Rehearsal and Dinner at the Peak

Early the next morning, we were all wide awake because of jetlag. We walked around the neighborhood and explored the harbor area before dress rehearsal in the afternoon.

















We found that McDonald's here are very fancy - it's like a really nice diner. They have things on the menu that we don't have here - like fried chicken, corn, and taro pies. Plus they DELIVER, how awesome is that?!





















They also had hostess-like people standing around to answer your questions and help you. It was amazing.
















The dress rehearsal was at the American Club on Hong Kong Island, where the wedding was to be held the next day. The plan was to have the ceremony outside - it had a beautiful view of the mountains and harbor. But it was SO humid and hot.
































Tiffany giving instructions to everyone about what to do and where to go - she was so organized with everything. I can't even imagine trying to plan a destination wedding where you not only have to worry about the day of the wedding but you have think about other various events, hotel rooms, and keeping your guests happy and entertained for multiple days!
















The rehearsal dinner was at The Pearl at Victoria's Peak, a tourist spot with a great view of the city. We decided to take the tram up to the peak. The hill was so steep it was kind of scary!
































The beautiful, happy couple :) For those of you who don't know, Tiff and Dave met in Hong Kong during a semester abroad in college. Isn't that amazing? But they didn't start dating until 7 years later, via email!
















Tiff and Dave got the wedding party such nice and thoughtful gifts - which we were all able to wear for the wedding! The bridesmaids received necklaces that matched our dresses!

Welcome Event and Hucks Night

As soon as we got into the hotel, we went upstairs to Tiff and Dave's suite to say hi, then showered and changed for the evening. We started on the rooftop of the hotel (with a beautiful view of the skyline) to meet and greet and take some photos. Even though it was nighttime, it was still very humid and hot, the breeze on the rooftop felt really good. Unfortunately none of our cameras could really capture the night view of Hong Kong so we'll just have to wait until the professional pictures are available. Tiff looked amazing in a qi pao as she went around saying hello to all of her guests. We didn't really know that many people there since half of the guests were Dave's family and friends from Australia. It was a very international wedding celebration.


































After the welcome event, we got ready for the bachelorette and bachelor party - it was a combined event. We made sure that Tiffany was embarrassed enough throughout the evening. It was fun and interesting - I mostly observed but stayed entertained. A few of us left the club early and went for some yummy late night Cantonese noodle soup.
























































John (Lisa's fiance) is awesome - he totally took care of us because he was the only one who actually spoke Cantonese
















I have to say this was probably my favorite part of the evening, haha.

Flying to Hong Kong in Style

As I walked into the airport the morning of our flight to Hong Kong, I saw my friends Ann and Jenny at the Cathy Pacific check-in counter. Why in the world is Ann dressed like she's going out on a date when she's going to be sitting on a plane for 15 hours straight?! I quickly understood - as I got in line to get checked in, Ann motions for me to go up to the counter. Apparently, she was at the airport before the rest of us and the man behind the counter gave her a free upgrade to business class! Then when the rest of us showed up, he upgraded the three of us too just because we were her friends. AND we got seats right next to each other on the plane, what a nice man :) It made me think of the beauty of God's grace - one person does the hard work but the rest of us who were dressed like slobs were given the same status even though we didn't deserve it. I learned something new that day - the likelihood of getting upgraded is higher if you dress like you belong in business class.

Flying business class on a 15 hour flight is awesome. I couldn't get over how many fun buttons there were to press. We got menus for our meals, and as many snacks (not peanuts, but like real beef noodle soup) as we want. I wish I could have eaten more, but I started to not feel well that morning. If we didn't have business class it would have been so much worse - at least I was able to lie down, I was hot then cold then hot, then my whole body started getting sore, and I kept having to run to the bathroom. I was seriously nervous that I may end up with a fever and get stuck at the airport. But everything worked out fine as we headed for the hotel to start our very full evening.

Hanging out in the British Airways lounge. Free breakfast and drinks. Sigh.

















My seat! Seriously, people knew we didn't fly business very often - we were all taking pictures of each other and playing with all the buttons.



































Look at how many ways I can move my seat!!!!























Twilight was one of the movies showing - I resisted the urge to see that horrible movie again and instead watched Bride Wars, haha.

















I still can't believe we had a menu AND a wine list



































I had scallops - as an APPETIZER. I felt like I was in a NYC restaurant.

















The starter for my breakfast. I think I had seafood congee as main course. It was so delicious.

















Thanks Ann for such an awesome start to the trip! She planned everything, flights, hotels, day tours, itinerary. Amazing girl to travel with. The only thing you'll have to accept is that you will be very tired by the time you get home - but it will never be a boring trip and you'll definitely get your money's worth, hahaha.

It's Official!

