Best of 2013

1. Getting married
Needless to say, getting a life partner tops it all. Dad keeps emphasizing that the wedding is a one-time event but marriage is lifetime. While I agree, I'm also extremely glad that the wedding went well - contemporary and romantic venue at the Hyatt, good food and wine (moscato, lychee tea, abalone in a clay pot, real wedding cake!), live quartet for the march-in, great emcees (Grace & WJie are naturals on stage), duet by us (started off shaky but managed recover quickly enough), photo montage video by yours truly, the most beautiful gowns I've ever dreamed of wearing, surprise video by friends & colleagues compiled by LY, and the attendance of all the people I love and respect the most. I think it was as perfect as we wanted it to be. And I'm grateful to LY for being so accommodating as always such that we didn't have many differences when we were planning for it.

2. Wedding in Ipoh
Our second wedding banquet in Ipoh was a blast too, and a very good cross-border cultural exchange. We had this matchmaking lady "dai gum jie" to help officiate the wedding ceremony in the most traditional style, she even sang "cha shao bao" at the wedding dinner. The dinner had 3 couples marching in, our parents followed by us. And of course, there was THE ktv singing. I enjoyed this wedding quite a lot too as there was minimal stress, and I got to eat all the dishes (didn't get to do this in SG). This was also the first trip that my family went along to Ipoh. It's been years since we travelled as a family. It meant something to me to bring my parents to see the waterfall in Cameron, waterfall, catus and lavendar gardens, strawberry farms, Ipoh caves and train station, etc. and to eat dim sum and white coffee. Not sure if we'll ever get the chance to do this again.

3. The transfer
I took the leap and left the job I loved for another division. The functional job area is the same but it's in a more specialised area of quality and standards. The culture and people there takes getting used to, luckily I still have people from my "niang jia" to fall back on for lunch company and empathy. I'll never forget the awesome 'transfer party' and 'table warming' that was thrown for me by friends for keeps.

4. First trip to Europe
To go to Europe for honeymoon has always been on my wishlist. We managed to make it happen (LY says 'with minimal damage'). 9 cities in 17 days - Rome, Florence, Siena, Pisa, Cinque Terre, Venice, Verona, Milan, ending with Paris, the most romantic city in the world. It's interesting how our even travel habits are aligned; skipping the shopping and going for the food, scenery and iconic landmarks instead. With personal discipline, luck, excellent planning plus the help of googlemaps we managed to cover everything on our itinerary and even uncovered a few hidden gems on our trip. Experience +10.