Freshness Burger

I ate at Freshness Burger for the first time at Century Square and personally i think it's overrated.

Looks are deceiving

I had the Fish Burger and was expecting to bite into SUPER fresh, succulent fish fillet but it turned out to be... normal. The fillet was also rather thin and i would have really liked a more generous portion for the price I was paying. Sadly, the freshest part of the burger was the lettuce and the only unique part I could remember about the it was the chunks of egg mayo in it.

The fact that set meals are not available also does not sit well with me. You have to order your items a la carte and this adds up to be quite a bit. The fiance and I had two burgers, one portion of Hokkaido potato wedges and a cranberry lemonade. Guess how much it was in total? $18 buckaroos!

I've never tried Freshness Burger in Japan, but i know i won't be patronizing the local outlets again for sure.

2010, in retrospect

Dreamweaver has done it. So has The Pleasure Monger.

As the year draws to a close (has it really been a year?!), it’s now my turn to take a step back to reflect.

I probably remember more about 2009 than 2010 though.

In 2009, the boy proposed and we commited ourselves to the biggest investment in our lives. We also experienced our first live game at the Emirates Stadium and visited the City of Lights (two items off the travel checklist!).

In 2010, on the travel front, we satisfied our backpacking or flashpacking (to be exact) itch in Vietnam (Jan), enjoyed comfort food and shopping during a quick birthday getaway in HK (Mar) and went on a road trip Down Under (June). I feel most spirited when I travel and I am grateful for every opportunity to see the world a little more.

Workwise, the bigger part of the year was rather painful. I was stuck in a role which I didn’t enjoy. But thankfully, I had two wonderful colleagues, M and S to turn to and I am grateful for their friendship. Just as we entered the last quarter of the year, I embarked on a new job in an organization which I’ve always wanted to work for, in an industry which I am passionate about. I keep my fingers crossed that I will continue to enjoy work satisfaction in the company.

Then of course, there’s the wedding prep which has unfortunately resulted in us arguing a lot more in recent months. It hasn’t been easy, preparing for the big day and a new phase in our lives. To say the stress gets to you is an understatement. Imagine having to manage this logistics of a nightmare while trying to please our families and ensuring that our decisions are not made at the expense of our happiness, all at the same time. But we're almost there and I can’t wait to let my hair down, literally, after the dinner!

And that’s about all to my 2010, really.

I guess it is what I would call a transition year, gearing up for the wedding, the new home and a life together.

Although the year wasn’t as exciting as the previous one, it was decent.

I am contented, in a good place and I can't ask for more.

Time Out

I haven’t been able to write here as often because there’s just too much going on the wedding/house front.

It used to be just our weekends being used for running errands but now even weekday evenings are burnt with appointments with wedding vendors.

As maybs puts it on her blog (i’m sorry I don’t have your name nor initials!), it’s a tough life… being a bride-to-be.

Off the top of my head, these are the remaining to-dos.

* To confirm a florist for venue decorations
* To consolidate RSVPs and do up the table arrangements/seating plan
* To finalize song list with our wedding band and compile our own playlist
* To go for my make up trial
* To develop photos for our wedding
* To look for a wedding guestbook
* To book our post- tea ceremony buffet
* To go for our final gown and suit fittings
* To go for a haircut
* To brief our best men and bridesmaids
* To finish up on miscellaneous DIY décor (i.e. table number cards etc)
* To confirm our interior designer for the new place

1 more month to go.

We can do this.

Mt K in May

It's confirmed.

Together with some friends, we will be climbing Mt Kinabalu in May next year. It's now or never, before we get creaky with age.

I'm excited but filled with trepidation. I'm not the fittest person around so climbing a 4,095m high mountain is very daunting.

Training at Bukit Timah starts next month but we will only be able to join the gang after the wedding.

Which leaves us with about 3.5 months to train.

Gulps.

Confessions of a Bride-To-Be #16: Our Wedding Invites

Because our wedding venue doesn't cater for invites, we had to customise and print our own cards.

The good - freedom to personalise our invites to our whims and fancies. The bad - designing our cards from scratch is a daunting task for two not so artistic people.

We turned to the Internet, which gave us plenty of inspiration. But our customised cards would not have been made possible, without the help of our very talented friend KH, who not only helped to design but print two designs! And not forgetting Angie, who sacrificed time to help to despite her packed schedule.

The traditional Double Happiness card for family

The floral design for friends, which in our humble opinion, suits our wedding venue/theme to a T!

Chop chop!

I love the hand-carved wooden stamps we got from our Vietnam trip in January this year. Besides choosing your own design, you can also add your own text. We decided to include our names. Cheesy, but we likey!

