Japan Honeymoon (Part 3 - Tokyo)

Kyoto is amazing with its temples, sceneries and when you go shop around, they have very exquisite stuff. As for food, you can see that a lot of effort is put in to make the dishes look very pretty.

As for Mt Fuji, it is really a very beautiful, close to nature kind of place. Next stop, Tokyo, is actually just like any other cities e.g. HK and SG. Full of high rise buildings and high tech stuff. There are still some shrines around the city though...

There are some pretty sights, shrines and parks in the city.

Impressive toilets!

We went to the famous Tsukiji Fish Market. Look at the huge tunas!

The sushi were freshly made, on the spot. I have never tasted such great sushi before!!!

Beautiful cakes! And of course they taste great :)

One of the shrines in Tokyo.

This place has lots of stores selling desserts.

One of the desserts we tried.

More fabulous desserts!

Japan Honeymoon (Part 2 - Mt Fuji)

On the 6th day of our trip, we travelled to Mt Fuji, to stay a night in the expensive hotel. It was a really short stay and I think it would be fun if we can explore this area more... Maybe the next time round when we have more time and didn't book such an expensive hotel :)

Took the bullet train

Finally reached Mt Fuji area after a long day travel of trains and buses.

I was in charge of planning where to visit and where to stay. Vin was in charge of finding out how to get there.

Very sumptuous dinner!

The first time I saw crabs in miso soup!

You can see the private onsen, which is a tub at the bottom of the picture... The spring water came from Mt Fuji and you can see the snow-capped Mt Fuji when you are soaking in the onsen! Really heavenly kind of feeling. However, Vin wasted it... After 15 mins in the tub, he told he has had enough and never went in again!!!

Another yummy breakfast!

Japan Honeymoon (Part 1 - Kyoto)

We decided to go to Japan as Hong Kong is just 4 hours away, as compared to SG, which is 8 hours away. Friends and relatives who have been to Japan are always raving about how fun it is! We decided to go for a free and easy 11 day holiday.

My HK friends all recommended Kyoto as a must go destination, and I wanted to go to Tokyo too. Hence, we decided to plan a route from HK -> Osaka -> Kyoto -> Mt Fuji -> Tokyo -> HK. Of course, I wanted to try the Onsen, Japanese hot spring. So for that, I booked the most expensive hotel that we had ever stayed in our lives, and we got our own private onsen, overlooking Mt Fuji!

Train to Kyoto from the Kansai Airport.

Our hotel in Kyoto.

Honestly, after 5 nights of sleeping on the tatami mats, I was ready to call it quits... I had backache!

The Kyoto Tower... We went up and were able to see the full view of Kyoto.

Hotel breakfast that costs us $50 SGD each! Felt a bit cheated and decided to go find our own breakfast from then on.

Fabulous lunch! I really love the food in Japan. But Vin got sick of it after a few days...

The sceneries in Japan never fail to impress us.

There are many temples in Kyoto and we tried our best to visit all the famous ones. Looking out from the rooms where the monks meditate, the scenery is always the most beautiful and serene...

On the top of the stairs is a shrine, famous for blessing marriages. After we walked down, I "sent" Vin to go get an amulet for my sister and he was happily waving it when he walked down.

I'm really impressed with this. A monk will tidy up this structure, made of gravel... But where are his footsteps?

Makes me hungry every time I look at all these beautiful food pics!

I considered it a pity that we only bought the DSLR after this trip!

Hong Kong

After we came to Hong Kong, we led a more idyllic life together. Of course, I miss my family, friends and food in Singapore terribly... But I think it was a great experience, teaching us how to be independent and to spend lots of quality time together, as a married couple. I think this is important in building up a base for a strong marriage in years to come...

I started blogging on the various recipes that I have tried and you can find my thoughts on living in HK here. Most of the time in HK, I'm a housewife. It is definitely not a Tai Tai life as I need to do housework and cook hee... We also bought our second house and houses in HK is really much more expensive than in SG. The HK house is 1/4 the size of the SG house but twice more expensive!

I used to not understand how people can live in a really tiny house but once we moved in, I realised that it can really happen, as long as we are innovative and creative in utilizing the space. And I fell in love with my tiny kitchen. There is just sufficient space for everything to fit in and a work area... Tiny kitchen means everything is within reach easily and cleaning up is a pleasure :)

First House

This is the floor plan of our first house. We had a hard time finding this house as we wanted it to be big, what we called a "jumbo" flat in SG. It has 5 bedrooms, 2 living rooms and a dining area.

On the top left, it is the master bedroom area. We intend to combine the small room beside the master bedroom with the master bedroom, so we can have a study and working area and a bedroom.

We wanted to shift the entrance to the smaller living room and make it into a cosy entrance area, with a bar counter. We thought of making the kitchen into a partial open kitchen...

However, soon after we bought the house, Vin had a new job offer in Hong Kong and we decided to move there, and not renovate the house first.

The Wedding!

After lots of preparations, we finally reached the most important even in our lives: The Wedding Day! There are so many activities on the day that at the end of it, everything was a blur :)

Me doing my make-up in the early morning.

My beautiful sisters! Really appreciate all their help.

The bridegroom and his band of brothers.

They were made to part with the money... Haha.

There were lots of good food. You can tell how good they are from my smile :)

On the way to the bridegroom's place.

Family photo :)

Family photo after changing of gown..

I was very nervous before the solemnisation. It was my dad who assured me...

My sis and me.

My mind was blank during the march in... I can only recall reminding myself not to trip :p

The two pretty and young mothers...