Based on the wedding checklist provided by the Hotel, we were supposed to send the wedding inserts to the Printing vendor for processing in February. However, I was tied up with my course exams for the past 2 weeks, and hence could only visit the vendor yesterday.

Apparently, the printing vendor was highly recommended by the Hotel, and the printing lady, Helen, charged us a reasonable rate of $90/= for printing 200 inserts. She was patient and spent time explaining to us on the layout of the wedding inserts. Basically, we didn't spend much time on changing the template; but rather, the colour of the wordings and our parents names/wedding date and timing. We spent a while on deciding the wedding timing as we had planned to conduct our solemnisation at the main ballroom prior to the wedding dinner. Hence, we had to make sure that the timing for the cocktail and wedding dinner coincide nicely with the solemnisation ceremony.

However, an embarassing incident occurred when the vendor requested for a deposit of $50/= bucks for the printing service. Wei Siang didn't bring enough $ for the deposit; and coincidentally, we were broke! Nonetheless, I had to end up being a 'captive' whilst Wei Siang went round the JTC workshops looking for an ATM to 'redemn' me from the vendor, keehee.

I didn't want to spend time staring at Helen and hence, I decided to spend some effort to eliminate the awkward situation being the captive by sharing with her my comments on the wedding invitation design. I brought up the concern that the cards provided by the Hotel were a little flimsy; and there were not much selection (since there were only 2 designs available for selection). I mentioned that both Wei Siang and I liked the white card; but unfortunately, it came with a green ribbon and the wordings were also green. We preferred at least a tinge of red in the wedding card that could go well with the chinese wedding dinner theme. Hence, we decided to go for the red invitation card design instead.

Helen was listening patiently to my 'mini grouses' and told me that there were many other couples who also shared with her the same sentiments. She suggested that I could go for both designs (i.e. 100 pieces each), but Wei Siang preferred consistency and wanted only 1 design for our guests. Anyhow, my wedding coordinator mentioned that the Hotel are making changes to the card material based on the recent feedbacks by other wedding couples. We were not that fortunate to use the new cards though, as the Hotel will only release the new cards during the later half of 2008.

We chose the pink-red wedding card design!

It will be another 14 days before the wedding inserts are ready, so after this I can start preparing the wedding guest lists and start sending out the red bombs, hee hee. 

How can a honeymoon be beautiful without a nice camera to capture the memorable moments of the trip!

Though we were getting pretty broke lately (minus the expenses for wine purchase; printing and honeymoon packages), we wanted to make use of the opportunity to acquire a good camera set during the IT Show this weekend. Afterall, the 2 Megapixel Panasonic which Wei Siang bought years ago was old, big and bulky except to throw at baddies and inflict a certain degree of injury due to its heavy and chunky property, haha. Anyway, we wanted to learn from the last experience of visiting a large trade fair on weekends and tried our luck on the 1st day of the IT Show; since we thought it's on a Thursday evening and most people needed to work on Friday. How wrong we were.

The Convention Centre was VERY Packed with crowd-throngers; lugging with them were Canon Printers, Lappies and many other fanciful IT gadgets. In fact, it took us a while to get a parking lot in Suntec (again!!! Groan). As per previous fairs, Level 4 showcased mainly electronic gadgets (Hi-fis, Cameras) whilst Level 6 focused on Laptops and other computer accessories. Surprisingly, we were pretty lost in Level 4 though our main objective was on cameras. Seem that most of the crowd were 'armed' with a similar motive as us, haha.

Fortunately, Wei Siang had done some research before the IT Show and set his sight on a Panasonic 18X Optical zoom, 8.1 Megapixel Digital Camera. What impressed me most was that the camera came with the renowned Lumix lens, and had the property i.e. identification of key target during image capture (which came in handy for non-amateur photographer like me). Subsequently, we checked out other brand models such as Sony, Fujiflim which had similar properties as the Panasonic Camera. Nonetheless, we decided to purchase the intended camera as we liked its features and it came along with a nice big Tripod Stand! Hee, but I doubt we will carry it with us to Taiwan cos it's 3 Kg!

Tested the camera yesterday afternoon at Vivocity and were simply impressed with its 18X zoom features. Imagine we could capture the crowd standing atop of the Merlion while we were a few KM away from Sentosa! Amazing! I tried my hand on micro photoshoot and captured a nice close-up of a flower. =)

That's my First Attempt at a Macro Photoshoot!

Wei Siang couldn't bear to let strangers snap a photo of us using his newly acquired camera so we had to resort to self-capture once again.

