Excellent 2011 and Exciting 2012

I had the best time of my life. I had so much fun with my friend, fling, girlfriend and now my best friend and soon to be wife. Who says you can't have fun with them all at one time... I DID!!!

Summarize 2011:

Bought my first car (a coupe convertible)

Went backpacking trip in Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto then Akita)

Went on a roadtrip in Perth

Bought our house (Prive - an executive condo located in Punggol)

We both did a career switch. (NUS for her & CMTML for me)

Proposed to her at Sentosa

Engagement Party at Hatched

Two happy people sharing their lives

YOU ARE THE BEST THING THAT EVER BEEN MINE....

GOODBYE 2011 and SAY HELLO 2012!!!!!! 

We're Engaged!!

Dear Sweet Roomie,

18 Dec 2011 has come and happened and passed and.. i think we are soooo officially engaged now!!! woohooo!!!

It all started off with a proposal, and a idea from me: let's have an engagement party! From a simple thought of a gathering BBQ with a possible budget of $300, it evolved to an amazing night of celebration, fun and games at Hatched with a guest list of 33 pax. They included: From August's guest list: Uncle Ow, Aunty Ow, Flora, Ethan, Yanni, Ah Ma, Amos, Yiquan, Elaneor, Panda, Cecilia, Issac, Narrisa. From my guest list: Mum, Imay, Weekwok, Ashley, Layhoon, Yida, Didi, Yuzhen, Pat yi, Dai Yi, Mabel Yi, Aunty Jenny, Ziyang, Bunny, Rong, Jennifer, Zhemin, Manzhi, Eeboon, Yunci and Steven.

We started planning the decorations and games idea a few weeks before the event… every night during our pillow talk session we would discuss a little bit about the engagement. I am glad we put in effort to make this a special occassion - cuz it is a really special occassion!! In the end, we had:

Decorations: Hearts (idea we STOLE from ikea), hanging polaroids (using my fun polaroid film!), cupcakes (generously homemade by Flora), Styrofoam A&L, sweets in bottles (sweets purchased form KL), engagement ring balloons

Program items: special small guest book (purchased from malacca), game board made from styrofoam (august's brilliant idea!)

and to remember the night: 2 professional photographers - Chris & Val!

The party went so well with excellent company, food, program… even the price of the engagement was a pleasant surprise!

My favourite part of the party? That must be when August said: This one year with Ling has been so great it beats the 10 years of my previous relationship. HAHAH…. power right!!!!

Love is… waking up beside you everyday

our muscle man game board

A & L

Everyone at the party!

Our lovely cupcakes!

We're Engaged!!!!!!!!!!

love u roomie!!!!    

Happiest Day in my life

The day had come. I had kept it a secret from her for about a month and it was the most difficult secret to keep because I was so eager to settle down with her, but I had to wait till October 1st. She is the one whom I wanna spend the rest of my life with. My dream girl agreed to be my girlfriend/partner earlier on this year in January, and now she is my wife to be. 


I started preparing the proposal about a month back in September. The most important of all is the ring which gave me a big headache because she didn't want a regular ring which every girl has. She wanted something special. In her words," I want a ring that when I take the few rings from a few girls and mix it up together, I can identify mine within a snap of the finger." And with that wonderful guidance of hers, I thought long and hard about it. I wanted something that is classic so that the look can last. I went surfing around for design and found something at Tiffany website which is very classy. I went to the jeweler and told him what I wanted. He said I was taking a big risk because only Indians and elderly people like gold. But screw it, I trusted my taste and instincts and went for the design I wanted. 


When Ling was away in camp, I took the opportunity to recce Sentosa with one of my pals Yeh Yang. We headed to IKEA to buy the candles we required. And the plan is best described in the email I sent out:

Venue: Palawan Beach at Sentosa (Nearest car park Palawan car park)

Time for you guys to meet up: 31 September (friday) 2200

Time I wil reach Sentosa: 2315

Time I will propose: 1 October (Saturday) 0001
Manpower: Yeh Yang, Shu Juan, Clarence, Zhiwei, Isaac, Zhemin and I-Mae

Items required:

1. 600 tealight candles (with Yeh Yang), Sparklers (I will pass to Yeh Yang).
2. 5 Lighters (Those gun looking kind that is used to light stove, don't buy the cigarette lighter, easier for all of you to light) (Yeh Yang can you help me buy? Make sure it lights flames and not spark. I think some gives out spark)
3. Polariod (I will pass to Yeh Yang my Polaroids).
4. At 2215, you guys can start arranging the tealights in the shape "MARRY ME". The sparklers hopefully can be used to form a question mark by bending and joining a few sparklers. 

