Moo’s post today had me reminiscing..I never thought I would be one of the first amongst my friends to tie the knot.Heck, three years ago I was going around telling everyone I was never going to get married.And I meant that as well…hoping to get angpows from them every single year, spending my life on a tropical island and runaway trips to different places every year.

Then disaster strike.Love finds you in the most unusual situation.I’ve always been the practitioner of ‘you don’t eat and shit at the same place’ and have been cautious of the relationships that I keep at work, always making sure that they are at arm’s length - something I’ve learnt through my short corporate career. Having being screwed up for being close friends with collegues,I’d figured it’s better to play outside the office. Then one day I heard an insane laughter tinkling through from the other side of the 3rd floor. A chuckle that sounds like it should be comming out from an insane cartoon show.Who is it I wonder?

We got thrown together by an audit that I was conducting on his section…and somehow or rather we started flirting big time over the keyboard. Everyday. I remember dreybee told me one day when I was updating her on the non-existent progress of the fishing expedition; ” You are like a cat, fishing every day waiting for a bite. Meow”. Good analogy, because we were both fishing but with no idea of:

a) if we can catch the fish
b) if we even want the fish
c) what are we going to do if the fish is caught?

This fishing expedition went on for more than two months..by which I had already started to reel my fishing line back due to the emergence of other fishes in the sea…hey, it gets boring after a while if it’s not going anywhere.The day after I decided to let the fish go, I felt a bite. And so I had to make up my mind if I wanted to reel this fish in or continue juggling the other fishes in the sea.

Even up to our first date, it was still quite undecided what do I do now that the fish has bitten. So crazily enough, I brought maggie along for our first dinner, because he wanted to bring a friend of his along for dinner. A GIRL. I know I am good in seeking out food, but what do you think I am, walking talking guidebook? And A GIRL at that.Wah LAU.

Anyway, he didn’t end up bringing THE GIRL, and maggie left us after dinner to our own devices. Which one thing lead to another and two weeks later we were off on our first holiday.Three weeks later he insisted that he wanted to meet my parents…which my parents were quite reluctant to have lunch with a white hairy stranger. Due to my battilion of male friends, they think of me as quite the playgirl (which of course, I wasn’t, at that time I had been single for more than 2 years!). So thinking that this was another notch on the bedpost, we all had dim sum in the elegant settings of the marriott hotel in clipped tones.

And then a month later we were off to Bali. Oh Bali. Where I was sick the first 6 days and he was sick the last 6 days. As in violently sickeningly sick. With fever and vomiting and the such. Wasn’t a very pretty sight for either of us but we trudged on exploring bali by feet and bouncing buses.Where as he laid vomiting in bed, I was picked up by another man by the swimming pool.Who kept calling my room and slamming down the phone when Bacon picked up.

A month later and all too soon it was time for him to leave for good. So before he leaves, we decided that we were going to go for another adventure trip, this time hitting penang-langkawi-bangkok. Day 3 at Penang, the tsunami strike and we had to run down 28 floors down from my parents’ seafront apartment. At 9am. I remember being asleep, and he waking me up screaming that the apartment is shaking. I asked him to shut up, until I noticed that the hangers were doing a jiggling act otherwise unnatural. And so we ran.

After the whole experienced died down, we crawled back into bed,getting ready for our boatride to langkawi later that afternoon. On the way to the jetty, the waves were so huge it splashed over our taxi to the other side fo the road. And I mentioned it was perfect weather for surfing, not knowing that the huge waves had swept away civilization in phuket.

We celebrated the dawn of 2005 together trying to get into Poppy,and he left me on the second day of the new year…not knowing when will we see each other again.

A little more than a month later, he came back to me for 20 hours, and we made a trip to Tiffany’s. I was asked to pick out a diamond, any diamond. Due to the whole surrealism of the situation, I did not realize what happened,until he rang his mom telling her that he’s bought me a special diamond. And the next day, we parted ways at KLIA again, with me heading off to Penang to conduct one last round of angpow collection.And again, I did not know when was I going to see him again.

We’ve come a long way baby.

shorttalk: Spelling mistakes on top form today- revised at 4.15pm

In commemorating my 200th post on Blogger, wedding posts are on hold whilst I look back at my short blogging career. Its funny how so many things happen within a year.But amongst all, I had decided that this entry shall be about nofate.com; my partner in crime - moo.

I remember how we stumbled across each other in cyberspace…through some obscure blogger who was just starting out as well and had linked to us both.We used to comment on his blog..until he dissapeared and then we started commenting on each other’s blog.And I don’t know what happened, but we started pimping each other on our blogs.

