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Wednesday, 21 December 2016

When I said "Yes".

Best inspirations for writing almost usually always comes in the middle of the night for me, somehow. As 2016 draws to a close, there's something I'll like to pen down before the year ends and it's probably one of the life-changing moments in this year - I got engaged heh!

Tzu and I have been together for over 4 years (we turn 5 in Mar 2017!), and a lot of our friends have been asking when we're gonna get married yknow? My answer would always be "Aiya see when this guy proposes." and he'll be like "Aiya, taking it slow. Must plan properly one you know." Hahaha.

And, it really happened when we were on our Korea trip in Sept - pretty unbelievable to be honest! I wasn't even thinking about it happening during the trip cause we were flying off really quickly during the holiday break and everything was a huge rush; we didn't even have time to plan the activities we wanted to do cause we were both way too busy with work.

Earlier in the day before the proposal 

Okay that morning, Tzu was acting a little weird actually. We were planning to head to Gyeongbokgung palace + wear a hanbok at Bukchon Hanok village so I was all like, okay I'm gonna wear shorts okay so it's easier to change into a hanbok.

Tzu's response: "Eh hmm I think you should wear smth nicer?"
Me: *frowning* "Huh why?"
Tzu: "Aiya...I'm alrd wearing shirt and pants. Wear something like nicer?"
Me: "ERRR okay hahahaha that's weird but okay."

He never tells me to wear something nicer?! It was beyond weird hahaha.

That day's outfit! (:

But anw, the story was that he told me that there's this nice park called Hanuel Park that has really nice fields and sunsets - so we planned to go there that evening after visiting the palace + village.

He also said that he's meeting his Korea-based colleague to pass her something from the office and that she would be there cause she's bringing her friend around to catch the sunset too.

But okay, as we all know, programs never turn out exactly on time and we were delayed cause we got lost around and so we were running late.

While walking up to Hanuel park (it's actually quite a while of a walk up the park cause there's a flight of staircase you've to clear), but the view is beautiful.

View from the staircase otw up

He was asking me to hurry up (cause he was rushing to reach the proposal venue before sunset) but I kept stopping to take photos.

And I was like: "But why!! The sun haven't set right and your colleague's gonna be there to watch sunset so it doesn't really matter for the time since we are all gonna end up in the same place to watch the sunset."

Tzu: "No la, just hurry up? Later she want to leave earlier idk."

Me: "Why so weird hahaha. Everyone is catching the sunset and it's at 645pm? So she should be okay with it since she's there to catch it too!"

Tzu: "Later can take of the place, let's just see the sunset from higher up!"

Me: "Why you so funny, okay lor."

Hanuel Park's really pretty! Basically after climbing up this long flight of stairs, you'll have to walk a little more and reach a large field. But he was supposed to bring me to this structure in the middle of the field where he hired a photog company to snap photos of the proposal + plan a set-up with our photos and flowers!

Hanuel park 


Last funny part:

We reached the structure and it's like 2 storeys high? So we had to climb up. I'm still quite blur here, didn't see the photos (of us) clipped on the structure.


So anw I reached the top part of the structure and I was like "Ooooh so nice let's go there to watch the sunset."

Tzu: "No no, let's go this way!" *points to other side of the circle structure*

Me: "Why?! The sun is this side what?!"

Tzu: *pulls me over to look at the other side*

And then I saw this:


*frowning* I was like "Are those our photos?"

And this guy whips out his iPad and starts showing me a video he'd made with all our friends, family and even my dogs?! (': (Heh thank you for all the love!) The video is just really funny hahaha, A for effort, really! I was laughing quite a bit at it actually heh.



When the video ended, he wanted to begin saying what he had prepped, but yet, he couldn't cause it was really difficult for him to do it and he didn't expect that it'll be so difficult (': so he started to tear and I started to tear and it was just indescribable?









Everything we've ever gone through, every memory just came to mind. From being friends and hanging out, going through other relationships, getting together, learning more about each other's habits and patterns, going through graduation and onward to work, sharing our struggles and surviving ugly fights; the list goes on. 







We've been through so much together since 2012, and for every celebration, victory, obstacle and upsetting argument - I'm thankful for all of them because they've brought us to where we are today.

Truth is, relationships are never gonna be like what we see in movies, in the media or what not. It requires work, compromise, lots of love, patience, trust, communication and most importantly, forgiveness. We are still working on these and more, but there's no one I'd rather learn and grow with 

Also, Tzu told me allllll about his prep for the proposal and it was like, a rushing river of words cause it was crazy for him to keep the entire thing from me hahaha. 

1. How he kept the ring away from me 
- he actually kept the ring in his wallet (which is a great place because whenever we are travelling he usually keeps the shared fund so he'll pay for the meals and I'll never bother to check it hahaha) whenever we were on flights because he was afraid that customs may ask him to open the ring box to show them what's inside then he would have to propose there? 
Omg I cannot stop laughing even as I'm typing this out hahaha. 

2. How he managed to film the video
 - when I was away in Indonesia earlier in June! That was like a huge opportunity frame for him. 

