beloved bel

Taken place at one of the top 3 castles in the Bohemian region of the Czech Republic, a Disney inspired castle no less, this is my coverage of a Czech fairy tale wedding. Before that... The plan: Kian and I were supposed to fly out Friday evening after work to Prague, wait for a few others to land at the airport before taking the organised group shuttle from Prague to Hluboka, 2h away.  We were to reach Hluboka around midnight, have a good rest before waking up for a nice breakfast and meeting in Marketa's room 301 to help out with our assigned tasks.  I was supposed to make sure the tables are labelled correctly with the name tags for each guest. The drama:  Kian and I arranged to meet at 4pm at Stratford to take the National Express bus to Stansted airport, 40min away.  I was held up slightly at work and arrived at 4.10pm to find out we missed the bus.  The next bus was scheduled to arrive at 4.40pm but somehow it arrived at 4.20pm which I thought ...

Because I will be taking another two weeks off in September for home (to get married twice yes, to the same man), I don't have much holidays left and so sadly I had to give Hillsong Conference a miss this year.  Well not completely, because I bought the evening tickets so I could go after work on Thursday and Friday. I heard Louie Giglo preach for the first time and Chris Tomlin led the closing songs on Thursday night. Louie Giglo preached about Jesus stopping funerals when he walked on earth and in today's context, the church is not dead but very much alive.  Considering the O2 arena being packed out, yes indeed the church is alive!  And in our lives too, whatever that is dying, Jesus is in the business of restoration and may He restore to you what you have lost.  Amen :) Brian Houston And wow Chris Tomlin.  He is cool man.  I had chosen one of his songs to sing at my wedding a few weeks ago: Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone) and also 10,000 Reas...

It had been an eventful weekend to say the least.  Before I go into what happened, the highlight of last weekend was one of my dear friend's wedding in the Czech Republic. It is a special friendship I share with Marketa.  I remember the first time we met.  It was at the movies and Sarah had asked me to join her and her friends for the tearjerker My Sister's Keeper.  There we met for the movie and perhaps I knew that she used to work for JPM that created somewhat a connection.  We decided to exchange numbers and when storing her name, I asked for her last name.  She said Dvorak.  "Oh wow" I commented, "just like the Czech composer!"  Thinking I could *ahem* impress her, she said "Yes he is my great, great grandfather."  I think my jaws dropped to the ground.  That is almost like being royalty, for Antonin Dvorak was such an influential music figure in the Romantic era especially in his native Bohemia. From then, we hit it off as fr...

Okay let's take a break from weddings.  Have to warn you that the next post will be back to wedding - I hear you stifle a yawn - but it would be worth it.  As I found out - the painful way. Let's talk about what the Brits love to talk about - the weather.  There is a heatwave going on for the past 2 weeks now.  Imagine temperatures soaring to 30deg and for the first time in years I actually feel confident to leave the house with no jacket or cardigan or scarf.  It feels like Singapore.  The sun shines brightly every day making work very difficult because all of us just want to be outside enjoying the sunshine (although I would choose the shade) with a frappuccino in hand.  There are news reports on the weather everyday because this is not normal.  In fact this is the warmest stretch it has been in 7 years.  I love it how they report this heatwave - almost life threatening.  An article on the BBC gave a top 10 reasons on why Britian is ...

One of my oldest friends in the world flew 17h across the miles to attend our wedding and she is none other than Minghui or affectionately known as Mimi.  We have continued to keep in touch since I moved to London and I was really touched by her presence especially when she was here last summer and back again so soon, I felt bad that she had to spend so much money to come back again.  Being my special guest (apart from my family that is), I had asked her to write a post about the wedding so that makes her a special guest on my blog too!  (A first!)   I feel so lucky to have such an amazing friend for over 20 years.  Seriously we know each other so well that sometimes it is scary.  Looking forward to share more memories with this special lady for the many more years to come!  Love you Mimi :) Me & Mimi ~~~~~~~~~~ 29 Jun 2013 had to be the happiest day for my dearest old friend, Bel and her wonderful other half, Kian. It was their specia...