Mission Singapore

It's been quite a while since my last post on our blog. For me, its really hard to work on something when your heart and mind are not into it. Many times I tried to think of something to write in here but it seems my thoughts are not with me. I guess I left it with my fiance back there in the Philippines.. :D

It was exactly 3 weeks since I've been here in Singapore and yet until now, I still feel like I just arrived yesterday. I have made lots of adjustments already and yet there are still lots of adjustments which I need to undertake. To begin with, this is my first time to live by myself, not literally living alone but living away from home. Even during my college years, in which going to school back and forth took me 5 hours of stressful travel, I still opted not to stay in apartments or dormitories. The reason behind is that I dont want to look after my own food, clothes and other stuff. In short, I dont want to do those household chores, hehe. But here in Singapore, I have no choice, I need to do those things which I dont want to do at home. Here, I need to regularly clean my room, wash and iron my clothes, do the grocery, etc.. But cooking is just too much for me. As much as I have wanted to cook delightful dishes here, my cooking powers are just limited to instant noodles and fried dishes. Good thing cooking is one of Anne's many expertise, all I have to do is to wait for the time that she will be here with me.. :D And since I dont know how to cook, I have no choice but to be adventurous with some of the local foods here in which I find to be very challenging task for my taste buds.

On the brighter side, there are also lots of positive adjustments. From 1 1/2 hours travel time from our house to my previous office in Makati, here it was reduced to 40 mins or less. It's less traffic here and less pollution. The surroundings are very clean and the people here are very disciplined, especially my fellow pinoys. Although Philippines and Singapore are within the same time zone, it seems that Phils is ahead by 2 hours. 7pm here is just like 5pm in the Phils. so when I arrived home from work, I feel like I still have lots of time to do some household chores.

I'm really grateful to God for giving me the opportunity to go and work here in Singapore. Actually, early this year while Anne and I started preparing for our wedding, going and settling in Singapore was one of our original and major plan. Although during that time, we have no idea yet on how we can accomplish this target but we never worried because we believe God will help us. And Im very thankful that God answered our prayers and that everything are going smoothly as to what we have planned. He magnificently paved the way for me and cleared all the obstacles that might hinder me from going here in Singapore. Until now, I can clearly picture out how He powerfully helped me through the course of my resignation with my previous employer and also how He reminded me, through Anne's brother and his wife, about my status as a DOST scholar,which may lead to a big problem in the Bureau of Immigration if not taken care of immediately.

My life here in Singapore is not a walk in the park for me, since I do a lot of adjustments and sacrifices not to mention doing lots of things which I don’t normally do back in the Phils. But I believe God is just giving me enough time to practice doing these sort kind of things, as a preparation for the next chapter of my life - married life, in which no one will carry out these things for us, but ourselves. At least Anne can be assured that I can help her in doing those household chores. :D

God is really good, and He is good all the time!

Wedding Update: Makati Sports Club

This post is long overdue. A couple of weeks ago, we, together with our event stylist Rey of Freshcuts went to Makati Sports Club for an ocular inspection of the reception venue. JayR and I were both present to assist Rey. It was a good decision to accompany him for we were able to give him some ideas we want done for our reception. Here are some shots we took.

The Entrance from outside POV


The Entrance from inside POV



The Stage, this is where The Couple’s table will be. The string ensemble will be placed at our left and the projector screen at our right.


The Left side of the ballroom. We’ll place the projector screen at this corner.


The Back side of the ballroom. This is where the buffet set up will be. We might opt to remove the divider and make use of the connecting room to give more room for our guests.



Rey will put drapings to accentuate the ceiling. We're just waiting for his lights requirements before we can make a deal with our lights and sounds system supplier.

Wedding Update: Recto Trip

Yesterday, we scoured Recto to find some materials for our invitation. The invitation I had in mind was another inspiration from Aylee. It will be a 7”x 7” invite. The most difficult part in creating the invitation was making the pochette. I am able to create a sample pochette using an ordinary bond paper but the output was smaller than what I intended for our printer can only do so much. We won’t have any problem with the printing of our invites for my Ninong who owns a printing press will take care of it. The main objective of my trip was to look for ready-made pochettes.

Since JayR is not here, I had my mother accompany me. We parked the car at her dormitory (still accepts bed spacer btw, hehe..) near UST and just walked our way to Recto. It really is indeed a haven of invitation suppliers. I did not want us to inquire to every stall for I don’t want to be overwhelmed with a lot of questions and sell talks. The first stall we went to were just small. The lady had me check out their sample of invitations compiled in a big book. I did not bother to get to the fifth page for their samples are torn already and the pages are starting to deteriorate. We continued to walk and look around. The next stall we went to were just like any other typical stall there, but the lady manning it projects a good aura enough to make me sit and talk. For me, that’s important. I felt the need to find the most trustworthy person for the competition in that area is high. She was able to show me the right invitation I was looking for with just some minor modification. Finding the right color was a tough one. They had limited samples in the shade of orange. I would want our invitation to look elegant, so I decided to just go for Copper. It still had a light touch of burnt orange but with more gold feel with it. She also supplies pochettes only but at this point, I’m close to having our entire invitation made in Recto. She quoted me a very cheap price for the production of the entire invitation. Of course I still have fear inside me that the output may not be that good. There are a lot of stories going around that the output is just so-so. These are some things I don’t want to take risk for our invitation will be the first feel our guests will get of our wedding. I don’t want to be very intricate with it for it will just be ignored if not thrown by some of our guests after the wedding. Here are the sample shots of the invite I had my eye on.

