honeymoon

Last night Ant and I booked our honeymoon flights!!

We're going from Fiji to Hong Kong, then Hong Kong to Singapore, then Singapore back to Melbourne.

We leave for Hong Kong on Monday 26th - pretty much immediately after the wedding.  Surprisingly Ant's parents were cool with the whole thing - it's probably because Ant is returning back to Fiji after we unpack in Melbourne.

Cut the apron strings already Mrs Yam!

Our travel itinerary promises to be a fun one.

26 Sept - arrive Hong Kong

5 Oct - arrive Singapore

9 Oct - arrive Melbourne

Below are the airlines we'll be flying with.  Did you know that you can catch a direct Air Pacific flight from Nadi to Hong Kong?  I certainly didn't know that!

 

 

Flowers

My wedding bouquet has been confirmed. I will have anthuriums. And I think Mrs Yam mentioned we might have some white or purple orchids thrown in as well

I find this an interesting choice because it's not like anthuriums was ever a favourite flower of mine.

But when you have limited choices and don't want to spend a fortune on flowers, then I suppose you learn to like the tropical options that you have.

Actually I've always liked frangipani's and would have loved to have them in my bridal bouquet. But frangipani's need to be picked on the day of the wedding as they wilt easily so unfortunately that was an added task that we didn't want to leave to the last minute. So I had to be realistic and go with a tropical flower that was readily available.

 

And I just read that anthuriums have a long life span of about two weeks once cut so that's a bonus!

Getting with the times

I'm getting with the times!

This blog is being posted from my very new phone. My brand spanking Samsung Galaxy Ace something.

After about a week of deliberation and asking everyone what type of phone they had and whether or not they liked it.

The overwhelming recommendation was to get an iphone. But i dont have $1000 so that was very much out of the question.

Ok this is hurting my eyes so thats it

Fortune Cookies

Kev has found our fortune cookies!!

The cheapest ones I was able to find was online on ebay, but from America.  They seriously have cheap cookies, with 100 cookies for $10 only!!

Unfortunately these American ebayers only post within America and Canada so I had to look elsewhere.  The cheapest one I found was .49c each.

However Kev has come to my rescue because he went to Flemington and found me a box of 300 for $30 which is 10c each only!!  What a bargain.

And Joanne has agreed to take a box back for me so I know it'll reach Fiji safely!

So why do we now need fortune cookies?  To add variety to the favour box because 'variety is the spice of life' is it not?

What Language do you speak?

Work last week was rather interesting.

We're currently recruiting like mad for Customer Service Consultants due to internal growth and staff leaving.

Being an education provider with students from all over the world, we're always on the look-out for bilingual speakers.  Last Thursday there was an interview scheduled with a Mandarin speaker.

The Manager of my department along with the Customer Service team leader were meant to interview her, but the team leader had something come up.  And our International Officer was busy.

So I was asked to be in the interview instead.  It was also suggested that I could ask some questions in Chinese to confirm she was really fluent.  

So that started a frantic minute of me going through my contacts list to find someone who could teach me how to ask three questions in mandarin.

'How would your colleagues describe you?' 
'Do you prefer to work in a group environment or on your own?'
"How do you like to be managed?'

My first try was Leny; engaged. Kevin; could not translate a word for me.  Angie; came through by asking her manager to translate it for her.  I couldn't understand the pinyin for the third question so I settled for the first two questions in Mandarin and everything else in English.

I was asked how I was going to understand the interviewees response if I don't even understand Mandarin?!  And I responded with, 'If I don't understand a word of what she's saying, then she's good.'

And boy was she good!!  The way she rattled on, I did Not understand a word of what she said.  But I had to keep nodding like I did.  And the funny thing is, if we hire her (which we most likely will) she will eventually find out that I don't actually understand Mando.

But either way it turned out to be quite fun because after the interview everyone in the department wanted to have a go reading the pin yin!!

food tasting

Tonight I am super jealous because Ant gets to pig out at Restaurant 88.

His family are having a tasting of the food that will be served at the wedding.  I was trying to convince Ant to organize it at the Nadi branch when I pop over on the Queen's Birthday public holiday.

