Redang. It got famous (for me) after that chinese movie Summer Holiday (Xia Re Mo Mo Cha - starring Sammi Cheng and Ren Xian Qi). Some say the water was much clearer than Tioman (which I've been to). Others say it's not commercialised yet, hence more attractive too.

Right. But 1 thing for sure, it is more inaccessible than Tioman (from Singapore, at least). Located near the coast off Terengganu, it's a torture to take the cheapo coach-ferry way. Hence we opted to fly there and to do that, we have to stay in Berjaya resorts.

The holiday got off to quite a bad start, because while waiting for the plane to arrive on 21 Jun at Seletar airport, we were then informed that the flight is cancelled due to technical issues. So we lost 1 day in our short little honeymoon...

Hence we only manage to fly on 22 Jun, the next day. It was a 4 prop plane that can carry about 30 passengers. Although it's even lower standard than budget airlines, most will agree it's infinitely more comfortable than an 8 hour coach ride. 1.5 hours later, we landed in Redang.

"Your flight to paradise"...what an inappropriate slogan for an airline.
Hmm...I only want to go Redang, not paradise...yet!

So once we check in, naturally we want to walk around the island and check out the life there. Only to realise there isn't much life. Or rather, there are no established roads on Redang yet because everyone depends on boat to get around! Thankfully, there's still a few small eating places outside the resort, else we have to settle for the horrendously expensive restaurant in the resort.

First meal in Redang, after walking for 40 mins in the hot sun to realise there's nothing to see by foot. Maggi goreng is my default dish I will order in any Malaysian restaurant.

Well at least the resort have some TV channels. My wife is extremely pleased to find Tom and Jerry showing on Cartoon Network!

So...Redang. Beaches, snorkeling, tourist, blue sea, white sand. You either love it or find it too idyllic to the point of boring.

Er...not much else to report actually. But it's natural for me to compare it with Tioman and personally, I though the water at Tioman is more blue (perhaps the beaches are shallower?). And of course, Tioman has more places to walk and stroll whereas in Redang, you're practically stranded without a boat. And I recall other leisure facilities in Tioman, such as jet ski and pubs etc. Was very disappointed to know that jet ski is not allowed in Redang...

However, there are much more fishes and coral at Redang. One great example is Marine Park, whereby you can see corals and the fishes just 10 metres from the shore.

So verdict? Go Redang if your scuba diving, else Tioman may be a better choice for snorkelling and general water sports.

20th June 2009

Reach Jo's place ard 750 am. Met the brothers (Xueming, Alex, Owls and Charpin) and all set to go!

The sisters. And the brothers helping me to sing 4 songs... The picture doesn't show how hot and sweaty we were....

"finally found what I'm looking for...'

Offered joss sticks to the ancestors, followed by the tea ceremony.

We were in turn given tea by Jo's sister. Well actually Coka Cola.... :)

And then it's off to my place!

Ate dumplings and other sweet stuff. Followed by tea ceremony again. This time round, there are much more relatives (at least 10 pairs).

Then it's off to the hotel for the solemnisation at night!

It was all plain sailing until 6 pm, where suddenly I find myself rushing around and settling 'stuff', such as wine, sound system, video etc. On hindsight, maybe should have push the ceremony to 7:30?

But anyway, at 7:05 pm, the bride and her father walked in.

With her precious daughter in tow, he handed her to me reluctantly...

The vows, the exchange of rings, the kiss, the signing of papers...

and we're officially husband and wife!

To..er...spice things up, I decided to perform some songs with my aeoband. It was far from perfect but it's the thought that counts, RIGHT!

I'm glad that some of my treasured friends are able to my wedding. My JC mates and RSAF CPT(NS), and people from GENUS as well as current colleagues from Kranji Sec. Thanks guys!

I thought I would be spared of this. But the ex-AEOs still hold this tradition dearly...
Within a minute of finishing the drink, my head starts to swim...

The dinner ended early (as planned, around 915 pm) and the next day, we'll fly off to Redang!

Epilogue

The BLARDY plane was cancelled on Sunday due to 'technical' issues...so in the end, we have to catch a make-up flight the next day, shortening our holiday by 1 day....

Redang trip to continue in another post.

(10 Jun 2009) 10 days left...

And we bought, or rather paid a deposit for our new apartment.

Walking distance to AMK mrt. Although it's a corridor unit and not what you'll call spacious, it's well kept with quiet neighbours. And frankly how much space does 2 people need?

9 more days...

Borrowed soft toys from my school to decorate my friend's tables. Using my birthday gift to Jo for my ALOC and HCJC friends.

8 more days...

and I'm scouting for renovation ideas at Ikea. Realise it can be cheap to do a house, if you don't want anything built-in or customised.