We have very strange msn/gtalk conversations about travels, friends, relationships, family, other bloggers,raves…and even one crazy virtual drinking session. I did not start out blogging to make virtual friends, but moohad been a constant support in so many ways…including helping to download songs for my wedding and (incidentally) paying for the wedding bubbles that made my husband cry. We also wanted to form a political party (don’t remember why) ,share a domain name(I was too slow in making my mind up) and be in-laws. Well, I wanted to be in-laws, Moo was quite reluctant to be related to me.

But alas, we are not fated to meet and laugh together like hyenas. Moo arrived in KL a few weeks after I moved to Leeds. Then this year, in the true fashion of star-crossed lovers, I will be in Australia just as he is wrapping up work preparing to conquer SG/KL/PG again..and I will leave KL the day before he arrives. Nofate.com is so ironic. We shall remain beautiful strangers, you and I. Until we meet in Ibiza, dancing on white sandy beaches getting drunk on submarines and vodka redbull.

small talk: Shit, just realized that this is post 191 not post 200.Potong stim.Oh well.

….is buy one get one free on all clothings.Only in the Zara factory outlet, which means tops are as low as £4 or in this case,2 for £4.

How to not DIE?

Must control.Must go Australia. Must save up for a tokidoki bag.Must visit Pammy in London.Must buy new house.Cannot panic.Breathe in.Breathe out.Sit down.Dont go.Stay home.

(but how when a top is cheaper than an floor rag?!)

Shorttalk: I wish I can photoshop the pictures..most of it is just frankly horrible pictures.Yes, I mistakenly saved on a cheapo photographer - my bad. The good pictures are all taken by my friends. But I had just put in a request through to Dreymer….it will be up to her whether she sends me a photoshop CD or not!!

After a drunken night’s sleep, I was happily woken up by ‘The One from Redang’s’ txt message at 7.35 that he has arrived and smelt like last night’s vomit…and can he have the hotel’s name please. After txting the name of the hotel back to him, I tried going back to sleep, but without much hope. So i prodded dreymer up at 8.15am…and we had an eyemask session since it was too early for breakfast either.

View in the morning

After nearly falling asleep again, The One from Redang rang from reception with pleas of a shower.So we headed on to reception, passed him the keys, and continued on to pig out on nasi lemak, eggs and pancakes.Too tired to take pictures and still reeking of yesterday’s smoke and alcohol binge, we were a sullen group…especially if you compared us to Bacon’s bunch who were in bed early and were up bright and shiny at breakfast, ready to attack the sun and the sea again with a happy shiny smile. Bleah…

Serves us right for having so much fun.

With the makeup/hair lady arriving at 11pm, we tried to head back to the room for a short snooze,but with three of us in the bed, it dont make sense, so I started packing whilst dreymer puts on her lovely face courtesy of SK2 and snoozes up with The One from Redang

she is so gonna kill me..

With barely enough time for me to have a quick shower and scrub, the makeup lady was knocking on the door already.Seeing that we had to move to the suite and check out of the current room, I left her at the suite unpacking her goodies whilst I continue to rush upwards and downwards moving things here and there.Then realizing that I did not have a shirt I could put on so to not smudge my makeup whilst putting on the dress, I snatched Bacon’s ugly shirt to slip on.So viewers beware…ugly top ahead.

Work in progress

Letting someone fuss over you is hard work ok, coffee breaks are essential

So are pseudo photoshoots to see whether the makeup is too heavy or just right

Checking up on his wife

Bacon was so so quiet that I did not realize he was in the suite, at the next room preparing his speech for the night…we ordered in KFC and I did not even share it with him, thinking that he was out playing in the sun. Oh what a wonderful wife I am..:))

We all had fake shu uemura eyelashes installed.I mean glued on.Yes, I’m a geek,so what.

It was such a long process..I did not actually realize I was sat there for the better part of 3 hours.Strange fact; apparently your veil is to be placed on your hair by an old lady who have had many children….thus she was reluctant to fix it up for me. Bizzare. But she did it anyway..and after me refusing for her to place it under my bun (which would’ve effectively made my hair bunned up like a samurai’s topknot), she twsited and turned it around into a flower-like shape.

tada!

At 2.35pm, I started to panic.Having to move downstairs to my parents’ room, grab my dress from the mil’s room where it was being ironed, change,prepare for pictures, make sure all my chi-muis are ready…I had at last started to panic. And proper panic. Some of them were missing…one was rushing in from singapore, another one was slowly taking her own sweet time from Taiping and two others were out hunting for my favourite food to suprise me, all oblivious to the fact that I was panicking like crazy…..and they were rewarded with me bossing everyone around like crazy when they eventually arrive…most of them at 3pm.

The crazy ones.

The parents helping out

The spanning dress

Four there, two more to go!

