Note to Self

2013 has come and gone, and we've all succeeded in rolling over into a new year.

this year i won't be making any (lofty/ambitious/unrealistic) promises or resolutions, but i would really want to remind myself to love my family.
put more specifically, to love each and every one of my near and dear ones as equally as possible.

put even more specifically, to love my husband every day of our days together and not have the daily grind eat away at the foundation that was us, before JJ came into the picture.

the married-with-kids will probably know what I'm getting at.

once a baby comes into the picture, a husband is somehow relegated to the bench.
he becomes the one-with-the-heavy-diaper-bag, the why-arent-you-doing-as-much-as-i-am part of the marriage.

it's all very sad, so i swore to myself when i was pregnant that i won't be one of those who ended up relentlessly picking on her husband post-baby.

but i fell into the same rut.
i would very much like to blame it on my changing body shape, postpartum hormones, the fact that we now have a screaming infant in the house, but there really isn't a good enough reason for constantly finding fault with your own husband.

i realised how monstrous i had become last christmas, when i was searching for JJ's lost sock and my eyes wandered over to the foot of the christmas tree, where ken had left a present for me.

i used to be the one with the surprises, but last year, i bought ken's birthday gift 5 months ahead and handed it to him at the shop register, and i neither planned nor did anything for our wedding anniversary and christmas.
i became icy and snappy, and ken was made the convenient victim of all my thorns and prickles.
the baby had become the excuse for my forgetting our marriage, and his gift made me remember.

it reminded me that we existed before JJ, and our love is the reason why JJ ever made it into the picture in the first place.

so this year, this monster of a wife will try to be nicer. there will be no equating the number of times he changes JJ's diaper to how much he loves me. there will also be no faulting him for not being home more because of work.

and if the husband wants five eggs in his breakfast omelette, so be it.

Fleeting

It's 12.30am and he just fell asleep in my arms.

the husband is away at work so it's just me and the bub for the night. the lights on the Christmas tree are twinkling, and the television turned down low. I see the soft rise and fall of his chest, the gentle flutter of his eyelids as he finds his way into deeper sleep.

he feels both light and heavy at the same time cradled in my hands. how soon it has been, he has already turned two months old. I remember those trying first nights when I wished he would grow up faster so that I would have it easier and be able to have more uninterrupted hours of sleep.

funny but now I am already missing him as a newborn. I wish it could always be just us both, him small enough to fit in my hands and always looking up at me with that disarming toothless smile of his.

very soon his tiny hands will no longer be mine exclusively to hold, his head will no longer seek my chest for comfort. his legs will grow strong and wander into the world beyond and away from me.

and that day will come sooner than I think. so let me always remember tonight, with the fairy lights and the way you look and the way we are.

it won't always be this way, you and me. how fleeting this all really is.

goodnight my dear, and see you in the morning.

An Ode to Our Grand Dame

We finally decided to let her go.

13 years. ken and i have been together for ten, and when i first met him she was already in his life.
back then she was just fresh out of adolescence, still shiny and new.

no one knew us as well as she did. our entire love story literally unfolded within the space that was her, and she was part unwilling witness to all of our petty lovers' squabbles, teary confessions and romantic expressions of love.
she helped mark every milestone of our time together - from friends to lovers, lovers to husband and wife, wife to expectant mother.

i always thought i would have the chance to introduce JJ to her, to let her have the glory of carrying the fruit that came from all those years of silent observation.

it wasn't always smooth sailing though. we've taken turns at hurting her; she suffered her worst injuries ever under my hand when i dragged the entire left side of her body across a concrete wall when i was still inexperienced.

mounting injuries and years of relentless wind and rain slowly robbed her of her beauty. she became battered, chipped, dented and rusted.
her back window didn't work and we always had to pull up the glass by hand.
the speedometer and gauges stopped working and the air conditioning gave up.
rust created holes in her carriage, and rain found its way into the interior.
the melodies stopped floating out from her radio and speakers.

but she never once complained. she never begged to be fixed and she bore all of her scars like a proud horse out of battle.
and when life handed her lemons, she made them into the best lemonade. like the time when she was made an innocent victim of a collision while she was waiting for us to finish our shopping at a downtown mall. (we ended up making an unexpected windfall from the insurance claim.)

it was a sunny day when they came to pick her up for good. we took pictures, talked about the glory days and cleaned the past out of her.
we told the man who came for her to be gentle when the time came to lower the axe.

and we stared and stared until the truck that carried her away from us went out of sight.

she was my first car and i loved her so.

farewell my dame, you've had a good run.