Our self-capture - Not easily cos the camera's not light enough to hold with one hand

Today we went to the NATAS fair 2008 at the Singapore Expo. Well, as expected, there were so many people there, and even the queue for admission tickets was quite long too. Anyways, it took me quite a while for us to find a parking lot and quite a bit of effort to enter the expo hall.

I really think people are getting quite smart on holding exhibitions, cos Popular and some other advertisers are also holding their exhibition sale there. Well, it is good for some people, but definitely I must say that it's not a good idea for me... all those crowd... argghh... gave me quite a bit of headache.

The admission is $3 per person, so Shujun and I really hope that we better find some good deals there. It was our first time participating in NATAS fair, so things were pretty unsure for us initially.

As we entered the hall, we were welcomed by a row of people with stacks of brochures and pamphlets. As we walked past, they just place what they have onto our hands... you know what this reminds me?... I feel like I am in Sim Lim Square where the pamplet distributors are strategically placed along the corridor and escalators... :D 

Initially, we do not know where to start. Good thing is that I managed to persuade Shujun to bring me to Taiwan for our honeymoon and she agreed :). So it doesn't take us long to notice a booth from the Taiwan Tourism Board (it's actually quite big), with the well known slogan "Welcome to Taiwan". You know what, everything is perfect there, they have lots of brochures which includes a simplified tourist map. I also managed to grab hold of a book which records all the hotels and restaurants there, which I think will come in very useful since we wanted Free and Easy (F&E) trip there; but the only thing missing there is our Taiwan Tourism Ambassador - too bad Jolin Tsai weren't there, wished we could take a photo with her :). Anyways, the Korea Tourism Board was just opposite and there was a huge crowd surrounding the booth. As we glanced over, we saw some Korean Models posing for the audience. After talking to the different groups of people manning the Taiwan Tourism Board booth, we finally realised that they do not sell or promote any tours lor... they will direct us to the tour agents instead. But it's a really informative booth, cos the brochures that we gathered will be very useful for us to plan our itinery :). Knowning that we won't be able to get any good information from them regarding which tour agents can offer the best rates, we decided to do comparison by our own instead.

We decided to try some recommeded tour agents first, so we approached the Farmosa Tour Agency. We asked about F&E packages but the salesperson immediately tried to convince us to take up their tour packages, so..... we said "OK, bye.".

Next, we came to SA tour. The lady who served us, weren't so friendly. She couldn't do any recommendations and she do not know Taiwan and the packages that her agency holds. Her answers were always a one-sentence answer, yes or no, answer only what was asked - no elaboration, her attitude was like, "hey, if you want, just buy, don't waste my time". Well, I can be considerate that maybe she's tired of serving customers non-stop the whole day and maybe it just so happens that she might be having some PMS, but Shujun and I are really green horns when it comes to planning such a long and far tour on our own, so we needed more than this lor.... so in the end.... I strongly believed that we need to compare further with other agents... and so we proceeded on for our search.

However, I would say the time spent wasn't wasted there lah, cos we got to know that we can actually take up this package that she holds which is actually a 4 days F&E tour and we are actually allowed to extend it and we can get our own accomodations during the extension. Meaning it's pure DIY during the extension, up to the point of finding our own transport to the airport for departure back to Singapore. This is really quite a good news for us. This means, we can purchase this tour, which includes accomodation for the first 3 nights in Taipei, during which we will explore Taipei, which includes a full day tour on the 2nd day. Meaning it's F&E in Taipei on Day 1, tour on Day 2, and then F&E on Day 3. Day 4 onwards, after check out, we can plan our own itinery to go maybe KenTing or Tai Zhong and book our own accomodations and it's really DIY tour then. Indeed, only then do I realised that F&E can really be so flexible.

Moving on from SA tour, we came to this New Shan Tour Agency near SA and also just beside the exhibition hall wall. We talked to this salesperson ( I think he's Alan). He's quick and knowledgeable, and knows exactly what we want. He's knows quite a lot about Taiwan too as he brings tour team there before too. It is also from him that we know a bit about how the Bullet Train works. And really, this further confirmed our idea of going F&E in Taiwan. He assured us that even if we were impromtu about our accommodations during the next few days after the package, we shouldn't face problem too.  By the way, he offered us exactly the same tour package as SA tour, as mentioned just now. Comparing the prices in my mind, it is quite comparable. However, when we asked about upgrading our flights to SQ, he immediately said that SIA is having a promotion now and that the upgrade is only $25 per person. So he offered to help us check the flight availability. This is totally different from what the SA salesperson did. She just mentioned that each person needs a $100 top up and she didn't mention about any SIA promotion and din bothered to help us check availability lor.... so... we were glad that we did some comparison.