At 2300, I will reach Sentosa Palawan Beach.

At 2340, you guys can start lighting up the candles, the sparklers will be lited up last at around 0005. I will be facing the sea and will turn towards the beach about 0000 which I will be at the southern most point tower level 3 viewing the words "Marry me?"

At 2355, Hopefully one of you can be at level 2 and head up to level 3 around 0000 to snap a few polariod of me proposing.

At 0000, I will play a short video clip and I will propose after the video clip.


I must say my friends had done an excellent job. Kudos to them!

View from tower

Two hearts unite as one

MARRY

ME

MARRY ME ?

I was very nervous when I actually asked her to be my wife. I knew I would be nervous so I prepared a speech so that I could at least read it out to her. But at that moment, I was totally dumbfounded. The only sentences which came out was, "Baby your gift", "You see", "Will you marry me?" and "You haven't answered my question." I was never so nervous in my life before, not even in exams. I understood what had happened, I was overwhelmed with happiness that there is a possibility that she is going to be my life partner. The one whom I will share my joy, laughter and sadness for the rest of my life.

I will leave the next post for her to comment on her feelings.... haha =P

First item bought for our new house

A warm welcome to Sleepy the sheep to Scruffy family

Our $3,500 mattress has finally been delivered to Ling's place. Both of us need a good mattress because we tend to backaches hopefully not due to age catching up with us but rather her old and soft mattress which have minimal back support. This mattress will definitely follow us to Privé in 3 years time. Speaking of which, looking at the speed of the development, I hope we can get the keys by end 2013. That is about 2.5 years time which will give us a bit of time to save for the renovation cost and pay off some of our loan.

I was just asking her today how does it feel to be so committed to this relationship. She says it feels nice to see where the relationship is heading into and she can envision what it is going to be like in 5 years and 10 years time. I can also see where our relationship is heading towards. It will be a fun and exciting journey for us 5/10 years down the road. During my reservist, my commanding officer gave us a talk about how life short life is and we should live it to the fullest. I'm so happy to have embark on this journey with you. Looking forwards to all the happiness you will bring to me for the rest of my life and I will also do the same for you!!!

I just read the note which was meant for 18 August 2011. Thank you so much for the notes. You're such a sweetie!!! I'm looking forward you to be back in my arms next Thursday. *HUGZ*

Me time

We were having a small talk last night about our wedding plans. A small wedding with limited guest or a full blown wedding. I'm actually leaning towards a smaller wedding with like maximum 200 pax.

http://www.halia.com.sg/ 

I like this place where I can semi fulfill my darling dream wedding which she described to me last night. I mentioned to her before that this was the place where I left my past behind and started on a new one. I'm not too sure whether the place can hold 200 pax but I guess it will be one of the location I will consider. How the wedding will take shape will be highly dependable on our guest list.  A garden wedding where we will be able to walk down the aisle with non traditional chinese food. I wonder how much it will to reserve the whole place. Regardless of which, I will try to fulfill my sweetie's dream wedding.

It is nice discussing such stuff with her. Our usual canoodle pillow talk which we discuss about everything under the sun but most of the time about us. I like our open mindedness when we discuss about things. Another topic we discuss about is actually having her dog living with us when we get our new place. I'm alright as long there is minimal dog odour and fur at our new place and that means loads and loads of cleaning. Will keep in view the plans of having her dog over with us, just got to revolve our renovation plans around the dog if he is living with us.

My drive buddy for the next few days

 

You

I'm so bringing you to Elizebeth Hotel to catch an Arsenal Match

It's been a while since I have blogged not because I have lot the interest to blog but I've been too caught up with work and the jobscope now is making my worklife so colorless which in return is making my life very colorless.

The few things which is brightening up my life now is:
1) My love life. She never fails to bring out that cheeky smile of mine. I miss her everyday when I leave for work and I can't wait for the day to end so that I could be back in her arms. I want to have more time with her. And I want to have more energy too because my work has been draining me out so badly I just want to head back home to rest so that I have enough energy for work the next day which is not what I want in life. I want to be able to do after work activities like rollerblading, stroll in the park with Ling, hang out at coffee joints with her, go swimming, soccer on tuesday nights, etc etc. And I'm so looking forward to getting the keys to our house which we will be calling it home in a few years to come.