The upside down obi belt…OoOps.We took it off and put it on again at night.

Its hard being a brideslave;sighs dreymer

I flew all the way from Singapore for this??? pouts mandy

Hahah…err,yes?

Next up: The moment of truth…will Bacon get past the chi muis from hell? (Actually they were too damned nice to him)

PS: Not all pictures are properly uploaded yet - bear with me if your pics are not here…I dont love you any less!

Warning: Extremely drunk-looking pictures ahead

No, not a night of KFC. More of a night of crazy boozing with those closest to my hearts.

Hen nights are traditionally held to celebrate the bride’s last night as a single women. Since I had been officially married for 6 months, this was a little strange…but I wanted it anyway. So maidzilla aka dreymer was tasked with the impossible task of comming up with a sneaky hen night plan that will remain in our minds forever.With not much time on our hands, it had to be the eve of the wedding, when all of us will be in Penang. In the UK, more and more brides to be are opting for the easy (and smarter) option of spending time with the girls in a spa or having a really luxurious time shopping or a girly holiday or whatnots. Seeing that half of my closest pals are guys, this option is not available. Besides, I needed a drink..:P

And an ingenious plan was born.

Being in Penang, I decided that the night is going to be spent eating and more eating…therefore stuffing myself silly from 7pm-9pm. Nonstop. Driving around in Eve’s huge Pajero in search of food. So when the call came from dreymer to direct us to the hen night venue, we were so stuffed we really did not want to go…preferring to go back to the hotel for shut-eye.Dreymer’s horrified protests shut me up immediately…and so we rushed back to the hotel to quickly change (not much time for makeup) and rush back to town. In my moment of ingenuity, I neglected to bring any shoes, so was subjected to walk around the clubs in a pretty dress and slippers. How hot.

After much ado and traffic jams, we arrived at SoHo at last…a pub/club combination that seem so popular with Penang.And my first suprise:

An absolutely beautiful veil painstakingly made by lunabliss portion of Sher. Adorned with shells and glitter and pearls, it was more gorgeous than my real veil! Shame it was too short..i would’ve worn it for the wedding day. Sher was given instructions to buy a piece of gauze for the hen night, and we ended up with this!

You think that’s all dreymer has up her sleeves? Nope, I knew it wasn’t it.

They proudly presented me with a box of contraceptive!

I was then threaten that I needed to raise RM60, otherwise I was going to have to pay for drinks. Since I came prepared to pay for drinks anyway….I offered to pay for it there and then.

Ha! Gotcha.

But being the nice person I am, I happily went about like an idiot selling contraceptives.

First customer at RM10 for one.

It’s hard to sell to this chinaman who wants extra value for half the cost…I gave up…he thinks he’s the only customer??cheh! hahaha

That was when he came to my rescue..dangling RM50 if I were to blow three of the contraceptives up. Seeing that he’s paid more than that feeding my alcoholic dreams, this was a bargin.

And of course I obliged.

Balloon animals anyone?

A couple more sales..as it progressed, I started charging higher prices.

I think I should be a condom saleswoman…because by the end of it all…

I raised RM180!

I made dreymer so proud of me…she gave me a treat

We love me…rar rar rar!

Next up: The morning after the night before.

My previous posts have people jumping into different conclusions everywhere, and therefore I think an explaination of the bigger picture is due.

The Bacons have decided a long time ago that they would quite like to move back to KL if given half the chance. Firstly, we had agreed that I’ll suck it up here for two years - in which after that he would be able to move on within the company, which means we will be looking elsewhere anyway, irregardless of it being KL or South Africa. Sucking it up here gives me a chance to understand him better and see the environment which had shaped him into who he is; like how he had experienced life in KL.

Unlike some people, I refuse to settle for a life where all I do is go shopping , stay at home to take care of the kids (or cat) and wait for the husband to come home. This sui lai lai lifestyle is a dream for many, but it does not float my boat. I’ve tried it out and it’s not what I am made for.My life has always been nothing less than colorful, and england has left its grey stamp on my soul. Some people says if you love a person, you’ll do anything for them. ANYTHING AT ALL. I for one believe that I am no different a person whether we are together or not..it does not change me and what I want out of life and what makes me happy.

I also do not believe that there is one place and one place only for everyone - I would quite love to move to Hong Kong for instance - but you always know home is where your heart is. Spinning around the globe is an adventure; but believing that you are doomed to live in one country and one country only is quite unappetizing. I know I would feel the same if I believe that I will only live in KL for the rest of my life with no chances of moving anywhere else…irregardless of how much I am moaning about it.

We agreed 2 years, and come rain or shine I’ll be sucking it up here until at least next september irregardless of what I might say.Unless we win the lottery.

