It's Almost Spring...

All the cherry blossoms around the suburbs are now in full bloom which is a nice indication that Winter is finally almost over. I love it when the weather starts to warm up, when only light cardigans are required at night instead of bulky Winter coats! And I am glad to say goodbye to my last Australian Winter as an unmarried woman, it has been a stressful and depressing one to say the least.

But I have to admit Mr Ng does a wonderful job at trying to cheer me up though, always willing to take me to places for food and drinks even though I know he must be dead tired. Mr Ng said to me the other day he knows he is ready to get married because on Friday nights instead of going to drinks with colleagues, all he wants to do is come home and spend time with me. On the other hand, even though I always work Saturday mornings I hate staying home on Friday nights and always want to go out. Does that mean I'm not ready for marriage?? Lol..

Back to the topic, a couple good places we've gone to chillax at recently - The Westin's Lobby Bar & Lounge (sorry my phone was about to die):

And one of my favourites, the Bar at Four Seasons:

my 'Rumble in the Rocks'

free nibbles that come with all drinks, including the best truffle flavoured popcorn

club sandwich

buffalo wings

my 'Eight' cocktail - yum

That's it for now folks!

Wedding Invitations

There is a little less than a month now before the RSVP date for the wedding and as we eagerly await the final replies (no doubt we will be chasing up more than a few people by the looks of things..) I thought I'd dedicate this post to our wedding invites. I have to say, they turned out exactly the way Mr Ng and I wanted them to. We've also received so many compliments on them, and more than a few 'best invites I've ever seen', which is so great to hear when there is so much other stress-inducing wedding crap going on.

Shortly after we got engaged last year, Mr Ng and I went to Hong Kong and were able to attend a wedding showcase at the Intercontinental:

And it was here we were introduced to a company called Studio M which specialises in wedding invitations. We met and spoke with Malia, the company's managing and creative director, who was so lovely and professional I was convinced I wanted the invites to be done by them.
Since the wedding is in Hong Kong, I knew I wanted the invitations to have an Asian influence as well as be in both English and Chinese, however Mr Ng was adamant that he didn't want it to be your typical red and gold Chinese invite. Which is how we came to really like this particular invite by Studio M:

I knew that the colours we chose for the invite would have to coincide with the colour scheme for the rest of the wedding (since I am very annoying and like everything to match) and so after a quick consultation with our parents on whether the colour would be too 'white' and getting the a-ok from them, we decided on ivory and gold. I also find that ivory and gold really matches the whole 'feel' of the Peninsula really well.

Fast forward about a year and we really started to seriously think about the invites beyond what colour we wanted them to be. And although I still had my heart set on Studio M, I quickly changed my mind when our wedding planner informed us that they charge about HKD40,000 per set of tailor made invites, although with our small quantity we could expect to pay about 30% less. Well that was the end of Studio M! There was no way we were going to pay that much for only 100 invites.

We still wanted something very much along the lines of the Studio M design, and so our planners gave us a couple more options from different places which were slightly better but still much more than what we were hoping to pay: HKD23,000 from a place called Progressive Press and HKD29,000 from a place called 983 Wedding. But again, we weren't prepared to pay that much for such a small number of invites.

So after a bit of googling, I stumbled upon a place called Joy's Card which had some really great designs on their website. And this one in particular caught my eye:

Coincidentally, the planners also recommended Joy's as an option for us the day after I stumbled upon them and so we told them we were interested in this particular design but in ivory and gold as opposed to the red and gold and they got back to us with the following quote:

請柬 7"x7" 左右三摺咭互裱, 內貼三張單咭/加貼袋連普通信封. (3-fold invitation, ~7" W x7" L, 3 inserts/labels glue to the card + 1 pocket and envelope)
$33 X 100 張(piece) = $3300 + 咭面英文Logo燙金電版(logo gold foil stamping on the cover) $100 + 咭內單色啡平印(single brown color printing for insert text) $700
= $4100

Accommodation Listing Card
6"x 6" 單咭(不包信封,單色啡平印 - single insert/card without envelope, single brown color printing)
$6 x 100張 = $600 + $350單色啡平印(single brown color printing)
= $950

回覆咭是包信封 (RSVP card with envelope)
6"x4.25" 單咭, 單色啡平印 (single insert/card, single brown color printing)
$5x100張 = $500 + $350(咭平印單色 - single color printing) + $350(信封平印單色 - envelope single color printing) = $1200

Coming to a grand total of HKD6,250 - now this amount we could live with!