7 days to go...

Managed to borrow a ukulele for table decoration of the GENUS table. Thanks Alex!

Rehearse the songs with FHM and Charp. Technically, aeoband's first public performance! Picture shows a 'vetting' by Charp's mum...

Went to the hotel to check out the sound system too. All seems good to go.

6 days left...

Scouting for ideas again but this time at Ikea Tampiness, with Jo. Should we go

1. simple - just buy furniture and touch up some areas
2. DIY design - design our own flat, redo it to our taste
3. Get a interior designer

5 more days...

And I'm freaking gonna stay in SISPEC for NCC Specialist Course....zzz....

4 more days

And I've completed the video montage.

3 days to go...

We collected the certificate from ROM. Bought bubble guns for the bride march in.

2 more days...

And we collected the wedding gown and tuxedo.

1 more freaking day!!!!!

Look what my form class gave to me!

Collected the Beetle. And caught butterflies in stomachs....

and tomorrow's gonna be a new beginning for the rest of our lives.

This post will be updated and push to the first post when updates happen.
Last update: 07 Jun 2009.

08 Feb 2009

Parents met, discussed customary details and firm up the date: 20 June 2009.

14 Feb 2009

Kind of decided on Aloha Chalet wedding (bungalow with lawn). Met Uncle Sam of the bride's family to er...do a reality check on our 'planning'. Then went to recce Aloha Changi and liked the place. Emailed Aloha for booking.

15 Feb 2009

Went to 'bridal exhibition' in Suntec and it's only 1 freaking shop! And it's the shop in Ang Mo Kio called Seletar Broadway. Anyway, kind of like what they give us and because of their experience and proximity to bride's place, we took the package ($3188). Paid $2000 for deposit.

Went shopping for wedding bands and found nothing to our liking (she don't like gold). Instead, bought 'couple rings' made of 'wolfram', which is actually tungsten steel.

16 Feb 2009

Aloha replied saying they do not accept wedding during school holidays and public holidays. Tried to reason with them but to no avail. WTF!

Next alternative: poolside wedding. Places such as CSC club, Chevron, hotels...

21 Feb 2009

Make-up trial and gown selection at bridal studio. Spent 3 hrs there but wasn't tired at all.

Then we went to recce Mercure Roxy Hotel and Water Cross (Pasir Ris Park) for wedding location. Coincidentally, there's a wedding at Roxy on that day. Jo immediately like the setting at Roxy :).

25 Feb 2009

Went to Roxy to book the venue. Decided on buffet dinner as high tea menu looks bleah and lunch is too rush. Paid $800 for deposit.

28 Feb 2009

Met up with the rental company to place deposit for my wedding car - a Volkswagen New Beetle. Why Beetle? Because my wife likes it. Thank goodness she didn't take a like to Lambos or Ferraris! Deposit - $150.

Was gonna go to NATAS fair but heard it was very crowded. Decided to go straight to Berjaya office in Tanjong Pagar. Booked a 4 day Redang trip by air, embarking the next day after the wedding! Paid $1093.

01 Mar 2009

Bought white shirt for my wedding shoot. Did a recce on possible photoshoot places, as we can use up to 3 locations:

1. East Coast or Sentosa beach (sunset?)

- no photos yet!! -

2. City/Victoria concert hall area

3. Photoshoot on motorcycle. Need a road that is quite secluded (not gonna wear helmet!), has some sort of ok backdrop. This is a videocapture at Marina South pier

02 Mar 2009

Invited the solemniser. The same one in Swee Kiat and Mingshi wedding (the gentleman standing in the right corner).

08 Mar 2009

More photoshoot recce.

1. Pierce Reservoir and Old Thomson Road

2. Seletar Airport / Yishun Dam

3. Changi Coast Road/Changi Chalet and....haunted hospital...

16 Mar 09

Bought square, dark rim glasses for 'nerdy' teacher look. Didn't turn out well... But at least I know my wife's nurse look will be hot!

21 Mar 2009

Actual day of photoshoot. Arrived at bridal studio at 920, only to find it locked! Manage to enter at 0940. Bad start for the day?

Stages of make up and photo. Didn't take much pics because was busy posing and changing.

Ist costume of the day - ethnic Japanese: 
 

Then, the evening gown:
 

And of course, the wedding gown and tuxedo:

The outdoor shoot is suppose to follow next but then it rained...sigh...
 

No choice, we gotta continue the shoot tomorrow.

22 Mar 2009

Weather started out fine. Reach the first place - Seletar Camp to use some old, moudly and dilapitated buildings as backdrop. Not bad. No photos.

Then proceeded to a very ulu road along Tampiness, where we did the 'bride and groom on moving motorcycle' shots. Quite tiring, as I have to repeat the motion many times. And again, no photo except for this very blur shot due to my camera lens fogging up...

