance of our forefathers who built the wall. Imagine the hardship they went through, the number of lives laid down.

To those who are attempting to climb the great wall, my advise is to do the easiest one if u're not the exercise type. But if u really wanna go to Simatai and do what i did, i strongly suggest some form of physical training.

For more Great Wall pictures, click http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=62180&l=07c7a&id=611505872

Hangzhou

I'm currently in Hangzhou train station, waiting for a train back to SH. Summer here smells like this giant accumulation of BO. It's HOT as hell and everyone wished they had worn less. Opposite me there's a lady flashing me her skin coloured ahma panties, and the woman with on my left took off her shoes to show off her undesirable toenails, propped her leg up and is probably peeping at me blogging about her. Who cares...I could use the distraction.

Business brought me to hangzhou this time, i've been treated like a queen the last 2 days, stayed in hyatt (or shall i say THE hyatt) and everything in hotel just screams posh. The food was impecably delicious, service was top notch, the view of the westlake was breathtaking, and the bed was soft and inviting. It's just sinful, probably explains why i'm paying for this now.

(PAUSE here, boarding train)

Okay now i'm in the train cabin, happy to have a nice seat enjoying the aircon. I went through quite an ordeal getting here. As usual, even with assigned seats, people would rush and push their way through. An old lady tried to get ahead of me and i grunted "农人!" (peasant), i hope she heard me.

My battery is running out. I need to go. Aircon is good... zzz....

April and Yew Chong's Wedding

I'm back and recharged! Finally managed to sleep 10 hours straight. Didn't sleep much at all in Singapore, esp the night before the wedding, i tossed and turned for 8 hours, feeling the nerves of daunting tasks the next day. I was so afraid of screwing up and ruining the wedding.

Anyway, there were high and low points for me personally. The haggling was very successful, it was meaningful and the boys were very sporting and did everything we asked them to. But the emceeing was a disgrace. I just wasn't very engaging, and i forgot the brides' parents' name!!! I was tired and distracted, just wasn't my usual charming self (haha). I still feel a bit bad seriously. I don't know how Mel and Sze Yong pulled it off so smoothly at our wedding, they were so comfortable and fun.

I really wanna talk more about the haggling cos it was SO interesting, educational and meaningful.

The games were designed around the 5 languages of love. FOr those who are not familiar with this concept, basically LOVE can be given or felt by a person in 5 different ways.

1. Quality Time
2. Acts of Service
3. Givng of Gifts
4. Physical Touch
5. Words of Affirmation

So the deal was for Yew Chong to learn about all 5 of these, and how to apply them to his marriage with April. At each stage, upon receiving an angpao, the boys will receive an envelope with an explanation of each love language and the task at hand. They have to complete the task within a certain time, failure to do so will lead to a certan forfeits (read: mindless, senseless torture).

Mean Bitch haggler from hell: So are u ready boys?

Boys: Bring it on..We feel cool wearing matching 喜喜 T-shirts.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

1. Quality Time

The bride is a TV-holic, she loves watching TV and hopes that the groom will watch them with her in future. The boys had to play a game of charades to guess Aprils favourite TV shows.

Out of 30 shows, they got only 1 right. haha.

Forfeit was horrible... They had to eat a spoonfool of Mystery powder (either spices, pastes, flour, or fybrogel!!!) and then down a shot of cooking oil.

2. Acts of Service

April needs to know that Chong will share her chores, especially in caring for their future babies. So the groom had to change diapers, feed and sing a lullaby to the "babies". THis part was very funny. The adult pampers we got were too small, and there were funny adult pictures drawn all over them. The milk bottle was half filled with sugar. But they said it was delicious!

Ruperto: it's not my size daddy...



The forfeit was for them to experience one of women's worst pain- HAIR REMOVAL. it was so fun watching them growl in pain.

Stella: Where's the hair? not thick enough, pluck again!!!

3. Givng of Gifts

THis was the simplest. The groom had to fill in a questionnaire on important dates and April's favourite gifts and brands of things she uses.

