tea ceremony at capella

part ii: the tea ceremony

we'd a tea ceremony in iceland, which meant the world to us, and the tea ceremony in singapore was a larger-scale version of the first.

singapore wedding photos!

hello hello, much as i tried my darndest to stop this from descending into a wedding blog (no shame in that, just that i'm far from gifted with a good eye and left every little detail to the mister so i can't very well claim credit now!) our singapore photos just came in and i'm very excited to share, if you'd like to see. we'd such a good time with ivan tan, our photographer extraordinaire. far as i am from being wedding-savvy, i'm even further from being photogenic. but ivan managed to take photos that i didn't cringe at - which is cause for celebration. to avoid a massive photo dump, i'll be posting different segments of our singapore celebration over the next week. much as iceland was a dream, singapore was and is home and it wouldn't be "complete" without bringing the party back to our nearest and dearest on home turf. hope you like the photos - they trigger such happy memories for me i'm grinning like a loony at my laptop now :)

part i: the preparation

the mister and J, one of his oldest friends, going over the order of events. K and J go waaay back and have so much dirt on each other it's scary.

what J thought of the mister getting his nose powdered

B, the best man who gave a speech in iceland over our wedding pancake lunch that brought the house down. he may or may not have credited me as the monster that controls the monster. hmm. not quite sure how i feel about that :)

J, ever-responsible and the best wedding day coordinator on the island. guess you can't go wrong arrowing an armour captain. just sayin'

stuffing our faces before the lunch we had a slim chance of eating

J has many talents, one of which is ironing when he helped iron my belt. his wife has trained him well.

bobbie working her magic, and also helping me with afore-mentioned belt. she was the only thing between me and looking like a troll.

and once we were done, it was time to get the show on the road! check back tomorrow if you'd like to see more :)

lazy sundays

we almost went to the country but woke up too late to even think about getting past the ring road before nightfall. undeterred, we spent the afternoon mosey-ing along king's road, finally bought our coffee maker and celebrated the acquisition with happy hour cocktails around the corner from church. a fiver for a long drink in knightsbridge?! sign me right up!!! after service, we had a late dinner at our local italian and can i just say that it's the best pizza we've ever had outside naples. of course, the fact that it's a five minute walk from home doesn't bode well for our expanding waistlines... but let's worry about that tomorrow ;)

indian summer

westminster abbey is beautiful, and especially so in summer. this was a casual drive-by shot on the iphone. no filter, no fancy equipment nothing. just mother nature on a good day. oh! we took this en route to brixton which i posted about a month ago or so.

the ledbury

a couple of weeks ago, we'd the privilege of using the wedding gift that keeps giving. N & L, our wonderful friends from oz, had the brainwave to gift us a very generous ledbury voucher. they're foodies themselves, and food is inevitably one of our favourite things to talk about, and hm, i suppose culturally they couldn't bring themselves to give us cold hard cash. also, my thick skin failed and i couldn't possibly request cold hard cash when they asked what the singaporean chinese gift giving custom was. as a surprise, they mailed us the gift card and oh boy i swear we started salivating the moment we ripped open the envelop. 

part of me is bemused by the typical singaporean tourist, indulge me, who comes to london for a couple of days and make a point to hit up as many of them michelin stars as they can. it's not uncommon to have stars for lunch and dinner in quick succession, and unrelentingly so. a personal observation is so they can later namedrop and say they've dined at X, Y and Z. "oh you didn't try W? too bad!" to be absolutely honest, in another time or another place, i might've done the exact same thing. the obsession with stars can be tiring, and there's so much more to the city and its eateries than the faddy must-tries. that said, i've four absolute favourites here that i'd tell every body passing through to try, and to book way in advance while they're at it. and the ledbury is one of them.

thanks to N & L's generosity, we had the lunch tasting menu and a bottle of champers. as the restaurant was already filled with asian couples toting their DSLRs and photographing every course, i couldn't bring myself to join the fray. also, i've sort of gone off food photography and just took my iphone out for a quick snap at the end. the maitre d', naturally, observed it was a wedding gift and comp-ed even more dessert. which was a thoughtful and much appreciated touch.

happy belated birthday singers

after yesterday's post about supporting team GB and london as she hosted the olympics, it's only fitting to say something about dear ol' singers. thankful for a network of wonderful taitai friends in london who clue me in to the fascinating ongoings over the the singers highcomm. after spying D's beautifully embossed invitation to the national day 'do, i sold out and registered as an overseas sinaporean. conveniently, i also put my thick skin to good use and politely requested an invite to said event. thank goodness they were nice enough to send us one haha! D was my date because the mister doesn't have the luxury of leaving work in time for 630pm cocktails and the strangest thing happened. as we entered the high comm (late, naturally) we heard rousing strains of the national anthem playing and i got all goose-bumpy, as if reminded that while i'm physically in london (and loving it!) singers is and will always be home.

of course, the singers-shaped cake that i somehow managed to eat three huge slices of (D and K didn't want theirs!) didn't hurt either.

olympics

so i'm a little slow posting these photos. oops! it's been a whirlwind couple of months. we returned from singers just in time for the olympics, with the ever-resourceful mister scoring us tickets to volleyball quarter finals, football finals (!!!) at wembley and paralympic athletics finals. we figured we may as well show some pseudo-patriotism to this temporary home and support their sporting endeavours,  and we weren't disappointed in the least :) the atmosphere was electric and strangely, i feel more for the paralympics than i do for the olympics. yes, everyone struggles to eventually attain success but the paralympians somehow have that edge, that added obstacle to overcome, and when they do, gosh. it's magic.

