missuschewy – Singapore Food & Fun Blog

Now that it’s the second day of 2012, I hope 1st Jan had been a good start for all of you! 2011 has been a very good and exciting year for misterchewy and myself. These were the most memorable happenings from the beginning of the year all the way till the end. I suppose the second half of the year was more interesting! :P

14 February 2011 – We celebrated Valentine’s Day with each other for the very first time! Had dinner at Orchard Central’s Sarang, which is a Korean restaurant. The then-boyfriend got me a bouquet of bears! <3

20 to 22 May 2011 – Hit the sand and the sea at Redang with misterchewy and his NTU friends! The sun seemed to be on shift, so we didnt get much of a tan. Haha! Really fun because it was our first time snorkelling together! :D

28 May 2011 – I thought we should engage in other activities other than just eating so we signed up for the Sundown Half-Marathon! Heh.. I guess we have to admit that we are getting old! BUT.. We have plans to sign up for other races this year! :)

11 to 18 June 2011 – Joined misterchewy and his parents on a one-week trip to Taiwan! Whoa ho! We ate and ate and ate and shopped and shopped and shopped! The only thing I disliked was the extremely hot weather and scorching sun. Apart from that, it was a good break away from work to spend time together with misterchewy :)

25 June 2011 – If you have not read about the surprise proposal that misterchewy came up with, with the help of his friends, you can read all about it here. I will always reminisce this day for the rest of my life. The day that I cried buckets because I was really touched by what he had come up with. :’)

The Surprise Proposal from CHEW ZHI HAO on Vimeo.

I could watch this video a thousand times and never get sick of it :P Will definitely show it to my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren! Hehe!

26 June 2011 – This day also happened to be our 11th monthsary, which was one day after the proposal. Best way to remember it? Take engagement shots! :P

26 July 2011 – Exactly a month later, we celebrated our First Year Anniversary. Went back to Raindrops Cafe where we first became officially together. I suggested we should wear the same thing, go back to the same place and pose the same way for our photo! :P Just for the fun of it and for comparision sake!

27 July 2011 – Yay! The boy graduated from NTU with a Second Upper Class Honours in Chemical Engineering! He’s currently working in a reputable MNC and can take care of my expenses. LOL! Kidding about the second part :P

31 July 2011 – My birthday fell on a Saturday and misterchewy took me to OChre for lunch! Loved the bling bling red fossil watch that he got me :D

9 September 2011 – This is a very special day for us as it is misterchewy’s birthday and also the day of our solemnization! It was held at Grand Copthorne Waterfront. Interestingly, our post on spending our first night as husband and wife at the hotel rendered the most number of blog hits!

27 to 29 November 2011 – We went on a short and impromptu mini honeymoon to Cameron Highlands. It was very enjoyable! :D

25 December 2011 – Definitely a very different feeling altogether when you know that it is your first time spending Christmas together as husband and wife. It was also our first time watching a musical together! Well, there’s always a first for everything. Besides, we have been together for about 1 and a half years only :P

31 December 2011 – Kissing 2011 goodbye! Haha! We were all ready to welcome 2012 at Clake Quay! Had some drinks at Rebel before the countdown began. Yeah can’t believe we chose beer over fireworks but we managed to catch a glimpse outside Liang Court.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my family, friends and readers for the support that they have given to this blog. May 2012 be filled with good eats, love, wealth and good health for all of you! :D

The husband and I tied the knot on 9 September this year but due to our conflicting work commitment, it was really difficult for us to plan a honeymoon trip. As ironic as it may sound, it was also due to work that forced us to book a short trip to Cameron Highlands in late November! We booked our package on Thursday, packed our bags on Friday and left on Saturday! Talk about last minute travel! We had Shanghai, Hong Kong and even Japan in mind but we finally settled for Cameron Highlands because we figured that it would be impossible for us to plan a proper itinerary within such a short time frame. Cameron Highlands is very small and besides, it was the very first place that we shortlisted for our maiden trip together last year. Dropped the idea back then after gathering feedback that it’s a boring place. Hey, totally not true! We had sooooo much fun in Cameron Highlands! :D I call it a mini honeymoon because it was a short 3D2N stay and we did not even travel by air. However, at the end of this trip, we have come to realize that we didn’t have to spend a bomb on an extravagant honeymoon in order to be able to enjoy ourselves. Really, it’s the company that matters the most! :)