This is the pochette I was looking for but I want the flaps to overlap and the tip to be rounded.



I loved the border of the inserts. I'm sure my Ninong can do just that.



The next stall we went to were a lot bigger than the previous stalls. The couple who owned the shop was very persistent. I’m a bit grateful to them for they presented me a lot of options. Aside from getting ready made pochettes, they suggested I just buy the plain sheets and have my Ninong print on it. Like the other, they also quoted me a very cheap price for my entire invitation, though it would still be cheaper for us if I had my Ninong do the printing. It is at this time I wished I had JayR with me. It’s hard to decide on the spot without consulting him. Guess I should talk to my Ninong first before I purchase anything! At least I had some ideas now. I can walk around Recto confident enough to haggle. :D

Our Prenup in Smartshot's blog

We'd like to share with you the slideshow of our prenup pictures made by SmartShot. It's your chance to see other shots taken from our prenup shoot that we have not posted. We are proud to be included in a long list of couples subjected by their talented photographers. With these beautiful pictures, I can't wait until it's Sir Lito himself shoot our wedding pictures! :D

Just click clearwater for you to see.

Wedding Update: Prenup at Clearwater (Final)

Here are more raw pictures from our prenup shoot taken in Clearwater. Looking ahead, we will have a hard time selecting 25 shots out of almost 600 shots for our guest album. Maybe we'll have more than one set of album just to accomodate all! :D









Boats in Clearwater cost P450 per hour. We are lucky enough that the staff who manned the area did not charge us for the use of the boats! Maybe he had fun watching us (err JayR lang pala) struggle with it! hahaha! The following shots will give a shock to my close friends for sure! hehe..





I loved how Reiman did my eye make up. It still looked great even after 6 hours from the time he did my makeup even without a retouch.





For the remaining two shots, no wonder i got sick for a week! hahahha!




We'd like to salute Zandro of Smartshot for a job well done and to Reiman for making me look good!

Wedding Update: Prenup at Clearwater (Part 1)

Before JayR left for Singapore, we made sure that every major wedding preparations and activities must be done. One of it is our pre-nuptial shoot with our photographer, Smartshot. Since Lito Genilo is in the US until the end of September, we entrusted our shoot with Zandro. I’ve seen some of his shoots and I’m pretty confident that he’ll deliver well. We’re not mistaken! We were at ease posing in front of him (besides the fact that we are picture addicts) although I had a little difficulty for some poses he had me do with the boat! You’ll find out in a little while! We had our prenup shoot in Clearwater, Clarkfield, Pampanga. The long drive was really worth it! I just wished we came earlier. Nabitin si Zandro sa pagshoot sa amin! We were only able to shoot to about a quarter of the place. Clearwater seems like heaven for photographers, at least as what we saw from Zandro. Every corner, every angle is worth the shots! Too bad the place doesn’t have a free ride around or any transportation for that matter that we could take to tour the whole place. It’s such a huge place, much like Plantation Bay in Cebu that you won’t expect the guests to just walk around. We were lucky to have the place all to ourselves. We were the only guests there that day. There were no other eyes staring at us except for some staff who passed by.

I had my makeup done before we came to Clearwater. We went to Reiman’s salon in the morning. My prenup makeup was included in the package I got from him. Reiman gave me a different makeup from what it will be on my wedding. He matched my makeup with the color of the dress I wore. I felt uncomfortable yet happy after he’s done. I felt happy for I look nice, uncomfortable because I felt the makeup was too much. I was scared that I won’t look myself in the picture. Good thing I trusted Reiman for the output was great! I loved how I look in the pictures. It also prevented me from the rays of the sun! We were very blessed to have a very sunny and cloudy day during the shoot.

Before anything else, I’d like to put a good word to w@wie sisses namely Carla and Lyra. Thanks sisses for showing me your pictures, they made me more eager to have our shoot there, and for sharing some tips on what to expect when we get there. Thanks sis Lyra for the long exchange of emails, it helped me plan so easily. So here it is! Feast your eyes guys! Hehe..

On A Positive Note: So Far Away

About four hours ago, I had JayR close beside me. And in a few minutes, the plane he’s in will touch down Singapore. Yes, he left for Singapore earlier tonight for a new work opportunity. This would be the third time we’ve been separated because of work. But this time, it won’t be just a week or a month long of separation. Earlier this week, I woke up unconscious of what day it was, the first thought I had was a Saturday until I realized that I don’t want Saturday to arrive for I knew that he’ll leave soon. Unfortunately I don’t have the power to freeze time. What made it worse, I got sick! I really felt bad for as much as I want to spend the most of my time with him, most of the time I was sleeping. *sigh..But my sickness did not hinder our last minute wedding preparation. A day prior his departure, we were able to have an ocular inspection of our reception venue with our event stylist Rey of Freshcuts, get JayR’s baptismal certificate in Pasay, have our food taste with the caterer, have his haircut, reserved the Premier Suite of Manila Peninsula, dropped the service laptop at his office, and sent out some Save The Dates to some of our principal sponsors. We did all that with me catching some snooze in between as much as I can. What a day huh?

I know that this separation is just temporary and would benefit both of us. Singapore is just near anyway. I plan to spend the upcoming long weekend in November there. I can’t wait! Maybe I should start my own countdown to that day as well. Hehe.

To you love, I miss and love you so much!