My only concern was that the colours wouldn't be the exact ones we wanted - matte gold as opposed to a shiny gold and ivory as opposed to white - and so back in April when Mr Ng and I were in HK for a quick trip over the Easter weekend we popped into Joy's to confirm the final draft and the colours. We also decided to add an extra card with Tea Ceremony information which cost HKD350 for 50 cards.

A little more than a month later they were ready (please excuse the poor quality phone camera photos):

The inside (we chose a light brown font colour at the recommendation of our planners and I think it turned out really well):

And putting it all together:

I managed to track down these special Love postage stamps for the RSVP envelopes at one of the Australia Post shops in the city which I thought complemented the cream envelopes very nicely indeed:

I always find that including an RSVP card and reply paid envelope is a nice touch as opposed to providing just an email address and/or mobile number.

So there you have it! They were actually alot bigger IRL than we had expected and so we had to hand deliver almost all of them which thankfully wasn't too much trouble given the small number of guests (although we did encounter a few mailboxes that were too small for the invitations which was quite amusing). But in short, I highly recommend Joy's Card for all your invitation needs, we really couldn't have been happier with the outcome.

Food!

So after a horrible week last week I'm hoping that this week will be much better. And I thought what better way to start the week than by posting some pictures of awesome food I've been enjoying of late =)

As mentioned previously, Mr Ng drove us all the way to Canberra to try out The Ginger Room. And although I think it was well worth the drive, I wasn't the one driving so if we ever do decide to go somewhere as far as Canberra again for dinner, will most likely try to stay the night next time for the sake of Mr Ng's sanity (although as Mr Ng likes to tell me repeatedly, nothing is as painful or aging as the time he drove me all the way to Brisbane and back in order to buy a bag - love you babe! It was worth it right? See, I use it so much ;)

The Ginger Room is located inside the Old Parliament House and there is absolutely nothing there at night except for the restaurant:

After perusing the menu, we opted for the fixed price 4 course for $79:

Bread to start

Yummy amuse bouche

Twice baked extravagant soufflé, watercress, walnut, apple

Shiitake pot stickers, shallot, jade sauce

And with the top off

Pambula rock oysters, wasabi, nori, lime

Tempura prawn, coriander, peanut, honey garlic sauce

Quail in puff pastry nest, celeriac cream, saffron eschallots

Honey glazed pork cheek, red miso rice, orange coriander reduction, apple jelly

Trio of yum cha, deep fried ice cream, macadamia and honey spring roll, sesame seed ball

Palm sugar apple, apple ginger cake, calvados crème brûlée

The Pork and the Trio of Yum Cha were probably the biggest let-downs but overall it was a very good meal at an extremely reasonable price and I wouldn't mind going back there one day.

Next up, an oldie but a goodie for my little bro's 23rd birthday - Temasek in Parramatta and as always, it did not disappoint:

Oyster omelette

Almond butter king prawns - first time trying this and OMG I will ALWAYS be ordering this from now on!

Mandatory Hainan chicken

Singapore chilli crab

We did also have gado-gado, Ipoh hor-fun and chicken curry (i am so sick of chicken curry..) but just realised I didn't take any pictures of these - next time! My only qualm would be that my fingers smelled like chilli after eating the crab for the next couple of days.

Looking forward to more food adventures in the near future. I have already hinted to Mr Ng that I still want to try out Pendolino at the Strand, Quarter 21 at Westfield and the new Fat Buddha at QVB so will keep you posted.

Hero Products

It's been a terrible week this week, absolutely can't stand work anymore and cannot wait to quit and what's more, my skin has been wreaking absolute havoc on me.
Every month I usually get at least one big pimple, although ever since I started swiping on Ella Bache's Intensive Balancing Lotion after cleansing morning and evening the severity of the pimples has been greatly reduced. But it all turned to crap this week when I noticed my forehead was starting to get bumpy (something which hasn't happened since high school!) and three big pimples popped up on different areas of my face. Not only that but my redness worsened (I have mild rosacea on my cheeks). So naturally, I started to freak out.
Thankfully over the years I've managed to discover a few products which have never failed me in times of need and so I cut out all the makeup and skincare products I have been playing around with for the past few weeks and switched exclusively to what i will call my 'hero' ones.