This is our fourth time travelling together and we would always wear our Donald Duck couple shirts that misterchewy bought from Tokyo Disneyland on the day of setting off! Easy to identify each other if we ever get lost.. Haha! Ok here’s a brief overview. We kinda celebrated our first monthsary at Malacca. Our second trip together was to Redang with misterchewy’s bunch of fydp friends! And then I joined misterchewy and his family on a trip to Taiwan! Haven finish uploading the photos onto Facebook >_< Ok anyway, we departed Singapore on the day of our 16th monthsary! Had a simple Thai dinner at Golden Mile Complex before boarding the coach at 10pm. Seats were very spacious and we watched a movie before concussing throughout the rest of the journey! We slept like two logs for the next 7 to 8 hours and amazingly, we could hold our bladder for that long too. LOL. We reached Brinchang slightly before 7am and were told to find ourselves some breakfast. Food was cheap and good!

We transferred to a smaller shuttle bus before being driven up to Strawberry Park Resort. Since it was hours away before we could check into our room at about 4pm, we deposited our bags at the lobby and I changed into a pair of jeans while waiting for the tour guide to pick us up. Nice mini waterfall at the resort!

The resort looks beautiful from the outside and we couldn’t wait to check out our room! Some people actually drove up to Cameron Highlands and most of them were from other parts of Malaysia.

Beautiful flowers can be found everywhere around the resort! We were busy snapping photos and the tour guide finally picked us up at 10.15am when they were supposed to reach about 15 minutes before. Claimed that there was a huge jam outside.

True enough, there was a major traffic jam as we were there during the school holidays. A route that would normally take only 15 minutes could take as long as 3 hours now! Scary! Anyway we reached Sungei Palas ‘BOH’ Tea Centre at 11.25am. The tour guide told us to go for the factory tour, look around the gift shop and sit down for some tea and then look for him again at 11.40am. 15 minutes to do all that?! Impossible! Turned out that he went to pick his other customers from the other resorts nearby and dropped them off at the tea centre. We were the last. In other words, the rest in our tour group had about an hour I didnt think it was very fair to us so we just took our own sweet time taking photos and enjoying our food at the cafe. LOL.

The view of the tea plantation from the cafe was breathtaking. Ok la actually I was feeling extremely pissed about the tour guide’s arrangement and when I saw how long the queue at the cafe was, my eyes rolled to the skies. And to make matters worse, the husband got me a blueberry scone when I thought he would be smart enough to get a strawberry cake or strawberry something for me. The first thing he said when he got to the table, “Eh sorry leh I wanted to get the strawberry cake but don’t know why I got you the blueberry scone instead.” -_- Major sigh.

We gave up the factory tour because makan and take photos more important laaaah! Hahaha! :P

e day

Second tour of the day was a short trek into the mossy forest where the wonders of nature awaits us. We came across a variety of pitcher plants of different shapes and sizes, beautiful wild orchids and herbal plants such as the famous ‘Kacip Fatimah’.

Little did we know that we the mossy forest is also extremely muddy and yucky. The mud was like quicksand! I was the only one wearing slippers and mud splattered everywhere each time I lifted my feet. It was just too gross and I was thinking that we seriously need to turn back. Therefore, we barely managed 10 metres but it was a wise move! The others came back all dirty and had to rinse their shoes as seen in the above collage. Basically we were just camwhoring while waiting for them.

The tour guide told us that we had more climbing to do at the next stop! I was contemplating if I should take off my slippers but I’m glad I had them on. Some parts of the tea plantation are quite steep and also very slippery as it had drizzled earlier on.