Saying Hello All Over Again

I can't believe it's been so long.

in my long absence life remained pretty much the same, although

some old friendships were strengthened and renewed while others quietly faded into the past
a few old mindsets gave way to a set of new perspectives
i put into action the thoughts in my head and co-started a store in japan
and then another in singapore a year later

and now, our family of two has become three.

meet JJ.

life has changed indefinitely. some changes are good, others not so.
but the richness of the experience has taught and moved me in ways i never expected.

there really is a greater love.

お初。。。

。。。の「アンデスメロン」です！

値段はそんなに高くなかったが、「果物に400円もかかるなんて」と思いがちのシンガポール人のわたしにとって、かなり大きな買い物をしちゃった気分です＾＾

アンデスメロンは、実にアンデス山脈と全く関係無い。栽培しやすいことから、「作って安心」「売って安心」「買って安心」より、「安心ですメロン」というネーミングで売り出す予定だったそうです。しかし、名前にセンスがないとのことから、略して「アンデスメロン」となったらしい。

まっ、名前はどうであれ、おいしければなんでもいいや。
明日のおやつタイム、楽しみだね～

Cooking Up A Storm

I think I am on a roll today.

i rose bright and early this morning, thinking i should make the best out of my final week before work at the university begins next monday.

since i probably wont have much time for idle pursuits like pottering around the kitchen in future, i decided to put an end to my years of procrastination and get round to making my own gyoza.

gyoza are the japanese adaptation of chinese pot-stickers, little pan-fried dumplings filled with minced pork, chives and chopped cabbage. personally i am a huge fan of the japanese version because the dumpling skins are much thinner, which means crispy goodness and juicier morsels.

the cooking book said i could make 20 dumplings, and that was exactly what i ended up with (you really have to hand it to japanese recipes for their sheer precision).


fried eight of them to go with a bowl of chinese vermicelli soup for lunch:



i then proceeded to bake a lemon gateau cake with lemon sugar frosting for tea.

the recipe was dead-easy but the frosting was a little tricky because i didnt have any icing sugar at home. googled for substitutes and realised that i could actually blend regular granulated sugar with corn starch to create my own icing sugar.

the frosting turned out to be a little rough for my liking, making the cake five points short of perfection, but still it was moist with just the right amount of tangy sweetness. perfect with a hot mug of tea on a rainy afternoon!

Long Overdue

We've been married for four months but our wedding pictures only arrived in the mail this week.

it's a small shame not being able to look at the photographs at the height of our nuptial glow, but we had fun trawling through the pictures anyway.

ken and i arent the posey-posey sort, so we decided to forgo the de-rigueur pre-wedding photo shoot in favour of a short picture-taking session after the wedding (considering how we were blanching at some of the poses our photographer had us do during the shoot, i'd say that was probably a very good move).

surprisingly though, most of the posed shots turned out pretty okay. here are a few of my favourites:

Last Weekend

Turned out to be a pretty lovely one.

okinawa heralded the arrival of spring with the nation's first fireworks display of the year. we make it a point to attend the festival every year since it's held at the beach just ten minutes from our apartment. usually, the streets leading up to the venue would be flanked by food and game stalls and the place would be thronged with visitors, but this year, such pasar-malam gaiety was nowhere to be seen.

despite the shadows cast by last month's earthquake and tsunami, we had one of the best (free) seats in the house. beer, fried chicken, great company and an hour and a half's worth of man-made stars exploding across the sky. you can't possibly ask for more.



