Invites Arrived

My wedding invitations have arrived in Fiji!

The tracking process was awesome with everything documented whenever the cards arrived in a new country with 1 day turnaround times.  Until it arrived in Fiji. I was incredibly annoyed with UPS because the cards arrived in Nadi but sat there and was not delivered until 3 days later.

The 5kg box arrived in Ant's office on Friday arvo.  He was unable to go to work on Wed and Thurs due to a karate injury to his toe, but he went in on Friday arvo to pick up the box and do some work.

He's on crutches or something so had to ask someone to carry the box to his car.

So that will please his parents since they (and he) was harping on about wanting their overseas guests to have at least 2 months notice so that they can organize leave and flights.

As I am typing this blog I'm also watching Wife Swap - thanks to that bitch May.  This white man has a black wife with three kids.  The replacement wife keeps referring to them as coloured.

So the man is like, 'I keep telling her that coloured is the wrong term. People are either black, white or mixed.  My kids are not blue."

LOL!

I wonder if the Yams have finalised their guest list?  If they haven't then they'll have to get on it so that they can start distributing them.
 

Bahn Mi Thit

Tonight I want to talk about one of my favourite things to eat - Bahn Mi Thit.  Also known as Vietnamese pork rolls!

Footscray's Little Saigon market has some food shops that sell these yummy snacks for a bargain $3.50.

To's Bakery & Cafe

What ingredients make up the perfect pork roll? Pork pate, mayo, pork, pickled carrot, coriander, soy sauce, salt and white pepper and sliced hot chilli. Part of the fun in eating a pork roll is not knowing whether your next bite will be with or without a spicy chilli.

Today at Footscray Market I bought all the ingredients that I would need.  Things like chilli, corriander, vietnamese pork and carrot was easy enough to find.  I painstakingly searched each and every shelf for pork pate.  I found lots of shrimp paste, but no pork pate.

Deflated, I went to buy my usual pork roll to cheer me up.  As the lady was handing me my change, I  asked her where I could buy pork pate.

"It's not sold anywhere' she replied.

"Can I buy some from you?' I asked her.

"Sure, it's $5 for a container' she replied.

Before the sentence was out of her mouth, I was already digging through my wallet for moolah.  May was in hysterics at how eager I was and so was the lady.  

It's the long weekend and I plan to spend it eating pork rolls :o) 

Invites printed

My invitations have been posted!

The retailer in Hong Kong has confirmed it was shipped by UPS on Friday night.  The whole process (approving the proof and printing of the card) took a total of 1 month to organize.  And made me au$600 poorer.

April 29th I made contact with the retailer.  She said they didn't have my card in stock but they had Ant's.  His card is au$1 cheaper than mine so I went with it.  It was either that or contacting another retailer and paying a higher price.

April 4th I put down a 20% deposit and provided her with my draft.

May 11th she provided me with the layout.  This is after I rang her to find out why it was taking so long.  She didn't seem to remember who I was and was like, "Oh, did I say I would provide you the layout today?'  and I was like, 'Yes!' 

May 16th I signed off on the layout.

June 1st she emailed to say the card was ready for pick up at their WanChai office, so 'feel free to collect it anytime.'

I had to remind her (again) that I was based in Australia and need the invites posted to Fiji.  How much was courier cost?

She said she would get back to me.

June 2nd I had to follow up and ask if she had the courier quote for me. She responded immediately with the quote.  I authorized the total payment for the invites + postage to be debited from my credit card.

June 3rd she gave me the airway bill number for tracking.

Postage time should take about a week according to her so that's exciting.  The Yams will be able to have the invites 'in their hands' mid-end of this month which keeps in line with their aim to distribute it to their overseas guests with at least two months notice.

Awfully considerate of them to give their overseas guests so much notice.  But not exactly necessary considering they already know.

Favours re-re-visited

 Mrs Yam is again suggesting that we should fill the favour box up!

She sent me an email with the below paragraph.   

I asked Ant how he felt about it and he said he was fine with just the personalized hard candy and the fortune cookie. He had told her this the night before she sent the email.  

So I responded by saying personally I preferred to leave it as is.  Otherwise it's a gorgeous favour box filled with a mish mash of sweets.  I think less is more in this situation.  And anyway, why do you we have to spend so much unnecessarily on wedding favours.  

Also I just tried to put a fortune cookie into the favour box and it was rather a tight fit.  Mostly because the vacuum sealed pack is so boofy and the favour box is so tiny and delicate.

But I have the yellow foil cookies, so perhaps the clear sealed ones will be smaller.

In the second pic we have green personalized lollies from SRS Underwriting.  They were giving them out at a Conference I was forced to attended for work.  I sitll have yet to decide whether I want a pink peppermint lolly or a red flavoured one.  Either way, it looks great. 

I noticed that after a week in room temperature, the lollies had slightly become stuck to the box.  But the plan is to only put about 6 lollies in each box so they should be eaten quickly.  

Also on the corners of each box, there is a sizeable gap which roaches and definitely ants can crawl into; so it's not the best idea to leave the lollies in the box after that night.  Especially not in Fiji.

Sick Day

I'm home sick today.

Rather proud of myself because this is the first sickie I've had since returning to work after Christmas hols his year.  Compared to when I started in 2010; I pulled soooo many sickies then!

Not that I'm relaxing at home.  Ok I am, but I'm still logging in to my work computer via remote access to check and respond to emails.

Sometimes I like to stand at the window and watch the kids playing at the Special School across the road.  But May says it screams 'pedophile' so instead I peep discreetly through my window blinds.  Because that doesn't look as bad.

Anyway I've finally figured out how to use my new phone in terms of downloading the CD driver and being able to upload photo's to my computer!

These photo's were all taken an my new Samsung Galaxy Ace.  It's not the best image quality.  Oh wait, maybe that's because I changed the quality from superfine to fine.  That's something I need to test again later.

Honey is yum.

One night I was watching SBS and it so happened to be about a woman who loved honey so much she used it in the act.  Her poor sheets!!

And all that honey would just make you sick anyway, wouldn't it?

Sept Calendar

Here is the Sept calendar showing the arrival and departure dates of everyone who has confimred they are coming.

I am so lucky that my friends are willing to travel all the way back for my wedding!  Especially when you compare it to Ant's highschool friends - none of them have even committed yet.

If you haven't figured it out already, you can click on the image to make it larger.

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!