4. Physical Touch

This one i borrowed from Esther's haggling session. The groom had to identify his bride's lips amongst a group of lipstick marks (most of them belonged to siblings of the bride).

Of course he failed and he had to kiss his brothers...

Jasper: Woah Chong how come u eat so much garlic early in the morning?

5. Words of Affirmation

Okay this part is the sweetest. All the groom had to do was to serenade us with the bride's favourite song "The Way You Make Me Feel". They sang in the garden while the bride peered out of her window. So sweet, the groom and groomsmen are all talented musicians so they really pulled it off impromptu. I teared a bit.

The groom(extreme left) and his bestman (Ruperto, extreme right)also gave very touching speeches during the night.

If i recall correctly, he said "the person u want to marry is not the one u can live with, but the one u cannot live without. I was a weirdo, but i hope today i'm your hero". *wipe tears*.

They also prepared a special item for the bride during the night. In these Arms by Bon Jovi. *Wipe Tears* I want to get married again.

You want commitment

Take a look into these eyes

They burn with a fire, just for you now

Until the end of time

I would do anything

Id beg, Id steal, Id die

To have you in these arms tonight Baby

All photos taken by Jo Chua, Alwin Lim's photos coming up soon.

Back in Sunny Island (3 days only)

Back for April's wedding. Now at Pacific Coffee Company (Red Dot) waiting for my 2nd appointment (I have 6 appointments today), my fellow emcee for the wedding. Lucky got internet cos he is 30 minutes late already!

Anyway, flight yesterday was horrible, BJ -> SG is about 2 hrs more than SH ->SG. I took the early morning and didn't sleep well the night before, i spent about 7 hrs on flight drifting in and out of twilight zone, waking up in weird positions (like my head suspended 45degrees away from my neck). Also experienced T3 in beijing, the terminal built especially for the Olympics. Super big and chic, but the terminal shuttle train broke down! we were brought to the carpark in the basement where we had to take the bus.

Okay gotta run sorry for the abrupt entry, Ruperto shd be arriving any minute!

Coping with failure

I had my worst night in the kitchen. My 2nd attempt at kung pao chicken was a failure, and actually i had succeeded at KPC the first time, it was delicious and was such a breeze to cook.

I wasn't thinking. I put the nuts in before the meat, something i NEVER do. i ALWAYS put the meat in first. And then the chicken was overmarinated so it was super salty. And then somehow the new kitchen is not equipped for crisis management, so i kinda spilled stuff on the floor, clogged the sink, plates were overturned....

By the time i was halfway done with the KPC, i was depressed and wanted to cry. I wanted to give up on the meal and just order in.

At that point Les came back home. I was whining and whining about not wanting to cook even tho my hands just kept on working and cutting vegetables. I guess i wanted to hear him say my KPC was delicious. But all he said was, it's EDIBLE!!! Booohoohooo....

Well I really shouldn't demand more in such circumstances. He has always been appreciative of my cooking, he finishes up everything (on good kitchen days and BAD kitchen days). He even endures my after-cooking high, I'll keep asking him if it's nice (to which there is only one correct answer), and he'll have to counter my own self-criticism with his praises. In yesterday's case, he knew i was so depressed that he let me hog the Wii while he play his PSP. so sweet.

The night actually got better when we finally won the last guitar battle against Loucifer. We've been playing for the past 3 nights and we NEVER got past this "whammy" attack. Basically as u play the notes, players accumulate different attacks and the attacks can be undone with time or a particular counter-attach action. So i suspect that our Anti-Whammy attack button has malfunctioned, so i devised a strategy to overcome the whammy attack by attacking the opponent before he can accumulate the whammy. It's OK if u're confused. To cut the long story short, i kept urging(bugging) Les to keep playing and eventually we overcame Loucifer! Woohoo...

It's really important for couples to constantly give each other words of encouragement. The promise of love and acceptance when the tough gets going. =)

New function on Blog

Hi all,

I've added a new function called "Categories" on right hand column.

You can now access the entires by different topics of interest. It's not a foolproof categorization, and i haven't categorised everything. But i hope it somewhat improves the reading experience! This entry is categorised under "unclassified". haha.