2) My family. I feel guilty for not spending enough time with them. I love them a lot and I think I have to make it a point to take time off to spend quality time with them.

3) My ride. My little convertible never fails to brighten up my life after a whole week of work. I love the wind blowing in my hair. I love it when my partner enjoys the ride as much as I do.

I love doodling art with you.

I want to use these soon

I love you so much that I would even kiss a computer screen.

Silly stuff that I'll buy you at times to remind you how silly I can get when I'm with you.

My dream is to set up a business with you so that everyday when I wake up for work, it will be you I will be seeing when I reach work, you I will be enjoying the day with at work, and you I will be heading home with. And with you, I will always be a happy boy for the many many years to come.

Major updates

We had our second argument on the day NUS had thier archery competition. It was more of a disagreement rather than an argument. Topic was me holding her hand in school and her feeling uncomfortable VS Forfeits she did at her camp which I deemed inappropriate and her not feeling uncomfortable. She saw where I was coming from and I saw where she was coming from. So it was settled.

Movies movies movies and more movies.... We watched quite a couple of movies these few weeks which totally fulfilled my movie cravings! Kungfu Panda 2, Pirates of the Caribbean, X-men First Class Super 8, Green Lantern. I'm a pirate but I also contribute a fair share to the movie industry. Hee =)

Oh I forgot about my one of my pipes underneath my bonnet which gave way. The air pipe from the intercooler to the engine burst because of wear and tear. I guess it must have been our trip up to KL and Genting which lead to it giving way. It is a pipe where air will travel from the intercooler to the engine. The pipe has to handle high pressures and I guess my crazy driving up to Genting caused it to split. The mechanic advised me to change it to metal pipings as it holds the pressure better and will not give way so easily. But it will set me back about SGD 1000. I wanted to send my car to another workshop and he quickly find a small metal part to link the pipes. Now part of my intake pipe is metal. And it looks damn cool.

Work has been getting a bit stressful as the workload gets heavier. But going home everyday to spend that wee bit of of time with my little Ling just perks me up and recharges me for the next day, Loving you!

Our first bicker

I think we officially had our first quarrel last weekend and I'm pretty much the cause of it. From our post quarrel review, I realised the sentences I used hurt her feelings a fair bit. And I don't think she deserves it because it's an issue which I should take it more light heartedly. But she also understands where I'm coming from but she said she's dissappointed with me with regards to using snide remarks to get the message through. After all said and done and seeing me looking so remorseful, she gave me a hug and told me she doesn't want to live with a meanie.

We had a fulfilling weekend. Lotsa fun with my pudding!!!

Things we did:

Friday
SSO concert on Friday evening.
Dinner at Margaritas

Saturday
Pancake making session
Dinner with Ling and her mum at Ban Leong Wah Hoe (Had chilli crabs, lala and dou mia)
Movie at Kallang (Pirates of the Caribbean)

Sunday
Lunch as sister's place
Washed our car

Perth Trip

Woooo... I totally forgot to blog about our trip to Perth before we both started out at our new jobs. We made a quick decision when I was in Beijing for a board meeting. We were discussing where to head off to before we embark on our jobs. I suggested Perth since she hasn't been to Australia before, and coincidently, her sister was heading down to Perth to visit her sister in law. We thought might as well join her for a couple of days for the farmstay...

These are some of the places that we went to:

First meal when we reach Perth City

Metro

Playground at Simmo's Ice Creamery

Busselton Jetty (2km long Jetty) 

Our lucky (186) IDLE car plate

Balancing on railway track at Busselton Jetty

Best Fish and Chips in Fremantle

What we all came to Australia to see... Kangerooos

Do you see Clarke Kent in the making..

Margaret River Chocolate factory

..

Simmo's Ice Cream factory

A brand new start

It's been a while since I've blogged because I was pretty much caught up with handing over my duties to my boss back in JAIC Asia Capital Pte Ltd. It was a good 3.5 years where I learnt about the business world. I would say that I had an exciting first job because of the responsibilities and opportunities I was given.