After climbing for 10 minutes, we spent only 1 minute taking photos at the vantage point of the tea plantation because the rain got heavier! Sad. Anyway, it is also called the ‘Giant Green Carpet of Malaysia’.

Look at the dark clouds! Nevertheless, we were rewarded with the spectacular sight of the rolling green hills. If climbing uphill was difficult, going downhill was a bitch. I slided a bit every now and then and each time, I would let out a piercing scream. Sorry I cant help it! The daredevils who skipped their way down were giggling at me, I know. :(

Yup and this is the souvenir we got from the tea plantation. LOL!

The tour ended at around 4.30pm which also meant that we could check into our room instantly. I love our spacious studio room and the parquet flooring! Definitely gonna have it at least in our bedroom for our future house! :D

We wanted to shop around at Brinchang but it’s really impossible to walk out from Strawberry Park Resort and so, we asked the reception to arrange for a cab. Camwhored in the room while waiting! Hahaha. I think the cab took about 40 minutes to get in because of the jam. Sigh.

The cab looks very cute right?! In baby blue somemore! One of my favorite colors!

Hehe we cabbed to Strawberry Moment Dessert Cafe! Besides the strawberry strudel and strawberry mousse, we also had strawberry milkshake. I personally found the desserts mediocre. Haha there’s free wi-fi. We walked over to Brinchang night market, which was open even in the day because of the school holidays. I think I got a couple of magnets and we then we cabbed back to the resort.

Apart from breakfast, our two-night stay also came with steamboat dinner! Nice!

I packed along my strawberry face masks which I bought in Taiwan. Actually I have many others like macaron, chocolate truffle, etc but of course must bring strawberry one right?! We are at Cameron Highlands after all! Hahaha. Yeah we forgot to buy beer when we were at Brinchang town and misterchewy suggested getting a bottle of Budweiser each from the hotel. 2 bottles cost a whopping 56RM after taxes! Haha we had a really good night’s sleep after drinking! :P

Even though our tour on the second day of our trip was scheduled to start at 2.30pm, we dragged ourselves up because the buffet breakfast at the resort’s Jim Thompson Terrace ends at 10am! The spread was quite good! We had nasi lemak, omelette, roti prata, etc.

Since we had more than 2 hours to kill, we kinda explored the entire resort!

Strawberry Park Resort is quite a nice place actually! There’s a lovely garden too!

Day Two’s tour wasn’t as exciting as the previous day’s but we weren’t complaining! We enjoyed getting close to the broccoli, corn, strawberries and other crops at the open terrace farm! Hahaha. Tried the corn and it was really sweet!

Somehow, the farm reminded me of this game called Harvest Moon that I used to play! :P

Next up was the cactus farm, just a few minute’s ride from the previous destination.

I thought that the cactus farm would be pretty boring but it turned out to be alright! We saw cactuses of all shapes, sizes and colors. The tour guide told us that there were 3000 types.

Mouth itchy, so we bought cup corn and sweet potato balls to munch on while marvelling at the cactuses. Hehe!

Strawberry farm! This is what I had been waiting for! LOL. Couldnt wait to pick all the strawberries in sight! The tour guide told us that coconut fibre is used to grow the strawberry plants as it does not contain any bacteria.

Also, he took a good look at all the (young) couples and told us that strawberries are a symbol of love. LOL. Cuz strawberries are red, looks kinda like a heart shape, and are sweet and sour just like how relationships should be!

<3<3<3

Guess what is being used as fertilizer for these veggies at the organic farm? Volcanic soil. Plenty of nutrients! Somehow they managed to find out that these flies are attracted to the color yellow and by pasting yellow stickers around, there isn’t a need for pesticide.

Even though we were going to have dinner in like less than two hours, I decided to try the scones with strawberry jam at the organic farm. The husband went for a cup of hot strawberry chocolate. Heavenly!

The flower nursery was another few kilometres away. These flowers will come in time for Christmas and Chinese New Year! They smell lovely too!

