In Motion

Lately, we've been eating home cooked meals. I love eating in - first of all, you get to cook together and find out each others' preferences; secondly, you get to save $$ by eating in; thirdly, the food tastes like home; and fourthly, I get a sense of satisfaction for improving his bachelor-style life by varying his diet and insisting on 5-star meals. Meaning at least one meat dish and one vegetable dish with rice. :P Oh, and it's probably more healthy...I think . It's fun when both of us work together to help each other get dinner done in the quickest time possible, and clean up after. You'd expect JW to be exhausted after a day at work and want nothing more than to be served, but he's such a wonderful person that he wants to pamper ME after my whole day of lounging around doing practically nothing productive. :P So we cook together. <3

It's so romantic going grocery shopping together. Hand in hand, walking down the aisle, checking out (microwaveable) stuff...ahh, I'm so happy just being here with him. <3 On a more intellectual note, the food here is seriously cheap (at Target, that is). When I say cheap, you can't convert ok. Imagine you earned 2000 USD per month, and 100USD gets you a whole trunk-full of groceries. In Malaysia, RM 100 would only get you what, 3 big plastic bags of groceries? Okay an easier comparison : Most foodstuff I saw was below 3USD. In fact, when something I wanna get is 3USD, I start comparing prices to see if there's something similar for cheaper. Another illustration  : You know the Prego jars of spaghetti sauce? Costs like 1.87 USD here. No kidding. Makes you wonder how people in the food production industry even make money, doesn't it? Oh and another thing I just LOOOVE about food here : it's usually packaged, cut, cleaned and washed already. That saves

It's currently 1140am here in Durham, North Carolina, and 1240am back home in Malaysia (bedtime for Malaysians). I'm home alone and have decided to do something productive with my time, hence here I am! It's cold out, but not according to the fiance. He's acclimatized well, while my face is still peeling from the sheer dryness of the weather here. To me, it's not just cold OUT, but also INSIDE the apartment. Brrr. The heating feels like air-conditioning perpetually set to 16 degrees celsius. I can wear jeans inside and still feel chilly and stick my hands into my pockets all the time (unheard of in Malaysia). COLD COLD COLD. But I'm slowly getting used to it. Slowly. Like how my body clock is adjusting to the time here. It's my fourth day here and I still got up in the middle of the night last night. =P Weather aside, Durham is such a pretty town. I really love the architecture and how everything looks so quaint . Duke University is really scenic too. P

I really do NOT have to document all my wedding stuff here, but I have benefited immensely from the various online articles and blog entries in my bride-to-be learning experience. So, by blogging about my experience, I hope that other people can benefit from it too, given that most online articles feature Western weddings (still helpful, but may not take into consideration the constraints Malaysians face). I think it's helpful to know a thing or two about weddings and how much to spend on them, unless you're marrying into a really rich family and the cost is not an issue. I'm what you might call a budget bride - that is, I'm trying to keep things within a budget of below 10k. Okay, more like around 7k. I still remember Sonia exclaiming in astonishment about a certain couple's wedding because it cost around 7k, and at that time, I wasn't very sure how to react. 7k seemed like a HUGE number. Sonia told me it was highly economical for weddings, though, and ever

"Don't you think you're still  too young to get married?" I've gotten this question a few times already, mostly from Chinese friends. Not to stereotype or anything, but I guess Chinese people usually get married around 25-30 years old, and my mere 23 (next year, that is) is rather...shocking. Granted, if I see a Chinese peer from secondary school or primary school married/getting married, I'd immediately assume it was a shotgun marriage. =P  Still.  Another acquaintance (yes, ONLY an acquaintance because "She's getting married next year" is practically my surname when introduced nowadays) was shocked when the announcement was made. He couldn't believe I was getting married "so early". Even double-checked to see if I was getting engaged or married next year, whereupon I flashed him my ring. =P A friend who asked this question said that she wouldn't marry early because felt she hadn't done enough with her lif