On the countless trips that I had made from KLIA, it has always been more of an adventure…of exploring a new place and sometimes the anticipation of seeing Bacon. This time around I can say its the first time ever that I hated leaving KLIA. It’s not happen before,even during the days when i used to fly to CA.

Not even a brand new lesportsac could cure it. I was happy for about 5mins after that.So much for retail therapy.

I had just spent my lunch hour looking at flight prices .I had also booked 2 weeks of leave in xmas…even though I did not actually have enough time off and had to bring foward one day’s leave from next year.I can ill-afford another trip in December, but I am sure going to try my best.

Frankly, I am upset. I am missing out on important events…birthdays,breakups and hookups are all celebrated without me. I still feel that I don’t quite fit in here. I don’t get how what they call food here is anything with the same tasteless gravy poured over anything from bread to veg to pies to meat.EVERYTHING TASTES THE SAME. Even the KFC potato gravy is nicer.And KFC here don’t have mashed potatos. Or cheezy wedges.

As much of an alcoholic I am, not all conversations should be about the last time you got drunk and how you fell down the stairs in your hopelessly drunken state.It gets boring after a while. I also cannot stand people who states that any trip requiring a transfer at another airport is too far.

Am I just being a real bitch unwilling to assimilate or am I hoarding dreams of a perfect world? I know that if we moved back to KL there would be parts of it that I’ll bitch about as well..but obviously that seems so far away when you are bitching about Eng-urh-and.

For the moment me and bacon are looking into moving back to KL (although he don’t know about it yet, so keep it quiet) so anyone want to offer bacon a job?Anyone?

I know that you’re waiting for this, and I would love to do a proper full story of the wedding and all the such, but at the moment I’m still depressed about being back in England and therefore will only have a couple of snippets..all stolen from maidzilla as I have not properly sort out pictures yet..really,I need to upload them all somewhere where they can stay forever,but with 800+ pictures…it’s proving harder than ever!

Woohoo! All closest to my heart in one shot.Those that made it all the way from KL,Singapore & Redang..

We are cute, cannot meh?

At the end of the night, looking a little less worse for wear.

There! That should keep you satisfied for a day or two. Although the most hardcore had already started stalking maidzilla for tales of the day…:P

Ahhh..the joys of summer.Having the sun rise at 5am and waking up at 6.30am because it looks like its 10am outside.Even the cat thinks its late, choosing to jump into bed and wake us up at the ungodly hour of 5.30am. Then having to walk outside in the scorching heat…I swear I am getting more tan lines than lounging around on the beach. Grrr.And what a nice feeling…dressing up in a full suit and comming to work clutching my jacket like an idiot whilst everyone else is wearing slippers and shorts. Yes, people here wear shorts to work…looking utterly professional isn’t it?

Went to print my pictures yesterday…and seeing that I have over 1200 pictures,me and bacon spent 30mins just standing there choosing 800+ pictures to be printed out..costing us £45.Sigh. The joys of photography. Developed my Lomocam as well..this time I chose for the pictures to be included on a cd so that I can post them up online…guess what?They could not be read. Their machine cannot read the roll of film and therefore no pictures. NOT FUNNY.I developed my last roll with them and even bought the roll of film from them..so whats the problem??

Can’t blog lots today, going to be out of the office soon for a meeting - thus the silly penguin suit getup.Bacon is subjected to the same thing..only difference is that he only gets to come home at 8pm.

All we want is a pina colada by the beach…:(

Very unlike me, work has peaked up during this couple of days and I’m actually busy…like one would be after 2 weeks off work. No time to sort out wedding piccies yet..there must be around 1000+ in total.I look absolutely humongous in them….not happy at all with that but you know what? Screwit. It’s done and over with, and I’m glad its over and now I can get on with life…like planning to move houses.All so grown up innit?

This weekend I’m off to one of the events that the people of Leeds rave ‘makes our city of international standard’. Opera in the Park is held every year and it features all assortment of opera-like singers and such.Oh so posh.Can you tell yet that the only reason I’m going is because its free? My only brush with opera was a Madame Butterfly production. Held in a huge park, it’s just a reason for me to bring a picnic and booze out in the park.

To try to get back into the way of things in boring-land, might do some strawberry picking this weekend as well…and pop into GAP for my weekly dose or therapy.Not like as if I am allowed to shop….received the ccard statement today and my eyes almost popped out.I’ve spent in the environs of £200 on makeup and skincare ALONE in the past two weeks.

I’m hungry (again) …so its time to head off home to cook myself Spam Fried noodle with a side dish of curry chicken. I wonder if I were to hawk this in Penang what would it be called?

My currants needs to be turned into jars of jam, my cherries needs to be preserved as well. Welcome back Mrs Bacon.