How to Travel from Seoul to Busan with a Korail Pass.

This was one of my assigned task during our recent family trip to Seoul and Busan. 

We didn't want to travel to Busan via flights because it was a lot more expensive compared to other mode of transportation, which in this case is via rail. 

We could have gotten the flight tickets from Gimpo Airport (not from Incheon Airport) to Busan at about RM200 per adult but the flight departs at night from Seoul and early in the morning from Busan, hence the cheap price. So, this is highly not advisable unless of course you don't mind spending RM500 for a good timing flight. 

In my case, I googled and found (or maybe Rachel found it and told me. Heh) that there's this train ticket that we may purchase online to go to Busan, directly from Seoul. 

It's surprisingly very simple to book the Korail pass for our Busan trip. 

You can click here and have a look yourself. 

Let me summarize for you what this Korail Pass is and its basic terms & conditions:

• It is strictly for foreigners, tourist and non-Koreans only. 
• If you are a foreigner/tourist and you plan to stay for more than 6 months, this is NOT for you. You can go find out more on the Happy Rail Pass. 
• With Korail Pass, you will have unlimited access to the standard seats on various trains for the amount of days you purchase.
• Access to trains such as; KTX, KTX-Sancheon, Saemaeul, Mugunghwa and Nuriro.
• Reminder that this Korail Pass is for standard seats only (for trains mentioned above), NOT valid for First Class seats, metro and tourist trains. 
• Korail Pass must be used in consecutive days. This means that if you travel from Seoul to Busan on 1-May, your Korail Pass will be valid for the next however many days you buy (for our case, 3 days).
• Trip from Seoul - Busan takes approximately 4 hours, plus minus.

Okay, now let me show you how to get this Korail Pass from the booking process until redeeming it at the counter and being on the Korail train itself. 

There are only 8 steps to this so pay attention please. I put in a lot of effort for this. Heh. 

STEP 1

You obviously would want to know how much a Korail Pass will cost per person so here it is or you may go direct to their website (in case they update their pricing).

My table conversion is based on that 30 April's exchange rate, which is 1,000 won = RM3.50 // RM1.00 = 285.7 won.

Do take note that:

• Children below 4 years old may travel for free with a fare-paying adult above 12 years of age. 
• For children who are 4 - 12 years old, they are to be charged 50% of the adult fare.
• You will notice that there are few types of Pass offered:
• Normal Pass - for adults and children
• Saver Pass - for groups of 2 - 5 people travelling on the same itinerary.
• Youth Pass - for youths aged 13 - 25 OR anyone holding an International Student Identification Card (ISIC)

If the above pricing per person works for you, then keep scrolling down to see the next step okay. 

STEP 2

Make a reservation for yourself and your fellow travelers in the website. 

The important thing about this online reservation is that you fill in all your (booker) details correctly, especially your passport number and credit card information. 

STEP 3

After you have filled up accordingly all the needed information, you will realize your credit card will not be charged yet. 

You will receive an e-ticket via a Korean written email. 

Print the e-ticket and keep it with you as you will need it to redeem for your real Korail tickets.

Take note that you have to redeem the Korail tickets before 180 days (about 6-months) from the date of the reservation, if not all bookings made will be automatically cancelled. There may be a cancellation fee when you book from overseas, so yeah. 

It's wiser to make Korail bookings after you confirm your flights and hotels. That way, you won't risk paying the cancellation fee. 

STEP 4

Arrive in Seoul for your planned getaway. 

There are two places (that I know of) that you can redeem your Korail tickets and they are mentioned below. Please take note on their operating hours, especially at Incheon International Airport. 

We arrived very late at night and most of the vendors' shops are closed, so we only managed to redeem the Korail tickets the next day at Seoul Station. 

Where to redeem Korail (KR) tickets:

• Incheon International Airport (Opens all year round, business hours: 7am-9pm)
• Incheon Airport Railroad Information Centre, located outside of the Arrival Hall along the long-stretched booths for transportation modes, portable internet and more. If not mistaken, it's very close to Gate 8 and 9. 
• Airport Railroad Travel Centre, located at B1.
• KTX Centre, located at B1.
• Seoul Station 
• Information Centre, right in the middle of the station.

When redeeming the Korail tickets, the Korail officer will need all the passports (owner of passport must stand nearby so that the officer may check and verify your face). Booker of the Korail tickets must also give to the officer your credit card that you have used in the online reservation.

This will usually take up about 15 minutes, of course depending on the number of travelers. 

The Korail tickets will look like this. Good quality kind of card.