the day after, we marked Qing Ming by trooping down to the family grave for some tomb-sweeping. okinawa is the only prefecture in japan that still observes chinese customs such as lunar new year and qing ming, and the similarities with the practices carried out in singapore are uncanny. tombs in okinawa are huge and tortoise-shaped, making them very similar in appearance to some of the older chinese graves back home. offerings to ancestors consist of paper money (yellow in colour too!), joss sticks, brewed tea and お節-like food consisting of stewed pork, fish tempura and rice cakes. what's most interesting about qing ming in okinawa is that everyone sits down to a picnic at the grave after tomb-sweeping is complete.

i went armed with a camera to fulfill my intention of chronicling the day with photographs, but that task had to be set aside when i was handed a pair of workgloves and a small parang. the next time though, those gloves are coming off for some picture-taking!

two hours of grass-cutting and a short picnic later, us and the rest of the extended family ended the afternoon by settling down to a fancy japanese lunch at one of the city's fanciest hotels.

Married (Again)!!

So now you are no longer registered as a swinging single in Japan.

the day we got married all over again at the city office.

Saving Lives

To prepare for the father-in-law's eventual discharge from hospital, the entire family was herded to a lifesaver's course yesterday.

while ken's dad is out of the woods, he remains susceptible to cardiac failure. although we have indicated to doctors our intention to care for ken's father at home, the hospital reminded us that we'd have to do so with the knowledge that an episode similar to what took place last month might happen again with little or no forewarning. so in the case of an emergency, the family would have to function as the first and most crucial source of medical aid.

under the watchful eyes of ken's father (who sat in for the course), we were briefed on the proper way to call for an ambulance and given a demonstration on administering CPR. we even had a go at the AED (automatic external defibrilator). if ken's dad had been a plastic CPR doll, he'd have come back to life no less than 8 times in an afternoon.

there's something very heartwarming about ken's 83 year-old grandfather as he listens intently to the nurse, carefully taking notes. the man is still very light on his feet despite his age, but performing CPR for a full 2 minutes at a go is no mean feat even for me, let alone for a tiny old man tasked with caring for a person 20 years his junior.

there are still many things we have yet to figure out. like fitting everyone's schedules so that ken's dad will not be left alone at home, or applying for the right kinds of public health insurance and inquiring about day care and home nursing.

but i'm sure we will get there. for now, i am really liking my new family.

our kit for the day:

the family being briefed on the importance of CPR:

ken's dad watches on intently:

ken's mom giving mouth-to-mouth:

ken and his grandfather's turn to try:

Life's Curveballs

Just when I was thinking of writing about death and mortality, it happened.

it's odd really, sometimes how things take place.
my mom used to tell me that when she was much younger, she was so busy with caring for the family that she never had the time to worry about her own health and well-being. now that we're all grown though, she finds herself having to come to terms with her own mortality and the fact that she is growing old.

i think it is when people find something that they want to live for that they start worrying about dying. that we are mere mortal flesh is fearful because that means the things that we yearn and live for can be taken away from us with a very sudden and unfortunate stroke of fate.

that thought struck home two mondays ago.

it was close to midnight and we had been spending the night quietly in front of the television when his mom called with the news.

ken's father had woken up to go to the bathroom when his heart suddenly failed. my mother-in-law frantically called for an ambulance and ken's brother, who works in a hospice, performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while they waited for help to arrive. the medics had to revive ken's father with an external defibrillator because his heart had stopped beating.

memories of ken's grandmother dying suddenly from a stroke kept coming to mind as i drove us to the hospital, because ken was in singapore when it happened and he couldnt make it back home in time to see her.

before we were allowed to see ken's father in ER the doctors kept telling us they werent sure if he could be saved. they told us his pulse was wildly irregular, that of the three arteries grafted in a bypass some 8 years ago two had failed. they reminded us of his father's medical history (he was born with a heart condition) and asked if we would allow them to attach him to a life support machine.

the main problem with going ahead with life support is that once a patient is placed on it, they cannot be taken off it because of Japanese laws prohibiting euthanasia. in the event that patients fail to recover or lose all brain activity, their lives would inevitably be prolonged for an indeterminate period of time through life support.

all of this information was presented to us by no less that three doctors while ken's father remained in ER. we asked for time to think about the possibilities and implications, but werent allowed the luxury of thinking the situation through given the circumstances.