Tak glam!

Yours truly wrote the addresses while he stamped the back of the envelopes. After an afternoon of writing, stamping and sealing yesterday, i'm proud to say that our wedding invites are ready for mailing!

Keep a lookout for them y'all and don't dump our envelopes into the bin, just yet k?

Wedding Eye Candy: Rouge

From StyleMePretty

I love how the bride looks like she walked out of an Audrey Hepburn movie.

Absolutely adore her vintage dress/hairstyle and I wish i have the aplomb to carry off red lipstick too!

Floral Dilemma

Photo from here

We have been talking to some florists for our wedding and I'm just appalled by how expensive flowers can be in Singapore. And by expensive, i am talking about anything from $1000 to $2000.

I know I'm being practical and budget conscious here but I don't feel comfortable parting with this amount of money for something that only lasts a day.

It will be nice to have some basic floral decorations on our big day though.

Decisions, decisions.

Sneak Peek

Photo by Eadwine from Plush Photography

What The Flea!

Helping my sister to do a shout out here :)

My sister will be at Booth no. 12 at What the FLEA! this coming Saturday (18th December), 2-9pm at *Scape. Besides the usual second-hand clothes (including mine which have been washed once but never worn!), she will be selling new clothes and bags.

Booth no. 12 will be at the extreme right once you come in through the entrance to What The Flea!, right next to the entry/exit to the playground & entry/exit to the carpark :)

A preview of what you will be seeing at the flea.

For more photos & further information, do check this site out: http://someonetodress.blogspot.com/

Confessions of a Bride-To-Be #15: Thinking Outside The Box

Besides enjoying the relaxing lunch, there was another reason why we left Egg3 Cafe feeling mighty pleased.

We found a tissue box holder to double up as our wedding ang pow box. The icing on the cake was a 10% discount by the owner because she didn't have it in a new piece.

It was serendipity at its best :)

Egg3 Cafe

In between running wedding errands yesterday, we stole time for lunch at Egg3 Cafe. I've read about this lifestyle concept cafe a while back, but us being us, we usually prefer to wait for the hype to be over before checking a new place out.

Tucked in a cosy nook in Mountbatten, the place was quite hard to find, but well, that adds to its charm, doesn't it?

I don't know if it's the norm, considering the great reviews i've read on the cafe, but there were only two tables of guests, including us. Not that we mind. I just hope business sustains because it will be a shame if the cafe doesn't survive eventually.

As you can tell from the photos i've posted, I went trigger happy snapping shots of the whimsical decor and quirky items on sale.

Mushroom soup, with a hint of truffle oil.

His - Fish & Chips

Hers - Crab Meat Spaghetti with Pink Sauce

The food was reasonably good in general but I wish the menu offered more choices. Read on Foursquare that the chocolate lava with ice cream is to die for but we didn't try that as we were too full. I would devote an entry to the Fish and Chips if i could but all i would be able to say is it's the best fish and chips we've tasted (even better than the ones we tried in London and Down Under).

We had an enjoyable, simple lunch, away from the weekend crowd, flipping through interior design magazines to get ideas for our new place. Time seems to come to a standstill at Egg3 Cafe. I could linger there all day.

It was a lovely respite from the usual wedding planning.

Weekends should be made of these.

The Pursuit of Happiness

When i first embarked on this wedding preparation journey, i was so certain that being the type A personality that I am, it would be the wedding details - the decor, the theme, the invites, the dress, that would unleash the bridezilla in me.

How wrong I was.

These days, i find myself devoting more effort in managing certain relationships than fussing over our wedding details.

Fending off certain demands and expectations of the wedding/marriage are taking a toll on me.

I just want to be happy.

Why does it have to be so difficult?

Theme Song

If my life had a theme song now, it'll be this.

Confessions of a Bride-To-Be #14: Hey, I'm Not For Sale!

If there's one Chinese wedding tradition i would like to abolish, it would be Guo Da Li.

Maybe i am too modern for my own good, but i don't believe in betrothal gifts, dowry and what nots. This tradition probably made sense in the past where matchmaking was prevalent but it just seems archaic to me in today's context.

A marriage should not be a transaction between two families. I don't want to have a value placed on me.

But as we both realised a while back, a wedding or marriage isn't always about the two of you. It also involves your families.

And that's why we decided we should arrange for our parents to meet to discuss this iffy topic. So at least both sides can come to an agreement, no matter whether they decide to do away with this. And yes, the date has been set for this Sunday.

It will be interesting to see how the talk unfolds. If our parents decide to go ahead, we will respect their wishes. But I sure won't be practising this in future when my kids get hitched.