"With this ring, I marry you."

My marital status is no longer "single" but has become "married" since 24 November 2011...=D

Trying to get used to being addressed as "Mdm Lai" & "Mrs Chua" (sound so old... =S)

Very grateful that everything went well on our wedding day. Thanks to a very efficient and helpful team of Brothers & Sisters, my cousin Ah Xiong Kor who helped with the whole day of photography, littleredants for the videography, my cousin Ah Cheng Jie who graciously lent us her BMW as our bridal car, all the relatives who helped in one way or another, Meritus Mandarin hotel team & a very nervous Teddy Chua Momo.

Though I was also nervous about the first march-in and the second march-in (thinking how best to enter the banquet hall and be on stage without tripping on my gown)...I tried my best to contain my nervousness as I wanted to calm Teddy Chua more...he was practically shaking as we stood outside waiting for our second march-in as there's the speech on-stage which we'll deliver.

The photo-taking for 51 tables of guests also went according to schedule and our wedding dinner was able to end by 11+pm.

I suppose the adrenaline & happiness of the whole day sustained me. Tiredness hit me only when we got back to the bridal suite as Teddy Chua's JC council friends insisted we drank a beer and probably red wine concoction. It was lights out ard 2am as I had to shower and remove the make-up before having the extra late dinner.

Frankly, there were a few moments where I almost teared but I remembered my Dad's words to me: "No matter what happens on the wedding day, you are to keep your smile and not cry or lose your temper...everyone will be watching you." Moreover, the make-up artist keep saying that due to the fake eyelashes and make-up, I'm not to cry at all...so when I felt the tears coming, I contained them which is quite a feat considering how easily I cry when I watch movies or feel touched...=P

Looking forward to see the video and photos of the actual day. ^_^

Trepidation to Exhilaration

After months of waiting and an unsuccessful Open Posting school transfer, trepidation creeps in...keep telling myself not to have high hopes due to the fear of great disappointment...just plan for the worse that if the transfer is unsuccessful, I'll have to take 3 buses to get to work.

Finally, heard from a colleague that the Closed Posting results will be revealed tomorrow. Was trying to check my work email before I sleep when I saw the email notification of posting results. The same anxious feeling when checking NIE Exam results online gripped me...still, I've got to know...hence I clicked on that attachment...

The transfer is successful!

Though I'll miss my colleagues at my current school, but a huge wave of relief overcame me. I'm spared from the gruelling daily travel...

Next step would be to adapt to a totally new environment...fresh start to 2012...

1 week apart...

Sent Teddy Chua for his business trip with his parents at Changi Airport. Will be the 1st time Teddy Chua is away frm me for 1 week. 12 hrs time difference as he is in Washington D.C. , will 'survive' with sms...Soon, he'll be back and I'll be at the airport to welcome him home. =)

Children's Day Birthday

Feeling very blessed to enjoy my birthday on Children's Day. It's the first year that MOE decided to allow the 1st Friday of October to be Children's Day holiday and it falls on 7 Oct this year. I woke up much later and spent my day playing Facebook, thanking all well-wishes and completing a project report.

By evening, it was time to set out to meet Teddy Chua for my birthday dinner treat. It was pouring quite heavily and I was running late as I got carried away doing my report. Luckily, Teddy Chua was patient enough to wait for me (think i was abt 15min late). We went to Bugis, Hotel Intercontinental, where he treated me to Japanese food. We walked to Bras Brasah to check out a book store but it was already closed. The slight drizzle added a romantic feel to the after-dinner walk. We walked over to artichoke, at Sculpture Garden but it was a full-house.

We went back to the lounge area in Hotel Intercontinental where Teddy Chua insisted on getting a mini birthday cake for me. The pianist was very observant and when the cake was served with a single lit candle, he immediately played the birthday song before resuming his original piano piece. Though Teddy Chua is tired out from work, his efforts to make me happy on my birthday is much appreciated.

I got home and sis gave me a handmade letter with our photos and a red packet...Thank you all dearies...i feel very loved and blessed to have all of you in my life. =)

Birthday celebration 2011

Celebrating my birthday a weekend in advance as Dad is going overseas for a business trip on the actual day. Mum ordered my birthday Black Forest cake from Pine Garden.

J gave me a handmade gift and a birthday card with a message that touched me till I teared...

He spent almost 6 hours at night to complete the gift!

Thank you my loved ones...I feel very blessed to be loved and cared for by all of you!

Trying out something new...

After PSLE Invigilation and collecting my students' work back to mark, decided to try my luck to make a last min appt at Ang Mo Kio for a trial slimming treatment which I bought online some time ago. The centre was available and instead of the meridien massage which is more suitable for the older ladies, the therapist recommended fire cupping 拔罐 and infra-red rays to help with fat burning instead.

