The Royal Wedding Gown

So after months of speculation, the best kept secret's finally out!

I thought Kate Middleton looked stunning in her beautiful Alexander McQueen wedding dress.

It was elegant, modern yet vintage and showed off her lithe figure.

But at the end of the day I still prefer Grace Kelly's :)

A timeless vison of beauty

The Maldives - Sunrise Outtakes

The Maldives - Dolphins

We woke up before dawn on our second last day to watch the sunrise and snap some photos.

We were taking some photos outside our villa when a guy ran towards us and said something animatedly in Japanese.

He must have guessed from our blank faces that we didn’t understand him and told us “Dolphins, dolphins!”, while pointing towards the direction of the jetty.

Within seconds, we grabbed our tripod and camera and ran with him towards the private jetty.

There was another family already there.

Together in quiet awe, we watched a school of dolphins swim from west to east, parallel to the jetty.

One dolphin even did a few flips, eliciting excited cheers from us.

We couldn’t take off our eyes off them until they were finally out of sight, and we walked back to our villas reluctantly.

It was a beautiful moment and one I would cherish for a long time to come.

The best photo I've got of them but I'm glad we caught them on video

 The abundance of marine life at the jetty

Blake Lively - Chanel Mademoiselle

There's no denying that Blake Lively is one very attractive young woman.

But her as the face of Chanel?

I don't know.

I think she looks gorgeous but I am just not feeling it.

Love the bags though. And they come in five different sizes. Wonder if they will achieve the same popularity as the 2.55?

What's In Your Bag

 Got tagged by Miss Ene to do a What's In Your Bag post, so here goes!

I only carry black work bags because I'm lazy and they are easy to match. I used to alternate between 2-3 bags but these days, I only carry my Kate Spade because it's such a hardy bag and I don't have to worry about it being caught in the rain. Didn't upload a pic of it because I couldn't get a good shot and well, I really don't want to pose together with the bag and a victory sign, you know?

Bad joke aside, here are my very boring essentials:

I have dry lips so Vaseline's Lip Therapy is a must-have for me. The Chanel loose powder is for touching up if I head out after work and as for lip colour, I'm currently loving Burt's Bees Lip Shimmer, recommended by MY.

Other items in my bag include slippers because I walk to the train station in them (very unglamourous I know) and change to heels when I reach the station. The slippers happened to come in handy today when I broke my left heel at work.

The iPod touch was a birthday gift from the husband in 07. I bring along a USB charger for the iPod touch/iPhone and my wallet was also a birthday present from the husb, in 08 if I'm not wrong.

I also carry a brolly because the parts of the commute to work/home are not sheltered and I never know when it might rain.

Now that I've shown you what's in my bag, I'm looking forward to seeing Hello Kyoto, Mrslimvoyage, somethingboutrenes and Chuzailiving's contributions!

The Maldives - Valentine's Day

The hubs and I have never been fans of Valentine’s Day. We don’t believe in overpriced flowers or dinners at fancy restaurants. But that's just us.

We had never intended to coincide the honeymoon with V Day. The original plan was to leave the day after the wedding but the air tickets were ridiculously expensive with the Chinese New Year long weekend. In the end, we booked our trip based on dates where we could find the cheapest air tickets.

It only occurred to us that we were going to spend V Day there when we were packing for the trip.

But boy did we succumb when we were at the Maldives.

We dressed up for dinner. I blushed with joy when I was presented with a stalk of red rose by the restaurant staff. We had the Valentine’s Day Set Dinner and the specially concocted V Day cocktail (such suckers we were). What was a romantic dinner also turned out to be the most expensive one out of all our 7 nights.

Ah yes, the irrationality when you’re on honeymoon.

The 4-course set dinner was fantastic. We finished every bit of the Seafood stew.

I really liked the little touches from the resort. Nothing over the top. Thank goodness there weren't rose petals forming a heart shape on the bed!

Tea lights in the bedroom

Rose petals and tea lights in the bathtub

And this is my favourite

The Maldives - Encounters with a Titan

We were warned about the Titan Triggerfish a few times during our honeymoon.

The welcome letter from the resort cautioned us from going near the fish during snorkeling or diving. A book on the marine life of Maldives, found in every villa for guests to refer to, called it the “most dangerous fish in the Maldives”.

While renting our snorkeling equipment, the staff at the Dive Centre also gave us friendly advice on how to fend one off in the event it attacked us, adding a caveat that this was however “rather rare”. That didn't exactly make us feel better.

The fish doesn’t usually attack, but during mating season, can get very territorial and guard its nest ferociously. Its strong teeth can crush rocks and coral, so imagine what this Titan can do to you, if you intrude into its territory. Yikes.


Being paranoid, I forced the husband to agree on hand signals we should give to warn each other if we were to encounter one underwater, before we went for our maiden snorkeling trip,

We only spotted the fish during our second trip.

With its large head, dark coloured lips and ghastly green tinge, it was not hard to miss.

Even though it was a good 10-15m away, we froze and kept as still as we could. Thankfully, the fish didn’t see us (or care about us I think) and we waited for it to swim away, before we continued snorkeling.

This video shows how violent the fish can be.

The Maldives - Gone Fishing

I beg to differ when someone says there is nothing to do at the Maldives.

Besides snorkelling and swimming in the clear blue waters, you get to try sea activities such as diving, island hopping, deep sea fishing and bottom line fishing.

We booked ourselves a sunset fishing trip because it provided the best of both worlds - we could enjoy the sunset while at the same time try our hand at bottom line fishing. What's more, we got to enjoy our catch at dinner the next day.

Setting off from Cocoa Island's jetty

 

The local fishermen

 

We were given the opportunity to fish after a quick tutorial by the crew.

To me, the hardest part is knowing when's the right moment to tug after feeling the fish bite. Following which, you need to pull the 10-15m of fishing line back up the boat as fast you can.

Tug too early and you have no fish. Tug too late and the fish would have finished your bait. Pull too slow and the fish would have escaped.

We waited and waited. 

There were many false alarms, but no fish. I was convinced that we were not going to enjoy any catch for dinner the next day.

Howevver with patience and some luck, we caught some fish.

While we took photos with our catch, an American guy whose fishing line kept getting caught on dead coral, posed with his 'catch' while his wife teased him. It was hilarious :P

One of the crew caught a garoupa with its baby in its mouth. They threw the baby back into the sea.

The catch of the day  from us, the American couple and the crew