My #1 hero product - Chantecaille's Jasmine and Lily Healing Mask:

I discovered this way back in 2007 on Beauty Snob and it has been in my arsenal of products ever since. I left this on for a few hours the other afternoon after a particularly stressful day and as soon as I took it off, my redness had diminished considerably and my pimples had noticeably decreased in size. I LOVE this stuff.
I read recently in an article about Olivia Chantecaille (the brand's creative director) that she applies a layer of this on to her face every time she is on a long haul flight to ensure her skin is in great condition when she lands so I'm eager to do this too the next time I fly - much to Mr Ng's dismay haha..but he's just gonna have to get used to it. I've said this before and I'll say it again: as I approach 30 I will not be holding back!

My #2 hero product - MV Organic's Gentle Cream Cleanser:

A few years ago I was ready for a change (product-wise). I was relying on Cetaphil cleansers and moisturisers to keep my rosacea in check and my acne at bay and although Cetaphil did a great job at doing both things, I wanted something that cleansed a little more thoroughly and moisturised a little more. My sister recommended I try out some organic brands and so after a bit of research I settled on MV Organic Skincare which seemed to have rave reviews. And man am I glad I did because the Gentle Cream Cleanser is the bomb. I first purchased this in 2009 and it was the only cleanser I used for two years straight. But typically of me, I got bored towards the beginning of this year and decided to experiment with other cleansers. But as soon as my skin started playing up this week I knew I had to repurchase this. It's no exaggeration that skin feels so calm and soothed afterwards, I am never switching cleansers again!

And my #3 hero product - MV Organic's Rose Soothing and Protective Moisturiser:

Upon application of the Rose Moisturiser, my skin feels instantly soothed and smooth (although in the Winter I like to use a moisturising sunscreen on top). If my skin plays up, I will use this moisturiser exclusively morning and night and without fail my complexion will return to normal within a few days.
A little off topic but I gifted the MV products to one of my friends a while ago which she tried during her second pregnancy when her hormones decided to screw with her skin and she said that these were the only products that successfully calmed it down. So there you go!

No doubt over the next few decades I will be adding alot more things to my Hero Products but these are my favourites for now for my still hormonally-affected skin.

Long Overdue Post

I just realised that since Mr Ng came back from his trip I haven't posted a single thing! How very lazy of me. But lots to update on.

First up, I am now up to my third week of French class and it has been going very well indeed. 'Je voudrais cafe noir avec gateau, s'il vous plait' which means 'I would like a black coffee with cake, please' haha..One day I will attempt to write a post in French - although it will probably consist of food items and touristy phrases.

Also went to see Saltimbanco last weekend and while it was good, I didn't find it to be as jaw-dropping as the Dralion show which was touring here back in 2008. Nevertheless as with all Cirque Du Soleil's, it was extremely colourful and highly entertaining.

Luckily Mr Ng realised about 10 minutes before we left that the venue was actually Acer Arena and not Moore Park where I initially thought it was - phew!

Our kickass side of stage seats.

Also as mentioned in my earlier post here, Mr Ng and I went to the Chocolate High Tea at Shangri-La:

Wow the High Tea Society's photo is so much better than the ones I took on my Blackberry huh.

The company was great, the atmosphere was lovely but omg it was too much chocolate! Although I suppose we really should have been expecting it what with it being called a 'chocolate' high tea and all.

A cool fake giant chocolate ball at the entrance (yes, Mr Ng took it upon himself to confirm that it was fake)

I would probably only recommend this high tea to people who have a really sweet tooth or are having major chocolate cravings - this will be sure to get it out of your system. But I am looking forward to one day trying out the normal high tea set here due in large part to the fact that the Shangri-La loose leaf tea menu is one of the most extensive I have encountered to date.

Anyways my weekend has almost begun (can't wait til the day I no longer have to work on Saturday mornings!), will try to snap some pics of the goodies Mr Ng brought back for me soon :D