Was a little concerned as it's my first time trying this out and recently in Taiwan, a famous artiste, 齐秦 was badly injured due to a similar treatment. The therapist assured me since it's my first time trying it out, she will know how to regulate the temperature for me to experience it.

The therapist did acupuncture point massage to help break down the fats. She used a moisturising oil to soothe the skin before the fire cupping and infra-red rays begins. The session ended and I can see some of the areas having bruises, blue-black feeling...don't think I'll try it again *_*

Here's your chance to proclaim your love for him...say it.

Dear Jason Teddy Chua Momo,

Thank you for taking the first step to ask me out and giving us a chance to experience the ups and downs in our life journey. Your love and efforts to make me happy can be felt and seen by myself and those around me. I know I have someone to motivate and support me and I wish to become your supportive half. I look forward to our life together as a married couple, beginning another phase and many other interesting chapters in our life from now on. I love you.

Hugs & Muacks,

Geraldine PandaKoala Lai

Mimolette: A special place in our hearts

This is where we've spent our 1st Valentine's day.

This is where J proposed.















This is where we filmed our pre-wedding video.

This is where wonderful memories are created...

http://www.mimokitchen.com.sg/

Soon they will unveil the new look for Mimolette...restuarant will be renamed with new furnishings and menu.

We'll miss the old Mimolette but looking forward to visit them again.

Selamat Hari Raya

Spent the day packing my things at Teddy Chua's place and trying to help prepare our wedding guest scrapbook. Was invited by Az & Roy to have dinner at Az's place in Tampines. Her mum made a lot of nice Malay food and it's been some time since I last ate delicious Malay home-cooked dishes. My fave is the beef rendang...sedap! The pandan tea also brought back nice memories of my YEP Surin days. Spent some time catching up with Roy & had fun taking photos with Az and her friends. =)

Another 2 mths has passed...

Been so caught up with work and preparing for wedding stuff that I've not been blogging...here are some of the highlights...

Celebration of Teddy Chua's 30th birthday with different birthday gifts:

• Loewe couple fragrance,
• sports car cuff links,
• handmade card,
• dinner at "Sun with Moon",
• drinks and dessert at "jones the grocer",
• meeting up with his JC pals, Grace and Yan Xun for supper,
• tickets to Korean Drawing show "HERO".

Wedding preparation:

• Arranged for pre-wedding and actual day Videography with littleredants
• Getting wedding invitation cards printed
• Selection of our wedding photos, both Taipei and Local
• Preparing our own scrapbook for wedding guests to write their well-wishes
• Consolidating guest lists
• Booked our Honeymoon trip at NATAS fair- changed destination frm Hawaii to Mauritius

Whenever friends ask "how's your wedding preparations?", i can only answer "taking things 1 step at a time" with a twinge of guilt as I was putting work as main priority during the hectic Term 3 period.

It's really quite a challenge trying to balance work and preparing for our wedding but thankfully, I am still "surviving" as I have my pillar of strength aka Teddy Chua.

HERO Drawing Show

Went to Downtown East to catch the Korean Drawing show "HERO" with Teddy Chua in the evening. We went to a Thai restaurant for dinner and had some time to walk around before the show began at 8pm. It's been quite some time since I felt so relaxed. Prior to the show, we indulged in a Magnum ice-cream each and I felt that it was too sweet. Should have stuck to my decision to try Fruitare's new grape flavour popsicle.

I bought the show tickets as part of Teddy Chua's birthday gift and deliberately chose seats very near to the stage as I understand that for such performance, you won't enjoy it as much by looking at the big screens.

Once the show began, we were kept entertained by 4 very talented Korean performers. They could dance, do speed drawing and engage the audience with their humour. I was very impressed with their 80 minutes (no intermission) performance and felt that it was well-worth the $$$. The show began with a solo speed drawing of Guevara, followed by an action painting of a jigsaw piece of Michael Jackson by the 4 performers, a solo dust drawing of Bruce Lee, a solo speed drawing of a scenery piece with a Tiger, group performance of a rubik cube art piece of Superman, a pair performing light drawing of cupid with a couple, a group marbling drawing of underwater scene with marine creatures and mermaid, culminating with a marvelous 3 performers using speed drawing for the main characters in "The Three Kingdoms".

There was a photo session at the end but we decided to just catch a few snapshots of the art pieces as there were a huge crowd lining up to take photos. A sample of their talents:

"Captain America"

Caught this film with Teddy Chua at Marina GV after having dinner at the relatively newly renovated Marina Square food court. I love the view from the food court. Great spot for taking NDP fireworks in air-conditioned food court.