ken and his family eventually decided that saving his father was ultimately more important that the fear of unwittingly prolonging his suffering in the future, and so the decision was made in favour of life support.

i have never seen the going-ons inside an emergency room, and being face-to-face with a loved one on the brink of death and fighting for life is something i can find no words to describe. there were tubes attached all over his frail body, and a hole had been cut at the side of his neck to drain liquid accumulating in his lungs.

over the next four days, we took turns to keep vigil as ken's father floated in and out of consciousness. we talked to him and held his hand, played his favourite music, had his old friends come visit.

ken's dad is now back in a normal ward and for now, things are looking good. although his heart had stopped when he collapsed at home, little damage was done to the brain, a fact doctors attribute to ken's quick-thinking family and timely medical attention.

over that week i realised a few important things about life and family. though unfortunate, what happened to ken's father brought the family closer together. i was deeply touched by how everyone kept their spirits up and their hopes high, and even in the most trying of times, we all remembered to laugh and make light of the situation. most of all, i realised that you can really make someone better just by being that one thing worth living for.

出嫁咯！！

It turned out to be the best day of my life.

despite the many hiccups, to me everything was perfect. we ate, drank, danced, sang, laughed and cried. i never knew that so much love could ever exist in one place at one time.

how sweet it is to be loved by so many people. i should be so lucky.

------------------

Preparing the table gifts and favour boxes for the all-important favour cake:

Favour cake boxes with the monogram stickers that i had specially printed:

The final touch - ribbons:

Then finally, ta-daa! My very own handmade 5-tier favour cake!!

Collecting our marriage documents from ROM. Somehow we were both really nervous:

An hour after the wedding - me and his grand foot:

I didnt eat a thing at the reception so it was a relief to finally sit down to a quiet meal with ken:

Him with his ah pek t-shirt and "i'm so gonna drink" pose:

On the way to the wedding after-party (my bro's in the background):

Breakfast the morning after at the Tiffin Room:

Ken wearing my glasses cos he forgot his overnight bag:

Him trying very hard to channel Tony Leung:

The Tiffin Room:

The sumptuous Christmas tree at the hotel lobby:

Checking out:

The Road Thus Travelled

I literally sacrificed my twenties to this man.

now that we're one month away from becoming husband and wife, i want to thank you.

for all the years of laughter, tears, joy and sadness.
with you i have the bitter and the sweet.
everything else will just be the icing on the cake.


Year 2003


Year 2004


Year 2005


Year 2006


Year 2007


Year 2008

Year 2009


Year 2010

How far we've come.

チャットモンチー＆蒼井 優 「バスロマンス」

私たちは、今までいつもそれぞれ違う乗り物に乗ってきたね。
お互いを、たくさん待っていたし、すれ違いだって何度もあった。
それは決して平坦な道ではなかったよね。
時々切なく、時々心細く、そして報われなく思ったことさえあった。

だけどさ、イヤなことを全て含めてあなたに出逢ったことを感謝している。
いいことも、悪いことも、あなたと一緒なら全てが楽しく感じるから。

これからは、二人でずっとずっと同じバスに乗って行こうね。
同じ出発点から同じ目的地まで。
あなたとの永遠の遠足を楽しみにしているよ。

The Next Miss Popular

Hello, my name is Serinah and I am in the running to be the next Miss Popular.

i'm participating in a contest that doesnt require me to answer questions about alleviating poverty or promoting world peace. i dont even need to strut the catwalk in my national costume or parade around in a bikini.

but i do need to prove that i am interesting and loved enough to fill 120 seats in a ballroom. which doesnt really seem all that difficult, does it? i mean, other (lesser) mortals have managed, with a great degree of success i might add, to pack more people into even larger venues.

but you see, the theory of relativity presides over such situations. if you have 500 seats, you can invite every other third-tier friend or random hanako or taro you know, with very little need to think about the dynamics of your relationship with such people. the act of extending an invitation in such a situation is not loaded with meaning simply because there is no need to pass your entire social circle through a sift into its various ranks and levels so that you may filter out your inner circle from all of the rest.

when there are only 100 blanks to fill in the guest list however, things begin to take on a bigger meaning. it translates into the necessary selection of a choice few. which also hints at the shock that awaits you when the people you tagged as your "close friends" choose instead to sit on the invitation or reject coming altogether.

and so, here i am gripped with the fear of being treated as the second/third/fourth-tier/unranked friend as i send out save-the-date messages to my potential guests.

i'm really not in it to win. i'm just hoping that people will love me as much as i love them.