The bride (known to be anti-camera) has to endure 3 hours of outdoor shots till she is a bit fuming. And when we got to Changi Broadwalk for the final shoot, she kinda reach her boiling point. Added to the fact that she is not known to 'suppress' herself in such situations...

But luckily, she did not let fly her fury at me or the photographer, and we ended the shoot at around 2 pm. Whew..... Now you know why I did not have the chance to take any photos...

26 Mar 2009

Wedding bears (for Beetle?) arrived from Great Britain. Cost me $60 but it's still cheaper than the $99 price tag from the shops in Singapore!

02 Apr 09

Went to bridal studio to take a look at the photos. But before that, the sales girl was explaining all the various different albums and showing us sample that is in addition to the one we have in our package. We were both thinking: no need lah....

Then the photos were shown, some 140+. After a first round selection, left with 81 photos. The photos were pretty well taken and I could tell even Jo quite like them (despite almost losing her temper during the photoshoot). Then the boss came, and calculated the cost of an extra album plus inclusion of all 81 photos (original package comes with free 30 photos only). It worked out to be around $4000!

And so, I began to reselect those that we have chosen in the first round. It was not an easy task to keep to the 30 photos limit. While I was choosing, the salesgirl and boss was busy psycho-ing us, using phrases like "these photos are very well taken! It's a waste not to include. Take a look again lah! These photos can be used to form a storyline" and etc.

They were very insistent and in the end, we relented when the boss gave us more perks to the package (free this, upgrade this, upgrade that...). So...I paid $3983 extra so that all 81 photos will be included in not one but two photo albums. I have no sample but only this, which will be used for the invitation card!

02 May 09

Did the editing and finally agreed on the design for the wedding invitation cards. It will be a postcard design and here are the front and back:

> From: HDBSales_Email@hdb.gov.sg
> To: guay_hansen@hotmail.com
> Subject: Application for Flat under April 2009 Half-Yearly Sale of 3-room Premium, 4-room and Bigger Flats.
> Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 15:06:45 +0800
>
> Registration Number : 2208021J.
> Your queue number is 05370.
>
> About 10,000 applicants have applied for the 438 flats offered for sale. Applicants with queue position 2,001 and above will be informed of their selection appointment if there are flats still available before their turn is due. You can check the availability of flats on the HDB's InfoWeb or via teletext.
>
> Please note that your purchase of a flat under the Half-Yearly Sale of 3-room Premium, 4-room and Bigger Flats is subject to your meeting the eligibility conditions under HDB's prevailing policies, rules and regulations.
>
> Please do not reply to this e-mail. If you have any queries, please email us at hdbsales@hdb.gov.sg or call our Sales/Resale Customer Service Line at 1800-8663066 during office hours, Monday to Friday, 8.00am to 5.00pm.
>
> Yours faithfully
> LEE YAT THONG
> HEAD, SALES OPERATIONS UNIT.

Crap.

For no apparent reason, with no warning whatsoever, my laptop hdd crashed while I was using it in class.

Although I have bought a new hdd and 'resurrected' my laptop, I have lost quite a lot of data (namely, photos and videos) that are stored in my hdd. So I sent my broken hdd to DataSavers for a free evaluation on data recovery. This is their quotation:

Dear Mr Guay,

Good day to you and how are you? Thank you for submitting your hard disk to
us. Rest assured that we will do our best to recover your data.

Our data recovery specialist had done an evaluation on your hard disk.

The head in the hard disk is electrically damaged. This in turn has caused
it to be misaligned, causing file read write access errors.

Slight scratches can also be found on the platter due to misaligned head
scratching its surface. These scratches have affected some of the sectors
where your data is residing. We will need to procure an identical model and
revision number hard disk to perform a head and platter swap to recover the
data. The platter then needs to be refurbished in a clean room environment
moving forward.

Data should be recoverable if there platter damage is not too severe. We
will only know the detailed results pending further work. Please find
attached the quotation for your job with a 5% home user discount.

Moral of this story: a simple backup may save you thousands of dollars.

Congratulations to Owls for the magnificient '3 Marbles'! We could not have done it without you!

"Owls having nightmares of San Tongs..."

I think this is the first for me where 2 former classmates marry one another. Congrats to Mingshi and Swee Kiat! Both were my classmates in 96S72 of HCJC with Swee Kiat being in RVHS AND same class as me from Sec 1-4.

The others: Winnie (HCJC same class), Boon Jong (RVHS diff class, HCJC same class). So, 2 friends of 1 decade, and 2 friends of 1.5 decades in this photo.

You know you're old when your 'old' friends are measured in 'decades'...