No such luck.

Restaurant 88 put out a full spread of exactly what would be served - every dish exactly like how they plan to serve.  So for the fish dish they had a full on big fish that would feed 8 people.

Present was Ant, his mum and dad, and two lots of their family friends, along with housegirl Reijeli.  Why the big group?  To make sure the food really would be enough for a table of 8.

Hey I just realized there was a lot of 8's in this post!

I've posted before that I've eaten at Restaurant 88 twice - at the Suva and Nadi branches and I wasn't impressed.  But like Mr Yam said, 'it's not about what you like, it's about finding a restaurant that will agree to cater for such a large event.'

The menu from Ant as he described tonight was

 Starter

selection of spring rolls, chicken wings, fried wontons

soup 

Mains

roast duck

battered salt and pepper prawns

whole fish

roast pork

lobster and something

broccoli and Chinese mushrooms

dalo and pork slices

beef and noodles

Dessert 

fruit platter

I can't remember if there was more because I was watching Glee while talking to him.  But I think that's it.

And guess what, Mrs Hansji is confirmed to fly over to bake the cake for us!

more checklists

Tonight I felt motivated to browse through wedding checklists to see where I should be at in terms of planning.  If only I was this eager when Ant was here during Easter! 

Ant has an annoying habit of wanting to get started on important things past 10pm.  True to his nature, he dilly dallied all day and evening and come midnight, he wanted to get started on the damn list.  Midnight is time for sleep, not work!!!  So naturally I was cranky and incredibly incredibly annoyed.  There was yelling on my part but I very grudgingly sat down and snapped suggestions.

if i had found this website earlier, it would have saved me alot of frustration that night!

But based on the checklist, we have really progressed.

I still don't know where their guest list is at.  Initially we agreed that there would only be a total of 300 guests, with 100 Kan guests and the remaining from their side.  But now he's been throwing around '350' so I guess the original plan has changed.

Below is the 6 - 9 months checklist.  Out of the unticked options, the most imporant one is hiring a photographer/ videographer.  He quoted me a ridiculous amount of $3000 to have someone do it - including prints.  I think he said the Cains Janif guy has photographed practically every Suva wedding, so he's a bit blah about the whole thing now.

Paul's bought a fancy big camera and has been taking photography lessons.  I plan to totally take advantage of that on the day! 



Reserving Hotels isn't urgent.  I can do it myself by abusing the phone at work! 

I don't know why I ticked the gift registry box considering that doesn't exist in Fiji! 



Catering and Cutlery

** the contents of this blog is a SECRET **

Catering has been confirmed.  Unfortunately for me, it's Restaurant 88 and I wasn't too impressed with the quality of the food when I ate at both the Suva and Nadi restaurants.

Food is going to be a traditional 9 course meal - so one plate chicken, one pork, one steamed fish, one vegetables, etc etc.  Ant and his family insist on having food on the menu that will rival all the fancy Indian weddings like Tappoo's etc etc so they're looking at shark fin soup as a starter and who knows what else.

Sadly there will not be any kokoda, palusami or lovo.  If I had my way I'd definitely have a menu full of Fijian food!  But as I always get told, the bride doesn't have time to eat at her own wedding.  With about 35 tables that I'll have to meet and greet with, I can see how that statement will ring true!

And thank you but no thank you Novotel, we're not going to pay $5 per head for a cutlery pack that doesn't even include water glasses!  And what if clumsy people like me need more than a serviette?  What then?  Use the tablecloth?

So the Yams have managed to get Restaurant 88 to also provide utensils for the guests including Chinese soup spoons which Novotel would have never been able to provide.  I believe the water glasses will also be included and hopefully so will the water jugs. I'll buy the serviettes from here - they'll have to be red.  I will also get wooden chopsticks. 

Red and gold is now confirmed as the colour theme.  There will be red;

• drapery
• lanterns
• table runners
• chair sashes
• favour boxes
• napkins
• table tea lights

The below picture is my ideal table setting but we're going with white table clothes and chair covers.  Then we'll alternate between tables by using red and gold chair sashes and table runners.

Sadly our tables will be rectangular and not round like this gorgeous pic.