Sumptuous steamboat dinner as part of the tour package! I guess that area that we were seated at can be considered alfresco dining. Haha. Eating steamboat in a nice cool weather is bliss! Decided to shop around the Brinchang Night Market before heading back to the resort. Couldn’t believe that the husband when he said he wanted to tabao nasi ayam back! Since it was our last chance at ‘shopping’, I bought all the cute strawberry items in sight. Hahaha!

Although our mini honeymoon trip was a very impromptu and short one, we really enjoyed ourselves to the max! It was nice snuggling up close to each other in Cameron Highland’s cool weather too! :P Lastly, I would like to thank misterchewy once again for sponsoring my travel, accommodation and all other expenses for this trip. *Muacks* :333 P.S: I’m never gonna look at strawberries the same way again!

To view all 200 photos, click here.

Before the solemnization party at Symphony Heights, Maureen of misstamchiak.com was really gracious enough to offer me her complimentary hair styling and makeover by Ivan Hoo, Creative Director of In Square Salon. I was initially quite hesitant because I paisey mah. But then again, Maureen is the ‘mai lugi’ queen so I must learn from her. Haha! Just kidding! Anyway, In Square Salon is located at Blk 24 Sin Ming Road. I would say that Ivan is very professional and takes care of little details, like trying to cover up the mole on my cheek as seen in one of the photos :P I quite like my overall 造型 even though it took me some time to get used to my (temporarily) curled hair! It was a jaw dropping moment for the husband the moment he saw me. He commented that my face and nose are much sharper. Haha ok thanks I know that my nose is ridiculously flat :( Once again, a big thank you to Ivan and to Maureen for the lovely photos in this blog post! :D

The day after our solemnization at Grand Copthorne Waterfront, misterchewy and I headed straight for HomeTeamNS Pasir Ris Chalet the instant we checked out of the hotel. Our guests for that evening were mostly misterchewy’s relatives. I shall let the photos do the talking!

Thanks to my aunt Colleen, we managed to book the clubhouse at Symphony Heights and threw another party on 24th September for our friends. Ordered food from Neo Garden, again!

A photo with my niece! She was so well-behaved the entire night!

Yeah and I think I was trying to catch her attention with my manicured nails! :P

My nails were done by Krist Goh! You can check out her website for more info. Yes I know that there are probably a thousand and one manicurists out there. Celes recommended Krist to me and you know how powerful word-of-mouth marketing is. Krist previously did bridal nails for me and I was really satisfied!

Yup, so this marks the end of our ROM celebrations! Three parties, three different venues, three outfits, three cakes! :P Special thanks to my mum!

The weekend passed by in a flash, with the actual solemnization at Grand Copthorne Waterfront and solemnization party for another group of relatives at Home TeamNS Pasir Ris chalet occurring over two successive nights. I will be posting the photos taken on 9 Sept here as soon as our photographer is done!
9 September is also misterchewy’s birthday, which makes our wedding extra special :)

We rolled into bed way past midnight and were feeling lazy to get dressed for the buffet breakfast the next morning :P Tried our luck by calling room service and they agreed to take our orders for breakfast even though we should have done so before 6am I think. I’m not sure if we had this special privilege because we were “The Wedding Couple” but we were appreciative of all nice gestures.

Our American Breakfast spread! Not forgetting our beloved Tofu Oyako toys which accompanied us throughout our pre-marital journey :D

Mr Chew and I chose poached eggs with chicken sausages, bacon and hash brown. While eating, the both of us realized that there wasn’t any hollandaise sauce! Hahaha :P

Our bread basket which consisted of muffins, croissant, and danish pastries. It was a pity that it was largely untouched because we were feeling rather full from our half eaten bowl of cereal and hot chocolate.

Here’s a sneak peak for the celebration that took place the next day at the chalet! This is the only photo that turned out grainy after some adjustments but the rest were ok :P Thanks for dropping by and stay tuned! Lovely Monday, everyone! :)

I’m not sure you know that the reason I love you is you.
Being you.
Just you.

<3