Hectic May and June

A lot has happened since I've last blogged...

At Work

May: Change of new timetable, getting to know more students, teaching new subjects, changing to new CCA timeslot, adjusting to the new work schedule...

June: Meetings, CCA sessions, P6 Intensive Programme and planning for Semester 2...

Personal Life

May: Learning more about Teddy Chua and his family during each interaction opportunities...

June: Getting excited about Taiwan June Bridal photoshoot & holiday with Teddy Chua, experiencing a totally unique and memorable Taiwan holiday trip, exhilarating and tiring local Bridal photoshoot, getting our "nest" ready...=)

Fun-filled Saturday

After going to the Polling station early at 8:30am, I made my way to J's house and woke him up as his parents wanted to go cast their votes already. I waited at his house while they went out.

After lunch at home, we took SBS 10 to Vivocity as J's brother wanted to use the car. Along the way, we were discussing about where to live after we got married. Will try to apply for our own flat once we're married, hope we don't have to wait too long.

Upon reaching Vivo, we went to get our movie tickets for "Thor" showing at 6:40pm. Since the digital version provides sharper images without extra costs and we could get a better view, we bought the tickets. By using the VISA UOB card, we were able to use the express lane so the queuing time was shortened.

We went to The Soup Spoon to grab something to eat and drink as I felt hungry by 3+pm. We met an elderly couple sitting near us and I was commenting to J that they are the type that age gracefully. The old uncle was curious about what drink we ordered so his wife asked me since I was sitting closer to her, told her it's iced lemon tea and she went to order a bigger cup to share with her husband. =)

Headed to the second-hand bookstore to look for "Water for elephants" (currently a movie) but they didn't sell the book. Spotted "The Monk who sold his Ferrari" instead and bought it since I remember my ex-principal recommending this book.

We went shopping and I met my ex-student with her mum at one of the stalls selling handmade accessories. We went to check out the newly opened Uniqlo and there were so many people buying clothes! Managed to find the Cath Kidston blouse I liked and even another camera tee (actually a guy's tee but I can wear size S). Tried on a black dress and J thought it looked gd, he also chose 2 tops: 1 of Kewpie which I told him to get so we could wear the similar tees when we go out and 1 of dri-fit top so he could wear after his jogging trips.

Left the shop and went to check out Forever21 but didn't fancy anything. We went to Toys 'R' Us to see the gashapons. We tried our luck at one of the gashapons with Tomica toy cars, I managed to get the grey GT-R which we were eyeing after J tried 2 times. The capsule for the cars were also different frm the normal ones we see. Will prob try again the next time we see the machine.

Loved the "Thor" movie, felt that the plot was much better than "Iron Man 2" as they included romance, friendship, kinship and action together. Stayed till the end of the credits and saw a sneak preview to the next movie by Marvel: "The Avengers". "Captain America" will be showing soon and we planned to catch that as well.

After the movie, it was already 9pm, we went to have our dinner at Shin Kushiya. I tried the Beef udon but the Japanese noodles they used was like a smoother "meepok", easier to eat than the normal udon. J tried the chicken udon and we shared the grilled teriyaki cod fish along with the skewers platter. We also tried the Peach Chuhai and J seemed to like the cocktail quite abit. Headed to the taxi stand where we spent some time trying to call a cab as there were alot of people. Extremely happy and contented day! ^__^

Sleepless in Singapore

Since Thursday night's episode of losing sleep, it happened again last night...could only manage 2 hrs of zzz for these 2 days as I was physically tired but mentally awake...quite frustrating when you want to rest but somehow your mind doesn't allow you to.

At least I managed to be more "productive" as I made use of the peace & quiet to do some work. Somehow with so little sleep, I can still function in the day...my sister was asking if i'm "eating battery" like the korean cyborg movie...maybe i've too much on my mind to get proper rest...

Physical exhaustion vs Mental exhaustion

Last night after reaching home at 11+pm, technically, after a hectic work day and going out with Teddy Chua in the evening, I should be very tired and can enter dreamland quite swiftly. However, I couldn't sleep at all...I managed to get a shut-eye of about 2 hours only and decided to wake up for good to complete more marking.

Managed to function for the day and still could stay back in school to do more marking before lugging the remaining work back home for the long weekend. Tonight, the difference is more physical tiredness than before but still the mind is awake. Hence the blogging at this hour when I should be in dreamland. I hope this doesn't continue or Singapore Pandaclub manager's post will be reinstated very soon...can already see slight dark rings around my eyes...

