Hong Kong 2015 - Day 03

A trip to Hong Kong is not complete if you've not gone to Ocean Park.


(Photo credits: Wikipedia)

Hong Kong 2015 - Day 02

The plan for today is Disneyland, Hong Kong!


(Photo credit - Google)

Hong Kong 2015 - Day 01

It's been some time since we travelled further than the neighbouring countries.
This year, we planned a special trip:

Our first trip to countdown to the new year in a foreign land!

And ... We are going to Hong Kong! 

First Morning

The sky never looked so beautiful as we are awaken in our new home. 

Looking forward to many beautiful memories in this little space of ours.

Countdown: tomorrow!

Tomorrow is a special day!
Tomorrow we are officially moving into the home that we call ours.

But before the day comes, we decided to add some personal touch.

The wedding portrait looks beautiful in our living room. 

And that personalised fridge magnet with all our photos that a dear friend got for her birthday earlier this year. 

We are excited to be finally moving east! What bout you? 

MrMrsNikiTham

We love celebrating the union of our beloved friends. And we also love being part of their wedding entourage!

Happy wedding and a blissful journey in life Mr & Mrs Niki Tham!

#NG0712

Our brother & sister got hitched!

Thankfully it's a wedding that has passed the 100days mourning for her grandpa's passing.

Excited to be involved in the wedding of Nathaniel & Gladys. 

The morning was so busy, but we managed to grab a photo with the couple.

Our favourite part about the wedding, just like our own wedding, was seeing the other brothers & sisters all dressed to the nines!

Happy to be part of this wedding, and more than happy that Nat&Gladys are finally married! 

Celebrate love...

Celebrating love is something that we always do. Because it's easy to take one another for granted after being together for so long.

For us, even though date night happens very often, but the special date each year is worth celebrating for: 

MrMrsAng's 4th Wedding Anniversary

It may seem odd, since we only had our ceremonial wedding lunch earlier this year in March. But we actually have been legally Mr & Mrs since 2010! 

Read more about our vows in the "The Vows" page or click here:

No travel plans this anniversary since we are traveling on New Year's Eve, so we celebrate by going back to the place where it all happened:

The White Rabbit

The evening started with him picking her up with a purple roses. 

It was just like that first date we had when he scoured through all florist in Singapore just to find a purple bloom for that girl he is so smitten with.

It was a wonderful dinner with food paired with wine, and a lovely note from the team at TWR when they realized that we were married there 4 years ago:

And a photo of us: happy to be married.

"What is better than growing old with your best friend... "

Furniture

Filling our humble abode with love:

As you can guess, we got our stuff from IKEA. Here's why:

1. Simplicity - IKEA has furniture that is fuss free. Just check out our simple sofa that is big enough to lie on. Even the television console is simple, but complete with anti-slam drawers.

2. Durable - We do not need furniture that last us a lifetime. We only want those that we like, for now.

Which leads us to the next point; 

3. Price - IKEA's furniture is so affordable that our hearts will not ache if there's a scratch on the wood. Imagine if our TV console cost a whopping S$2,000. 

You're right if you've figured out from the above that we have filled our home with furniture that we may change after 5-10years. But hey, who knows what happens then. So why spend so much on furniture? 

DIY Magnetic White Board

That utility cupboard by the side of the kitchen entrance is just so... Out of place.

So guess what we did.

Bought a magnetic white board that is thin as sheet to paste on the door of the utility cupboard and viola!

Really proud of our little DIY that transformed it into something useful. 

Renovations = 90% complete!

The ceiling fan is up.



This means that we are on the final phrase of the renovations.
Next is for the lightings to go up and we are done.

Renovations = On-going!

Works is still on-going in our little home.

We can't wait for everything to finish, but for now, we are still enjoying the process of building this little nest of ours.

In the mean time, here's our favourite part of the house:

Craft bricks on the wall, piece by piece.

The S$6,000 price tag on this wall (that spans from the balcony, all the way to the main door, including that a partition at the main door) is by far the best deal to include in our renovation works.

A Different 5th September, Friday

September 5th has a special significance to us, and this time...
instead of Kallang Carpark , we are at our own home.

With the same drink that he so bashfully handed her on their first meeting. This time, we are sipping that same drink in a home that we are going to built.

* in case you missed the story about September 5th, read it here:
http://shawn-justina.blogspot.sg/p/the-story.html

Renovation Inspirations & Quick Guide

Now that we have collected the keys to our own home, it's time to start "Renovation Shopping".

To be honest, we are not the type to start planning before seeing the actual unit as we actually didn't pay attention to the details of the home contract. So you may ask us what is provided in the unit, and we would just shrug and imagine it to just have some floorings and wardrobes as that is all that we see when we pass by the work site before keys collection.

That being said, we consider ourselves very blessed to have a unit that has little defects and a very good layout.