watching grown men bound around in lycra. sessyyy...

front row seats at wembleyyY???! are you friggin' kidding meeeee!!!

while U and family were around

they were absolute sweeties, appreciating that our singers palates could always do with local food and inviting us to join them at every opportunity. while K and U go waaay back (to when they were teensy tiny little squirts at RI), i'm a relatively recent addition but U's family were so warm and inclusive that i soon forgot we'd only just met. in a way, when i grow up i want to be like his folks - picking up lonely kiddos far away from home and treating them as they do their flesh and blood. it's a graciousness we're very blessed to be recipients of :) so we'd pearl liang dimsum on sunday, hakkasan on thursday after a spot of bespoke tailoring, and lobster noodles at mandarin kitchen. all the while hanging with U and his dynamic siblings. i learn so much just by being with them, it's amazing.

U comes to stay!

so the flat has come together just in time for U, the mister's oldest and dearest friend, incidentally also his best man at our june wedding, to visit. U, is making a habit of becoming a professional wedding guest (haha) and he was in town for a wedding and his brother's graduation so we (very willingly!) shared him with his folks haha. glad he found some time to sleep on our sofa during his packed two weeks. my inner sentimental sap is glad that U was our first guest, as he was there during every milestone while the mister and i were going out. he was the first of K's friends i'd the pleasure of meeting, and methinks without U's initial stamp of approval, we might not have gotten very far! fast forward four years and U was K's alibi when he went to HK to pick out my engagement ring, and it was on U's sofa that K was sleeping on all that while. also, U may or may not have been the first person to wear my ring. but in his defence, K made him hold it up on one end of the MTR to make sure its sparkle reached the other end of the platform before he sealed the deal.

was in a happy blur of business making sure everything was in order before U arrived, just the push i needed to get off my lazy bum and start making the flat presentable. but of course, U left it even tidier than it was when he arrived. what a star!

end of the proms

we're very fortunate to have friends who're way cooler than we'll ever be, and who thus make us cool by proxy. before coming to london, i'd never heard of the proms. well, of course, there's the graduation prom etc but these proms, oh boy, they're so different! in a nutshell, the bbc prom is a classical music festival. so not quite glastonbury but you get the picture. we opted for proms in the park, however, because, well, i don't feel sophisticated enough for the royal albert hall just yet...

i purchased our very first picnic blanket in anticipation and our darling friend, D, organised a sumptuous feast. we toted our stuff to hyde park bright and early on saturday afternoon and after an hour long queue in the sun (not ideal) we were in! the arena was massive and we inched as close to the stage as we could get. then it was time to turn on the charm and hustle our way to a choice spot amidst the sea of earlier bird picnic mats. didn't hurt that it was three ostensibly single ladies trying to find some space haha.

we were seated and stuffing our faces by 515pm, just as the entertainment began. there were beatles and abba tribute bands, il divo and kylie to round things up right at the end. the mister came sometime in the evening after sending our house guest to the station (more about that tomorrow) and we boogied the night away, singing along with kylie in wide-eyed amazement at her miraculously wrinkle free visage, and the sunset sky.

summer snaps london

i hate to admit it but everything in the flat is almost kind of completely from amazon, or ikea. sigh. this coffee table book is no exception, and oh my what a treasure trove of information!

gotta love what's on bond street

met B for lunch at the breakfast club in soho and she very kindly bought hummingbird bakery cupcakes after for the mister and i to share. the red velvet is truly the stuff of dreams.

such a well-behaved dog!

oops more wales

some extra photos i forgot during the wales posts.

shade-seeking

the B&B, finally!

and a well-earned reward after driving almost 6 hours.

snail mail london

something special and thoughtful came in the mail recently. it made me laugh, it made me (almost!) tear and it's amazing how fast things change, yet remain the same. some times i think i left my heart in stockholm and a part of me will always miss it and what it stood for - the carefree lifestyle, the sheer freedom from responsibilities and the wonderful wonderful friends i made.

thanks simon. you're the bestest.

http://cargocollective.com/simonsk

a gander wales

the mister had to go to wales for work mid-week and i was more than happy to tag along. better yet, as the summer bank holiday was just around the corner, we made a long weekend of it and returned to london via the cotswolds. i went walking one day and stumbled upon a victorian festival. oh wow!

there was a water colour exhibit and the pavilion was open to anyone who wanted to dabble with a brush. the townsfolk (can you call them that? conjures images of the incensed people in beauty & the beast!) decked out in victorian wear from head to toe. it was like being an extra on pride & prejudice! also felt mega under-dressed and was half-tempted to duck into a costume shop and succumb to peer pressure :)

solo walking wales

so we'd a bright and early start in wales as the mister had to drive 40minutes to work. i'm reminded of how blessed i am to have him when he does sweet things like book a B&B that's well-located for me, never mind that he'd have to leave at the crack of dawn, and then drive all the way back at the end of the day. but with wonderful home-cooked breakfasts like this, who's complaining about having to wake early. 

and after the mister left for work, i consulted the oracle i.e. our wonderful B&B hosts who were a formidable repository of information. they sent me in the right direction and off i went armed with a map to conquer wales. thank goodness for wilderness medics and how i've been bitten by the wilderness bug. was so happy to be bashing through the woods and conquering my fears one shady hollow at a time. truth be told, i was also too risk-averse to wander the rolling hills alone and instead hugged the golf course to the trig point, avoiding the greens and stray balls en route.

trig point! finally!