3. Contacting my friends/colleagues to film a video 
- coordination between lots of people is always difficult and he had to remind them to give the videos to him so he could compile them and make everything good. 

4. Carrying an iPad around and making sure that I don't open up the video app.
He actually has another app to play the movies we watch on the iPad LOL. 

5. Communicating with the vendor from Korea while being out with me 
- I think he was lucky cause I was quite caught up in a novel I was reading. So I'll be like, "I'm gonna read my book now kay!" when we are travelling on the subway around Seoul. So he could just talk to the photographer without me even noticing hahaha. 



Excited for the wedding (actually more for the honeymoon haha oops) with this guy heh! Although, I am an extremely lazy bride-to-be... we haven't started on anything, only booked the venue so far but at least the date + venue's settled heh! (: 

Love,
Jo 

Monday, 11 July 2016

Into the woods; with you.

Did a styled shoot with Happy Photo People (run by Kuan Yee) quite a while back (: 

The set-up, props and flowers were done up gorgeously by The Enchanted Tree SG, and the beautiful dresses (part 2 of the shoot would be coming up soon) were from Style Lease. The weather was great when we arrived in the morning and I was blown away by the venue as well; it was tranquil, serene and really lovely. 



















We love photoshoots with Kuan cause she's great at making you feel comfortable and she'll direct you and your partner to test out different shots as well. She's a really funny and nice person to work with too! (: 

With Tzu's birthday just around the corner, I just wanted to post these beautiful photos captured by Kuan, of us. Thank you for these beautiful memories that we can keep! 

And, to Tzu, happy 28th birthday love. I love you, you crazy, crazy person. 

Of course, not everything is as rosy as it seems online, we have had our fights, nasty conversations and stubborn moments. But yet, the sun always shines through those terrible times, and I'm glad we've agreed to never allow each other to bring any unhappiness regarding us into the next day. 

It definitely isn't easy sustaining a relationship; we often talk about how work must still be put in and that we should never take each other for granted. After all these years, I'm glad we've never grown too lazy to stop keeping that spark going. Sometimes during those moments when I see you walking towards me when we are meeting somewhere, I smile to myself, thinking about how blessed I am to have you. 

Here's to celebrating more milestones, birthday, achievements together (': 

Love, Jo 

Tuesday, 3 May 2016

Loose lines.






I love the weekends! Friday night to Sunday afternoon's the best - because Sunday night means that Monday's approaching. Can we have 2 day work weeks and a 5-day weekend, pretty please? 

Here's featuring an outfit which I love for its comfort level - one of my fave pair of culottes which I've worn countless of times, a loose fitted white top and the most comfy sandals ever. And of course, lastly, my trusty bucket bag. Photos were captured by Tzu, while we were over at Sentosa, two weekends back. The last time we were in Sentosa together was really, really long ago. The weather was crazy hot but we had fun thinking of math activities for my students to try out heh. 

Culottes: AforArcade
Sandals: ASOS

Friday, 29 April 2016

Wilder.

Sunday - Tzu and I visited a cafe called Wilder last Sunday! (:

It was actually introduced by one of my colleagues! She actually went back twice last week cause she loved the food and place so much heh. So, we decided to give it a try!





The space was pretty quiet when we arrived for lunch! The cafe only opens at 12.30 pm, and it was pretty quiet when we arrived. The space was simple and I love the grey washed walls and the pipe lighting (: Plus, the food served here's halal! 



The staff serving us were really nice and they actually have surprise mains on the menu too, which changes from time to time I think. We actually wanted to try the burgers, but unfortunately, they weren't available that day. 

So, we ordered a mocha, the salted egg fries to share and the surprise mains for that day - Baked chicken leg and salmon pasta! 


The mocha was quite good, I liked it! (: Really chocolate-y and smooth. Brought out my Printwich snaps for Tzu to look at, and I gave some of the photos for him to put up at his work space heh. Looking at the snapshots make me miss our travel days so, so much!

Our next trip's probably only gonna be in September only, so it's gonna be another 5 months before we jet off together ):



Mmm, the fries smelt really good. 

We loved the fries and finished every bit of it hahaha. The fries were crisp and had lots of taste of the salted egg yolk (: 


This was Tzu's Baked Chicken leg, which came with mashed potatoes and a red cabbage slaw. The chicken was quite tender, but the mash was kind of a let-down cause it was too runny though!


Pasta was quite yummy! The sauce had chili padi bits in it and I loved that it had that spicy tang (: Ah, I'm actually hungry while typing this now...


Wished we had more space to order the Calamari tossed in Salted Egg yolk, which my friend raved about but we were really full after we finished everything we ordered. So, I guess we'll be back another day to try out the calamari. I'm too curious to pass it up since my colleague said it's really delicious heh. 

We spent about 2 hours just eating slowly and talking about everything else in between. The cafe only had about 4-5 other people and it was kinda nice that we came across Wilder, cause we loved the fact that it's quite a hidden gem and not that packed just yet (: Sundays are best spent over conversations and good food. 

Wilder Cafe
749 North Bridge Road
(S) 198717

Love, Jo