The unit isn't as small as we imagined it to be, but the interior designs will be crucial in making the place look spacious.

The most ideal look was to have everything in white, thus giving the faux impression of a spacious unit even though it may be relative small. But we are not the type that love the "uptown" look.

Our most loved look is some thing like this:

But there is still something not very practical about this design like the low-hanging lamps and the sharp-edged furniture.


Designs inspirations aside, here's some quick tips that we gathered:

1. Visit an Interior Design shop for a quick lesson on renovations if you're lazy like us.

You'd be amazed by the information they impart to you, from the use of tic-tac doors to the various laminates for the carpentry to the regulations on certain works you wish to do. Your knowledge will go from 0 to 60% after just 1 trip there. 

 2. List down the things you'd like them to do for a quick quotation.

This will work as a rough guide for a budget. That's because "interior designers" tend to hyper-inflate their prices. Hence, the price that they provide will be a good budget for the maximum you should pay. 

3. Visit a general contractor with the same list of things that you mentioned to the Designers, and expect to be quoted 2/3 of the price.

We tried the above method and for the same price that the "Designers" quoted us, we had more & better quality work done to our unit! The only disclaimer is that you must have a plan of what to do for your home as there is no 3D design plan/layout to refer to.

Keys Collection!

It's an exciting milestone of our journey in life as we finally collected the keys to our home:

Although today is still the Lunar Seventh Month (i.e. the "Hungry Ghost Festival"), but apparently, it is also the only auspicious date throughout the whole month when we can officially open the door to our new home!

Now we shall get the defects rectified while we wait for the Fengshui Master's "report" on the strategic positioning of our home.

Instagram Feature: The Wedding Scoop

One of the gowns that Justina tried on at the Bridal Affairs.

Pretty as it look, she didn't choose it because it was very heavy!

Thanks @theweddingscoop for the mention anyway.

Just Another Day

We wished we had every weekend spent like this:

Chilling the hot afternoon away with some cider.




And having breakfast at 3pm in the afternoon.




Then heading over to Sentosa for some Slappy Pancakes where we played with our food:




No prize for guessing who's masterpieces are these since it is obvious that she is the artistic one among them.


All those spent in the day, just to catch the last show for the Sentosa iconic show:




Can't wait for the attraction to return with something more exciting on 14 June 2014!

Mrs Ang's Birthday

It's not the first birthday that we are celebrating as Husband & Wife, but he still wants her to feel special even though we couldn't travel far due to her grandpa's condition.




A little less know place in the Land of Smile (Thailand) had been on her "To-Go-List" for a long time. Hence, there was no better place to visit to celebrate her birthday.





Plenty of photo opportunities, but let's keep the photo spamming to another day.

It was a great trip with great company: Nat + Gladys.





Thanks for the company, and looking forward to celebrating many more birthdays as MR & MRS ANG.

Wedding Morning Highlights

A week after the wedding and we got the most favourite video back from the videographer team.






Thank you AlanMitchi Productions for the awesome video.

We Party!

One thing we do together that most people would advise couples not to do is:

We Party Together!

Funny how we find joy in hitting the club together and just enjoying the music while laughing at others around us.

1st Photo

So excited to be tagged in the 1st photo from the wedding day by ShutterPix.

What an efficient photographer Charles from ShutterPix is.

Did we mention that we share that Fit Jazz Club connection with him too? Pity we didn't get acquittance back then.

Mr & Mrs Ang Food Trip

Flying off after we have settled all the wedding stuff since he is on 1 week leave.





This is NOT the honeymoon yet.

It's just a trip for us to replenish all that food we didn't get to eat during our wedding lunch due to us being busy entertaining our guest.

Post wedding - Day 01

It's post wedding and after a night stay at Goodwood Park Hotel, we are back on our wedding bed. 

It's so good to be home!

Wedding Day - Groom Version

[By Shawn]

Bridal Car + Race Car

The most special bridal car is mine.

Wedding Day - Bride Version

[By Justina]

I can't believe it is THE DAY.

Looking pretty in the morning

Thanks to my MUA and bridesmaid Karen

She even made my back "flawless"

Bedtime

Time to rest after all that celebrations. More photos to come soon!

The Night Before

The bridal room is all set up with the customary stuff.



The wedding is tomorrow!

Bridal Car

Since we were doing most of the things ourselves without seeking out a bridal studio, we went to our favourite florist at Kovan Market to get our bridal flowers done.

Even the car decorations was done by the same stall.

Front View

Back view

The car decorations were done in an hour and cost us S$350.

Bridal Nails

Friends who know Justina will know that the Bride loves her nails with plenty of blings.

So it's of not surprise when she got her nails done up looking like this:




The way it sparkles just shows the Bride's style.

With the nails done, it only means that the wedding is here!