Public holiday brunch

Selamat Hari Raya Haji! For fun it’s the Hari Raya Kambeng (because kambings get slaughtered today). It’s a beautiful sunny day and I have my windows and grilles all open, giving me a good view of the shopping mall across the road.

I am wating for my sister to get here, as Rizal gets ready for Friday prayers. I am lounging ard my room, shuttling between my bed and my Inspiration Chair, because I cannot really decide what issit I’m doing.

We’ve got an action-packed day planned ahead for us. We’ll pop by my paternal grandma’s place in Tampines, with the Pasir Ris Family (my cousin Iqa’s family), my brother and his wife, and my sister will come too! After Tampines we’re headed to Hougang to visit my parents. THEN starts the weekend to ourselves :D

We made roti kirai with beef curry and egg salad today. It was Rizal’s first time (I think) and he did a great job! Well to tell you the truth, his mum made the curry (I know better than to evade into another woman’s kitchen and start taking over immediately) and semi-prepared the egg salad. She also made the kirai batter (I think because I didn’t wake up early enough hurhurhur sorry!) but Rizal and I stood there to do those babies one by one. We also cleaned the kitchen up after.

Roti Kirai for brunch today, yumyumyum!

My mother-in-law is quite good cook with a fair share of awesome kitchen gadgets. She has a machine to cook hardboiled eggs PERFECTLY (without the yolk getting yellow with a grey layer, you know? It was a delicious orange YUMYUMYUM) and her egg slicer contraption has an extension of sort that allows you to cut your eggs into wedges!

I also think her curry is better (and healthier) than mine. Even though I still have to share a kitchen, I really don’t mind because I can learn new tricks before I go on my own when I move in to my own place in a year or so.

Hot hot hot sunny day today! Hope everyone’s got a good start to the long weekend too yeah?

My big family

family at wedding

My family gets bigger! Click to embiggen.

That’s my big family, unfortunately without my sis and her fiance, who was overseas. You’re probably like, can the dias fit anymore people? :)

Excuse the blurry pic, I ripped it off Facebook, I think it was snapped by the MC, who we use like all the time for family functions.

I got away with a peace sign, yeay! In fact, I got away with eating and tweeting from the dias too HAHA. I’m not your conventional bride, in fact Rizal and I got kinda bored after sitting around looking all pretty for so long. And our wedding was only like 4 – 5 hrs?

We called people to the dias when we saw them coming in, so I think I got a pretty decent number of pictures. Will have to wait for the official photos but I did enjoy seeing myself on various social media platforms, namely Instagram, because we were caught with FML expressions and I think in a couple of them Rizal was PBG (Perangai Budak Gemok, or ‘Fat Kid Behaviour’, for the uninitiated) because he was eating finger food that Ayi, my cousin’s fiance, brought to us.

Rizal and I are still marveling at whatever photo of us on our big day, more amused that we actually got through with it. Weddings are seriously tiring stuff, now we know.

Greetings from Phuket!

It is our last day here on Phuket Island, and it’s really quite a lovely place. I mean, I expected it to be a lovely place, because just a few months ago, I went to Bangkok with my friends and I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT. Can’t get enough of Thai hospitality, it seems.

This is only a short honeymoon, and we’re going for a ‘proper’ longer one perhaps next year in March, after the Chinese New Year? After the wedding on Saturday night, we packed and spent our first night as *ahem* husband and wife, at Changi Village Hotel. The next day, we flew off to Phuket.

It’s free and easy format, because those are the kinds of holidays that work for us. We put up in a beautiful rainforest villa-apartment in Kamala Beach area, and rented a moped to get around places. Honestly speaking though, I was rather disappointed with Patong Beach. I was rather.. unspectacular.

A few adventures, and then it was Phuket FantaSea, a cultural theme park with a show. Not too bad, I enjoyed it, more because I thought the customer service of the people were fantastic, rather than the contents of the park.

Today’s our last day here, we’re flying back tonight at 10pm. I’m in Phuket Town, away from the very touristy Patong Beach. I am now typing this entry from a computer in a cybercafe charging 20baht per hr for internet. I think that’s like 80 cents per hr?

