The Apple's Diary!

Month of February - Dark cloud looming overhead. Heard the weather report this morning over radio, 34°C. It was and still is hazy, smoky this morning. My mood is heavy laden with worry. Worry about little Eva in hospital, worry about the little Charmaine, worry about Darren working overseas. There's just too many bad news to receive in this short month of February. 28 days, 3 days short of any other month. And this is one of the worst months I ever faced. Just this morning, this man accidentally gave me a hard knock on my left side of my head. No apology. I'm still pretty upset, because his knock gave me a headache. Psalm 62 becomes my Quiet Time theme in this dark February. 1 My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. 2 He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken. 3 How long will you assault a man? Would all of you throw him down— this leaning wall, this tottering fence? 4 They fully ...

Counting down ... to your return ... Pix Source : http://tourstravelandhotelbooking.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/maldives-beaches-4.jpg

Times flies.. it's almost 3 months since we got married. Before we signed on the dotted line, people had forewarned us that in a marriage, there would be conflicts that we have to resolve and we must persevere on. Back in my mind then, I brushed it aside thinking if we had survived the wedding preparation, what's more worse can happen? How wrong I was and how right the "seniors" were. This marrige is really nothing like in the Pak Tor aka dating days. Conflicts seem to escalate more and quickly. There were times of doubts. Gone were the time of sweet romance, instead replace by the harsh reality - survival in the concrete jungle. But I'm reminded by our vow and why our marriage took place . "Our Union by His grace" was engraved in our rings. A reminder that who is in the control and in difficult moment, I seek Him and lay down my troubles on His feet. While some troubles can be resolved, others call for tolerance, compromise and more love. Marriage is n...

From the start of 2010, our weekends and weeks have been filled to the brim. Since coming back from honeymoon, we were busy moving house. Then with deep condolences to hubby's maternal relatives, the old granny passed on a few days before the CNY. It was an awful time for everyone. On work side, while there's new opportunity, there's also many uncertainties. Hubby's company sending him to work in Maldives. It would have been great if I can join him there for a short holiday. But with project keep changing direction, the chances of taking leaves seem slim. Back to CNY, since old granny just passed away. The family is not celebrating. Not wearing red and instead of reunion dinner and lo hei, it was a simple affair at home. Played a few rounds of mahjong and MIL sent us back with Fa Kueh and 年糕 . With my parents, we had reunion lunch at Dian Xiao Er. And did I mention on the 1st Day of CNY, we were planning to go church and our car battery went flat. We slept late the nigh...

After moving in for a week, I realised that having a home so close to nature might not be exactly a wonderful thing. Of course, it's soothing to hear the birds chirping, the insects making their sound and looking at the green trees outside the window. But this also means that the insects love making your house as theirs too... Recently, one big lizard decided it shall move in with us which totally freaked us out. It was a good thing the contractor was here to fix up some stuff for us and he caught the lizard for us. The next day, another small one came. Freak! No choice, even though the husband was scared, he caught it and got rid of it. We are not taking any more chance. We bought lizard traps for the house. So far, it had been a week plus and no lizard is caught. Hopefully, the lizard won't come anymore. Besides lizard attack, for some unknown reasons, the bugs and mosquitoes love biting me. It was a horrible attack which left both my legs badly "wounded". After a f...

Final episode of Winter Sonata. Here are some snapshots of the winter scenery....

As promised, the best is saved to the last. Our last 2 nights stay in Seoul were at the Classic 500 Starcity. It was more of a service apartment than hotel. The whole house was linked by a central system and the service apartment was as big as my 4-room flat. It was a big apartment that really wowed us. In this service apartment, there were 4 TVs. One n the living area, more than 42" . One in the toilet and another one at the bedroom. The bedroom walkway had also another TV. I really like the way the whole apartment was designed. The shoe cabinet separated the entrance from the living area. There's also a dry kitchen area. At the other side of the living area, they placed a dish washer and a washing machine. In the bedroom, we can adjust our mattress to the different angles on our individual side. The toilet bowl was equipped with seat warmer and motion sensor. It would automatically raise the seat cover when it sensed movement. Another worth mentioning point would be the side...

It was our 1st tour package, naturally we heard a fair bit of horrendous story about the journey or the hotels. But the Hotels we stayed in Korea are quite good. I would say, it was at a range of 4 star to 6 star. Our 1st stop over was Jeju's Vegas & Casino Hotel. The layout was a typical 4 star hotel. Room was clean and neat. Water heater was functioning well. Breakfast was international buffet style. Jeju - Vegas & Casino Hotel 1 Jeju - Vegas & Casino Hotel 2 Our next stop over was at Mount Sorak - Sorak Hotel. It was our quickest pit stop but was one that I slept really soundly. We reached there very late almost 10.30pm, had to wake up so early at 7am. The room was spacious but the water heater took some time to warm the water. Also, it was quite hard to gauge on the water temperature by the knob. Spacious Sorak comes with a double bed and a single bed in every room Sorak Bedroom 2 The 3rd pitstop was at the snow ski park - New Phoenix Park. The hotel room floor was ...

We finally moved in. 31 January 2010. We marked it as our official move in date and invited our Pastor who solemnized our wedding to do a House Blessing Ceremony. For us, this was a significant moment, dedicating our house to the Lord. It was a simple ceremony where we lighted 7 candles to signify LOVE , JOY , FRIENDSHIP , COOPERATION , APPRECIATION , CHRISTIAN SERVICE and SPIRITUAL ENRICHMENT . We celebrated our moving in with our families and invited a couple of friends to share our joy. We don't intend to hold a house warming, preferring to host small group of friends for a cosy gathering. But the house is far from ready to face the world, so it may be some months before the invites start to roll... the gift

Winter Sonata was so successful and enjoyable because of all these people. Hammond - Our Tour Leader from ASA, Singapore Linda - Our Tour Guide from Korea Ally - the Photographer cum do-it-all Key Personnel from Korea

The final 2 days in Korea. Day 6 began with Seoul City Tour. We drove past the Presidential Blue House where the Korea President works. We then stopped by the park to take some photos. As this was a place where there was a lot of confidential and military secrets, hence the whole ground was heavily guarded. Love, Peace and Family Traditional Drum We were supposed to visit Gyeongbok Palace but it was under renovation. We switched to Chang Deok Gung Palace . One of the many halls in the Palace Since we were in the city, shopping was next up in the list. Faceshop, Ginseng Shop, Amethyst Shop. After lunch, it was more shopping at Dongdaemun market. the Clone doing their Wonder Girl's Nobody Nobody but You in front of Doota After 7 days in Korea, I finally got to eat their local version of Bibimbap the Original Bibimbap The shopping spilled to Day 8. Our final stop was at the Shinchon Fashion Street . The last day was even colder than we first arrived. At -15 ° C, it was just too cold t...