The Bridezilla VS the Budding Groom

Contrary to popular belief, I'm not quite the bridezilla I made myself out to be.

yes, i can fork out almost 16 dollars for a Brides magazine and without taking any of the "what bride are you?" quizzes available online, i instinctively know that i'm what they might term "a classic bride". i know which colour palette to use for my wedding and i already have theme shades all carefully thought out for the reception.

march-in song? check.
guest entertainment? double check.
customised invitation cards, escort cards and wedding favour boxes? hell YES.

but when it came to my gown, i sold out after five shops and three days of shopping. i'd always thought that i would scour every single bridal boutique in singapore before deciding on The Dress, but really, every gown you try on does fade into whitewash after five minutes. and before you know it, you find yourself trooping back to the first store and buying that very first dress you tried on (well, not quite the case for me but close).

but while i come to terms with my broken ambitions as a bridezilla, it's very heartening to know that the man is experiencing a transition that is quite simply the opposite of mine.

he was never one to believe in marriage. for a long period of time i was worried that it wasnt on the cards for the both of us. but then he came around and made it happen. and i know he did it for me.

now that he has slowly warmed up to the idea of having a wedding in singapore, he is beginning to partake in the fun of preparing for it. he's excited about the wedding bands, he's asking me if he should tailor a suit and he's thinking of all the people he should invite to the reception.

and now, it seems that we might actually have one in okinawa afterall.

it means so much to me that he's enjoying the process because it's finally starting to feel like we're doing this together. and for that, i'm more than ready to let go of my bridezilla tendencies, because it's always more important to have a groom who is ready to step into his new shoes.

The Question

To which my answer was "Yes".

my heart didn't skip a beat and my breath didnt catch in my throat. to be honest, i had been given a plain vanilla option and it was even a little disappointing.

but i awoke the next morning to the joy and comfort of knowing that this man would always be mine to have. and then suddenly it felt as if all i've ever wanted was to see my name next to his surname, to wear his ring on my finger, to refer to him as my husband in front of my family and friends.

i can hardly wait.

False Alarm

Over the phone last night, he asked me what size I was.

my heart skipped a beat, my breath caught in my throat and the joy in my voice became openly discernible.

turns out he saw a coat in a vintage store and wanted to buy it for me, but no, i wasnt a size 10.

all i really wanted to say was: my dear ken, my ring size is a US 6 (but in case it doesnt fit, we can always re-size it?).

i am starting to heap all my eggs in one tiny basket once again, despite the constant reminders to myself not to do so.

on a lighter note, i went looking for my graduation kimono (hakama) last week and i'm pretty happy with what i picked.

Em from Thailand and I:

Happy Birthday to Me

I thought I did a pretty good job of turning 29.

i got up, went to school just like any other saturday. ken had the day off so after class we stuffed ourselves silly on all-you-can-eat yakiniku and spent the rest of the afternoon in the zoo.

the next day i had lunch with ken's family and potlucked with some old friends in the evening.

i think i'm just about done with my 20s. every now and then i might moan about growing old, but deep down i'm really just looking forward to hitting my next decade. if the first ten years are about being a girl and the next twenty are spent learning how to be a woman, i guess 30 is the year when i let the meaning of the word "woman" seep into my skin and into the core of my being.

because even when you're officially an over-adult at 29, you can somehow still make the fatal mistake of eating too much grilled meat with your 30-year old boyfriend and suffer from a bad tummy for two days straight. (the 30 year old man is now suffering from gastric flu. we are swearing off yakiniku until stupidity takes control again.)

some shots from my birthday:

lunch with ken's folks (clockwise from behind me: grandpa, mom, aunt and uncle)



beautiful red roses from ken's grandpa and a magnifying face mirror from his aunt and uncle

katsura and i blowing out the candles on our cake (she turns 34 on 3rd dec)