Where is Rizal? He’s getting a Thai massage. A clean one, I think. Hahaha. Been bugging me to let him have one because he likes the fact that all his joints have been ‘cracked’ for the shiok feeling. Cool, I’ll just sit here and soak up some internet since the wifi refused to work for us at the hotel.

One more day of leave tmrw and it’s back to reality. Thank you to everyone who came to my wedding, I really appreciate it.

Last day single

Last night, I could not sleep, and usually when that happens, I’ll text or call Rizal and he’ll tell me a bedtime story. His bedtime stories are really good, because they serve just that purpose – to put one to sleep. He’ll start talking about something relatively current, but not sensational.

Once, I texted him that I was having trouble sleeping, he texted back something about the polar shift and arctic melting, I almost immediately felt sleep after reading his text. But no such luck yesterday, because we were doing the pantang (superstition) thing, where we are to have as little contact as possible a week before the wedding, because absence makes the heart grow fonder.

So last night, after tossing and turning in bed for a bit, I tweeted my predicament. Today, I got an email from Rizal, with an attachment he assured me will chase the blues away.


I laughed til I had tears in my eyes watching the video. It’s so random! I love the man so much. I am so happy to be marrying him. If this isn’t love, I don’t know what is.

FAQs on Malay Weddings

I wrote this for my non-Malay colleagues (it’s in PDF, circulated around the office now) when my Malay colleague got married and invited folks at the office. We were the only two Malays in the team and everyone kept asking me the dos and don’ts for a Malay wedding, the most important question being how much money would be appropriate to give.

The FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) is not meant to be serious, but do highlight if I’ve gotten anything super wrong that might set the whole kampung out on a witch hunt for me. I’m Malay, so I wrote this to the best of my knowledge.

I’m open to tackling new questions, just leave a comment and I’ll get to it. My wedding’s round the corner so do excuse me if I take a long time to do so.

Also, based on recent events, I added to the original piece:

  • Why are Malay weddings always held at the void deck?
  • Why are Malay weddings so noisy?
  • Are Malay weddings really $50?

Hahaha, enjoy.

Continue reading

Less than a week away!

We’ve gone into pantang period, which we shortened to a week, due to practical reasons. The usual would be a month, I think? I’m never really sure because I’m always trying to be funny when people are trying to scare convince me into abiding to superstitions.

Like when someone told me that the night before the wedding, the bride has to wear her baju ‘terbalik’ before she goes to sleep, my question was, “Terbalik as in front to back, or inside out?” So far nobody has been able to answer me with conviction, if they even answer without stammering at all. Be precise, if you want to pass down instructions, please.

We’ve decided to go into pantang period, albeit short, to ensure that I don’t get all high strung stressed out of my mind before the wedding, turning into an ugly monster, and my Rizal does not decide to pull a fast one out of it after meeting aforesaid monster.

Well, that and also Rizal forgets what I look like so by the time he sees me at the wedding I will be a ravishingly beautiful bride. On sleepless nights I google, ‘why can’t groom see bride before wedding’ and read articles about this. When my dad married my stepmum 11 years ago, he said he never saw my mum in makeup and when he did at the wedding he could not recognise her. Hmmm, not sure a good thing, or a bad thing.

So by this time next week, we would be married, like YAY! We should also be on our way, if not already reached, Phuket, for our short honeymoon. It’s peak season soon, so our full honeymoon will have to wait til next year.

Super duper excited. We will finally be married after 6 years of dating!

2 weeks

Only 14 days to our big day! Are we excited? OF COURSE WE ARE.

The preps are coming along nicely (not always on schedule, but hey, isn’t it already a good thing that we even have a schedule of sorts?) and it’s all very exciting! Our room is getting a fresh coat of paint, the gifts for the wedding are bought, and the outfits are ready for collection.

There have been minor hiccups along the way of course, but nothing we couldn’t handle. ;)

Here’s a fresh start to our internet presence!