I just started out at my new job at Capitamall trust. The working environment is good and colleagues are nice. Although I'm performing a totally different function comparing with JAIC, I'm keen to learn new stuff. I'm currently with the investment and asset management department learning all about running and managing shopping malls. I strive to move up to the investment department in the next 1 to 2 years after picking up my basic skills in managing REITS. My better half also kickstarted her job at NUS with a leadership camp in Ipoh. We had a short discussion about people working for the sake of working and not knowing what they want in life. Although she is in camp now and I don't really enjoy being alone because I love her company; I'm happy that my little pudding is doing what she likes and does best. I just hope that there are no smokers around so that she won't be thrown into the realm of temptation.

We're proud owners of a house now. I term it a house rather than a home now because a home consist of a family unit which I'm looking forward to build a very happy one with her. I can see myself spending the rest of my life with her. Speaking of which, she farted on me 2 days ago when she was sitting on my lap. I guess it must have been sweet revenge for all the farts she smelled over the last few months.

"I love you for providing a listening ear, when I'm super irritated about things like.... the BUS LANE!!!"

                                                                                                              of cos its from: Little Miss Scary.

I love you for writing all these sweet little notes to me. Whenever you're not around, I could open one up to read and it eases the nigging feeling. *muackz*

New beginnings

It's been a while since I've written anything because it has been a hectic few weeks. Firstly, handling over my portfolios to my manager because I'm finally leaving my first job. I would say it has been a great start to my career because I was given so many opportunities here eventhough I was only a fresh graduate. I learnt a lot about corporate finance from my mentor during my first year. And I was basically on my own from year 2 onwards. I made a lot of acquaintance but also a couple of close friends, some of them are people in high places and some of them who thought I was a good guy and gave me pretty good advice. I'll be moving on to something really different and hopefully I can tap on my experience as a Private Equity/Venture Capital Investor to aid me in climbing the corporate ladder.

Goodbye JAIC Asia Capital and Hello Capitamallasia.

I'm pretty excited about my new job because I'm going to meet new people and hopefully my seniors will be able to share and educate me with new financial knowledge. I'm sick and tired of teaching people who is supposedly to be more veteran than me.

I've also been busy settling my house loan. I went with DBS in the end offering me 3 months SIBOR + 0.75%. Their spread is actually pretty decent. Now, I just hope 3 months SIBOR will stay low so I don't have big headaches. But nevertheless, we have a backup plan I think.

We have been together for almost 5 months and everything is sailing smoothly. We have pretty much committed ourselves to this relationship by buying a house a month ago. But she ever mentioned to me that everything is so nice now, and it might be very scary when we really quarrel. All I can say is the past 5 months together has reaffirmed why I made up my mind to leave my previous relationship for this one. I believe whatever obstacle we have ahead of us will be a breeze because we're both pretty easy going and do not really point fingers at each other, blaming and putting the other party down.

Hopefully we get our Sales and Purchase agreement soon so that I can start liaising with the lawyers with regards to the payment of the remainder of the 15%. Looking forward to decorating our new place in 3 years time!!!

Lastly, I've been planning our Perth trip and busy studying for my CMFAS Module 10 (License which I require to handle REITS). It's going to our last trip before we both start work at our new jobs on 3 May 2011. I'm heading to Capitamallasia and she's heading to NTUC.

Limited Edition Lenticular Poster

I got it!!! Now to find frames for it... Our first decoration for our new home. It will most likely sit either in the dining area or the walkway leading to our masterbed room. My girlfriend was so supportive with regards to me buying this limited edition poster.



I love my girlfriend

I was not the best of mood the past few days because of 2 things:

1) I'm unable to purchase my Harry Potter Lenticular Poster (Siruis Black Wanted).

2) My HKS car parts are coming in later than expected.

But my sweetie girlfriend made me all happy again by buying me my favourite chocolate banana cake from Awfully Chocolate. I'm going to ask her for the cake pictures so that I can upload them on my blog

Love you Ling!!!

Smiley Upclose and Personal



Awesome Girlfriend




Happy Boy



 

My girl lollipop... you make my heart go giddyup

I bought a lollipop flower for Ling yesterday when I was shopping around at Raffles City. I told her I wouldn't be meeting her but I was already at Raffles City shopping for a small gift for her. She's just like my little girl appreciating the cute little things I buy for her. She was irritated with me initially when I told her I'm heading home instead of accompanying her while she waits for her SSC friends to come.

You'll always be my little princess!!!