Upon analysing that Alan was helpful, friendly, knowledgeable and that the price was reasonable, we decided not to compare anymore.... we went ahead and confirmed our tour purchase. Alan got his colleague, Joey to handle our purchase, who was equally friendly too. Shujun used her UOB card, and since our package is more than $1800 (it's actually just above), we got a free suitcase from UOB at the New Shan booth itself. New Shan also gave us some pineapple tart (凤梨� which taste good too.

UOB foc suitcase

Because our flight is SQ, we could go over to the SIA booth to fill in 2 lucky draw entries too. An we were given 2 shoe bags as a freeby :).

And also, since Shujun's UOB card is Mastercard, we went over to the Mastercard booth and she redeemed a 45 mins SPA voucher.

Finally, with our receipt, we went back to the Taiwan Tourism Board, who gave us 2 cute cups and also 2 MRT pass (I think it's unlimited ride for 1 day), which I think the pass is really something useful to us, and I am really grateful for the Taiwan Tourism Board to provide such a nice gift for F&E travellers to Taiwan.

Nice cups from Taiwan Tourism Board

Ultimately, we took up the AIG travel insurance at $40.80 each (superior). And we got a cute little cute bear.

AIG Insurance Bear

Overall, the NATAS experience was fruitful and I think I will return next time when we wish to go on holidays.

So, it's finally fixed, our honeymoon shall officially start on the 5th of May and wil end on 13th of May. Yippee! Now I can visit the country that I always yearn to! :) 

Feeling butterflies in my stomach... just thinking that it is 3 more months away makes me very anxious.  There seems to be so much more to prepare and yet we do not have enough time to do them! Busy at work... tired after work.... then when it is weekend, we are just trying to recover from headaches and giddiness.

Money is another issue, I am trying very hard to handle my finances well, and I am pretty proud of Shujun and myself that right until now, we have been supporting ourselves to get everything done. For example, buying new furniture, the proposal ring, the Whitelink Wedding package, etc. And by the way, we do keep track of everything spent for our wedding, and it is quite astonishing to discover that we had spent more than $15K currently and this number will just keep increasing! Gosh! Now I do believe (Wedding == Money).

Anyways, being very typical 'Kiasu' Singaporeans, we had filed our notice of marriage last night at 12.15am... right at the moment when the opening for our 3rd of May starts. OK, ok I know I am very 'Kiasu', but you see, I am someone who wants to do as much as things as possible so that I can purge my mind of them... my brain seems to store so much rubbish that it somehow is running on on Hard Disk space liao....

I guess it's time for me to start to do my Montage.... Lotsa Childhood photos to scan and organise... Ciao~~ 

Amid our wedding preparation, I still managed to allocate last Saturday (19 Jan) to celebrate Wei Siang's birthday! =)

After we spent Friday night to unpack and clear up the matrimony room, we were simply exhausted! As such, the real celebration only began on the following afternoon. We had a fun time gorging ourselves with food and pastries during high tea at Holiday Inn Orchard.  

Subsequently, we decided to laze around at Orchard till the evening, with the intent of searching for new quilt. However, we were torn in deciding whether to purchase the micro-fibre type (which is like 60 bucks more expensive than the conventional polyester). In the end, we decided against buying any, since we were hoping that there would be a big sale after the Chinese New Year.

Decided to check out a nice place (preferably with water view) for dinner. I regretted our decision to check out Kallang view, as there were literally not much choices beside Brewerkz and Jumbo seafood. Furthermore, we were caught in the incoming crowd, as Jay Chou was holding a concert at Kallang Indoor Stadium that very night.

Snapped a photo facing Tanjong Rhu during our evening walk at Kallang Cove. Our dream home?? Haha.

After hours of sourcing, we had to settle for a restaurant next to Demsey's Ben and Jerry for dinner. I wanted to surprise Wei Siang by getting the restaurant staff to prepare a chocolate mud cake with ice-cream topping and a candle. This would be followed by a birthday song dedication during the live performance by the restaurant guitarist. Surprisingly though, there were 2 other patrons who requested for the birthday dedication as it was their birthday! In the end, I decided to go ahead with the lighted birthday cake plan. Was glad to find out later that he loved my birthday surprise. =) To top ot off, we ordered a beautiful yet expensive banana float from Ben and Jerry. Wondering how much weight we can lose if we go on eating in this manner... haha.

Wei Siang Birthday Surprise!

Expensive Banana Float! 15 bucks + 10% service charge!

Not forgetting a photo with his birthday cake. Only managed to capture the slanted candle