... I am a bit hesitant to post this since I am usually very cautious when it comes to these things ... but I feel that I should because this blog is about my life, and since it's a fairly significant change in my life, a short post before I hop on a plane to Hong Kong for Tiffany's wedding and then to Thailand for a week with girlfriends is probably appropriate :)

SO .... I am officially in a relationship .... with a boy (yes, you read correctly). I am still a bit in shock myself actually, I don't think it has fully sunk in yet. I guess it's because it all happened very gradually over a year-long friendship, during which I knew very clearly in my head that we were not together. I suppose it takes some time to switch gears and allow my mind to adjust to the idea. Although I am still somewhat cautious, I cannot deny in my heart that I am at peace and optimistic about our decision to take this step, and that I am really happy, giddy and excited about the future :) That's all I'll say about it for now, but I'll share more when I get back from my trip. I will need another week of vacation to catch up on sleep and upload pictures and blog, haha! It's going to be a very full vacation. Time to get an hour or two of sleep before I have to head to the airport!

Mother's Day Celebration

Last week, my sister and I cooked brunch and dinner for Mother's Day. It was super fun and I must admit, the food was pretty good. We started out with a brunch menu of Lemon and Basil Eggs over Foccacia (delish), sausage and potato pancakes (Colin's mucho experience specialty), with mimosas. In the afternoon we watched the first Narnia movie with our mom since she had never seen it before. It was a lot better and more meaningful this time that I watched it - I was able to see more Christian principles in the plot than the first time when I saw it in theaters. For dinner, we cooked Thai food - chicken satay (which we couldn't grill properly with skewers so we took the chicken off the skewers to grill and then put them back on the skewers afterwards, haha), shrimp and mango / salad dish, red snapper with carrot sauce over rice. We need some work with the presentation but the taste was decent for our first time cooking Thai. I think our mom appreciated the efforts even though we will probably never be as good as she is :) It was funny when we were cooking the red snapper. The skin kept getting stuck on the bottom of the pan and the fillets were coming out not very pretty. Then our mom stepped in and helped and the fillets came out perfect, haha.









































The marinade for the chicken turned out very tasty - hmmm, maybe I can use this for summer BBQ

















The shrimp was SO good

















How the red snapper looks without mom's help

















How the red snapper is supposed to look .....



































Happy Mother's Day! It's a very personal card made by Sof. Doesn't the pattern on the card match her shirt perfectly? =P

To Breathe or Eat?

I'm going to Hong Kong next week for one of my best friend's wedding. I think I really made an effort to go to the gym and eat healthier (somewhat) these past few months, but I don't think it made as much of a difference as it used to when I was < age 25. I guess at my age I have to work harder to get the same results. I have to fit into the very tight fitting waist-up bridesmaid dress. The tailor assured me that the dress stretches after I wear it for awhile. So I am sitting here in my room, in my dress, hoping that it will stretch as I breathe. I have noticed that it's not as tight when I try it on first thing in the morning, and that after a very full meal it takes 3 people to zip me up and I hyperventilate from the lack of oxygen. Because it's so tight waist up (the tailor said it has to be tight for it to look right, I don't know, I'd kind of prefer to eat) all of the fat in my stomach is accentuated below my ribs which makes me look like I'm pregnant. Sigh.

The bridal industry is such a huge money making business. As soon as one mentions the word 'wedding', all prices double. The bridesmaid dresses have awful sizing charts, at least in my opinion, unless I am just completely disproportionate. My waist size is three times my bust / hip sizes according to the size chart. So of course I have to buy the size that can accommodate my largest feature, which apparently is my waist, lol, go figure. But when the dress came, it was way too big, so then we had to spend $100 to get the dresses tailored. It's like, they purposely make the dresses oddly sized so we have to get them tailored.

By the way, I thought I was being healthy last week by going to a vegetarian restaurant. I ordered this dish with seitan and mushrooms. I had no clue what seitan was, but my friend said it's a substitute for meat so I figured it's probably healthy, like tofu or something. The fact that the word seitan sounds like satan should have been a warning for me to stay away, but I wanted to try something new. Ironically, the 'healthy' meat alternative made me sick for 2-3 days. It made me bloated, gaseous, nauseated, and messed up my digestive system. When my sister and I figured out that it was this seitan that was not agreeing with my body, we looked it up to see what it's actually made of. It's wheat gluten and it doesn't seem very healthy, it doesn't have a lot of calories but one serving of it has like 80% of one's daily value of protein. I think I had an overdose of protein or something. I always thought protein is supposed to make you gain weight. But how can something with that much protein have so few calories? Perhaps protein alone can't make you gain weight, it just helps you build muscle if you lift weights? Anyway, stay away from seitan. You've been warned.