Rio Soundtrack ♫♫♫ - Fly Love - Jamie Foxx

Patience is a virtue

Accompanied Teddy Chua for his haircut at SuperCuts at Siglap and saw this family bringing their toddler girl for her haircut...she's very smart and when she felt the hairstylist uncle come close with the comb and scissors, she wanted to turn around to stop him. Hence the parents have to try different ways to distract her and the hairstylist was very fast in cutting her hair. Besides a few frowns, the haircut process of about 25 minutes was uninterrupted. I thought the hairstylist was very skillful as he knew when he should stop, in case the child gets hurt by his scissors but at the same time he was able to complete the haircut quickly.

Lesson learnt: Next time when I have my own kid, have to find a very skillful hairstylist in handling children and have Teddy Chua with me to distract the child...or like what Teddy Chua said have to train the child to not make a scene in public, which I think is much more challenging...

Tanya Chua and The Cities concert

Waiting for the concert to begin! =)

Tanya's special guest: Kit Chan!

Her dress actually shows photos of her trips to the different cities, love the cutting but the shoulder design...hmm...

I love this gown! It has a crossed back design too!

Sis was tasked to write an article for Lianhe Zaobao for Tanya Chua's first concert in Singapore and she has an extra ticket. She let me have the chance to go with her since Mum accompanied her for SHE concert before. Teddy Chua drove us to Mountbatten MRT station so we could take a train to Stadium, which was 1 stop away. We arrived there quite early and at the North Entrance, they were selling her CDs and there was a corner where Rock Records was trying to do some promotion. By filling in your details, they were giving away flashing light torches which you can use during the concert. They will update us if there are concerts coming up as well...quite a good idea to promote their own artiste.

After we sat down, I was checking my facebook and saw that my colleague was here with his wife too! We spotted them and soon after I posted on fb, he looked around and managed to spot us, we waved to each other too...so coincidental...haha. Before the concert began, we saw 王沺裁 seated just in front of us!

Her concert's guests were 陈洁仪 & 叶良俊. It's been so long since Kit Chan sang and she sang 《Home》 with Tanya and while Tanya went to change, she sang 《追》with the grand piano accompaniment by Jimmy Yap. It has been a long while since Jimmy performed...quite a pleasant surprise to see him.

There was a section where Tanya had musicians playing music with an Indian feel but she adapted popular songs like 《Umbrella》 by Rihanna and 《Pokerface》 by Lady Gaga which made it very interesting. Tanya also danced with a Broadway performer for 1 of her songs and it’s the first time I’ve seen her dance. She also played on 3 instruments, namely the guitar, piano and harmonica. She unveiled 2 of her new songs, one in English which is slated to be released as her next album and for the encore and ending song, 《下次见》, a Chinese song whose title aptly ended the concert. The last gown she wore at the concert was also my personal favourite cos it accentuates her figure and the cutting is very flattering. Besides her Chinese slow rock songs, she also sang English songs and even a French song.

The only imperfections of the concerts were the sections where she was nervous and made minor mistakes like singing the wrong lyrics for 4 songs and was late to start the song for 1. The lighting was also quite horrendous as there would be instances where she would be singing and the spotlight would shine into the audience’s eyes, forcing us to look only at the 2 wide screens at the sides. There was also an instance where the stage lights were dimmed so low that Tanya couldn’t see her guitar which she has to play to start the next song and she had to ask for the lights…

Overall, it was a pleasant experience as I’ve never attended a concert with my sister before and it’s been quite a long while since my first concert, which was the Andy Lau 1999 concert whose tickets were won. (The 2^nd concert was by 费玉清 where my sis and I felt very out of place cos my Dad just bought the tickets without letting us know first) Hope to go to the Fish Leong concert but have to see if Teddy Chua wants to have his first concert experience by a Chinese artiste. Photos taken from xinmsn.com

TRA

After hearing from the bridal shop sales consultant and my facial therapist, decided to contact this consultant who promotes The Right Approach programme. Teddy Chua and I met her at Bras Brasah and did the analysis for weight and fats. After explaining to us about the programme, I decided to give it a go. For 3 months, I have to keep a food diary and with 2 normal meals a day with 1 meal of meal supplement, I have to down several different types of herbal capsules too...why did I decide to take this challenge? There's the urgency of the wedding photoshoot in June and the actual wedding day in November. Apparently, after stopping the programme the weight does not rebound back and the skeletal muscle would increase with a decrease in visceral and body fat. Have always been skeptical about eating products to lose weight but I guess I'm pretty much at my wit's ends. For Teddy Chua, for myself I will see if this programme works afterall...