My little princess

19 March 2011

SURPRISE!

i just wanted to tell you how happy i am to co-own our 1st home at The Prive, Blk 37, #15-35 (s) 828809!!

i also want to tell u the 3 things i said in the car, with 1 more add on:
1. i promise to be faithful to you
2. i promise to make you happy, always (unless i am grouchy then u have to make me happy wor... hehe)
3. i promise to never make u feel lesser a person
4. i promise to always consider ur feelings before i make any decisions or actions!

:)
i love u, roomie!!

House Shopping

We've been to a couple of places shopping around for properties. And I'm on the fence whether property prices will rise or fall. We've been to Esparina, Prive and Waterfront Isle. If I were to get a property in a good location, I would be sacrificing space. Our primary purpose of this property is for us to live in and making money is secondary. I do not know whether I've shopped around enough for a house. Property prices are madness now.

I will sit down and discuss this with Ling properly. Whatever decision we make, I think I'll be happy because I know she loves me. =)

Being a active citizen

We had the busiest weekend last week from birthday celebrations to mini clubbing session to being an active citizen at Kebun Bajru Community Centre to Autobacs shopping.

First up, we celebrated Jennifer's birthday at Chalk. Chalk is a nice dining place located at Mount Sophia. Ling had Lamb rack and I had Grilled ribeye. It was more of a catching up session for Ling than for me. All of them are Ling's closer friends and I have to know them better too because I'll probably be seeing them pretty often from now onwards. We accompanied Jennifer to her friends place to run some errands which was drop dead boring and we scoofed off to CHIJMES for a mini clubbing session with Ling's older sister. It was pretty funny because I don't even club with my own sister and seeing her dance is just so humourous.



Milo Mcflurry



Free Cotton Candy



Free Balloons



Daddy Instincts

Sunday is my usual family day and we were at Kebun Bahru Community Centre enjoying the mini carnival My sister set up a small booth to sell away some stuff, Ling roamed around and got herself some free balloons and cotton candy. I bought a Milo Mcflurry from Macdonalds when Ling went back home to shower. We took off to Autobacs and I bought myself 3 bottles of Tyre foam. Ling was commenting the discount section is my favourite section which is totally true. Besides my tyre foam, I bought a piece of claybar and wax. I decided to wax my car myself from now onwards since my car is so tiny.

Girlfriend and modifications

Wait. This is not a post about my girlfriend going for cosmetic modifications. hee= P I love her just the way she is!!!

Poor girlfriend of mine was down with the flu bug the past couple of days. Her nose was constantly blocked or runny which led to her blowing her nose every other minute. She looked so pale after 20 minutes of badminton fun. Eventhough she was not feeling well, she knew I was very excited about receiving my first car modification parts. My DSports ECU just came in and my sweetie drove all the way down to Macpherson and helped me collect my little black box which will add power to my little Daihatsu copen. I also just received notice from UPS that my HKS Super Sequential Blow Off Valves (SSQV) and HKS Turbo Timer have also arrived. All I'm waiting patiently for is my HKS intercooler and racing suction kit and my little Daihatsu copen will head straight to Garage R for its performance modifications. I can't wait for the car to be modded, hopefully my xiao yin will prove itself to be in the leagues of her xiaobai. =P Otherwise, I will just change reinforce the engine bay and add a bigger turbo.

Next up for my car:
1) Rims
2) Car Decals
3) Exhaust modifications

Invasion

My room has been invaded not only by Ethan but also my Princess aka sleeping beauty. But I like the whole idea my girlfriend being comfortable to stay at my place by herself. After all, the main reason I did a room revamp was for her.

Evidence:

My favorite bumming position.

Finally found you and breaking records

She finally found it. I was bugging her now and then to look for the soft toy (Lumpy) I gave her years ago. She kept it away because of something I said and some other personal reason. I remembered importing Lumpy from USA via eBay. I bought Lumpy for her because she was amused by the character in "Winnie the Pooh Heffalump movie". We caught the movie at a lifeguard house in Sentosa on my laptop.

So glad she found it! Now Lumpy sits on her bed with Rex, Patrick and Charco.


P/S I broke Ling's record and bunked in at her place consecutively for 7 days 6 nights. 

Lucky star

She claims she never won any form of lottery tickets before. But here it is, her first winning! We shared $12 worth of fifty cents quickpick which translates to 24 set of numbers.

The prize money was approximately 10 million dollars every year for the Chinese Lunar New Year Toto draw. The draw was made on 18 February 2011 and the numbers were 18, 20, 27, 34, 35, 41 and 1 as the additional number.

I might just be her lucky star. =)