STEP 5

After you redeem from one of the Travel Centre listed above (you're welcome :)), you will need to exchange the temporary cards with the real tickets at the Korail counters, which is located at Seoul Station, because well, you will be taking the Korail train from there. 

This is where you will need to choose the departure time that you want. Again, please double-confirm the time when you are there because they may have changed it every now and then or something.

If I'm right, their departure time to Busan from Seoul Station is every 30 minutes. More details here. Just key in your departure date and information needed, you will be able to see the list of departure time that you can select.

If you plan to travel to Busan from Incheon International Airport via Korail, then you can see their timetable here (6 trips per day).

So, the final Korail tickets that you will need to keep (to pass to Korail's train conductor later) will be in long-ish paper kind, like the receipt that you will receive when you pump car petrol with credit card yeah.

The officers at Korail counters are quite good at their English language so it should not be an issue for communication if you have questions to ask them. Do use simple English though.

If not, then just google your questions. Most likely you will find the answer there, or you can comment below and I will try my best to answer you based on my experience okay.

When you receive your Korail tickets, the officer will explain to you on which train you are to take and which platform it would be at.

We almost got up to the wrong train/deck because it was pretty confusing la the numbers. Do double check with any locals nearby if you are on the right track. Heh.  

STEP 6

Once you have done all the ticketing stuff, you may proceed into the Departure area, and start looking around for takeaways!

That's if you think you will get hungry during that 3 hours-ish journey. They have food on-board the Korail train but of course it will be a lot more pricier, and they only sell basic snacks like buns and crackers. Yes, got coffee and tea also.

So, you may want to walk around inside Seoul Station at the Departure Hall to get some bento set or sushi rolls, which we had that was so yummy.

STEP 7

Get to the designated platform early and if can, get to your designated car and seat too.

The Korail train leaves on time okay. No such thing as wait for 5 more minutes. Go means go already.

But don't worry, because if you miss the train, you can always go back to the counter and ask them to change to the next timing with no extra charges. Best is you don't miss the train at all la.

In the train, there's two ways of seat placement. One is facing the direction the train goes and the other the opposite way. So, if you can get motion sickness, request for the direction-facing at the ticket counter.

STEP 8

Enjoy the ride. There isn't much great scenic views along the way, so just relax and use your electronic devices. Yes, free wifi on board too :) Heh. Or take shameless selfies and snapchat all the way.

Enjoy Busan, because it is one of the best, most relaxing place I've ever been to and it's probably because of the airbnb place that we've booked, which was the biggest, nicest crib ever.

That post will come soon I hope.

Bye now. 

Wedding Update 13: Sixteen Ways to Have a Great Pre-Wedding Photoshoot.

I've decided to list down the things that you can do/bring to make your pre-wedding photo-shoot a smooth and fun one. I want you all to be ready with all the things that you may never think you need. I didn't have a lot of advise on this before because my sister could not remember (since hers was hundreds of moons ago) so I hope this is helpful for you girls and boys. 

Get your makeup artist phone number.

I will explain why you need to do this. 

I knew that My Dream Wedding is not providing any ampules for both female and male as part of the package, so I went to Alan (in Gurney Paragon, LG floor) and bought a box of Mandarin Ampules RM38 and there are 10 small bottles in it. 

I brought the ampules to My Dream Wedding and Sharon (my wonderful makeup artist) told me that Mandarin Ampules (believed to suit all kind of skin type) is not suitable for photo-shoot makeup. She would rather not use it at all. However, since I will be doing whole day photo-shoot 3 out of 4 locations outdoor, it was highly recommended that I put on the ampules so that the makeup stays. 

With that said, she sold to us 4 bottles of ampules for the price of RM140. It's insanely high marked-up because I got mine for less than RM50 for 10 bottles, and as far as I know, all other ampules do not cost till RM140 for 4 bottles. 

So, if you would like to avoid paying this RM140, call them (your makeup artist) days before the photo-shoot day and ask for the type of ampules they use, if not they sure give you reasons why yours cannot. I like Sharon (a lot), but that RM140 is too precious for couple-to-wed okay. 

Go for a manicure session few days before the photo-shoot.

I did mine days 3 days before and I only did manicure since it's highly likely that my toes will never be seen in the photos. Hah. 

So, to save money, do only manicure and don't do the normal kind. Go for the gel type so it can last longer and if you are not a 'soft' kind of girl, gel is the way to go. Manicure is important for both bride and groom to-be because certain shots are close-ups and you do not want to see horrible un-kept nails in the photos, right? 

If you are that kind not sure what color to put, then just go with French Manicure. Serious. 

Know what kind of heels/shoes you want to wear.

I brought like 6 pairs of different heels, only to realize that I actually only used 1 black, 1 white, 1 sport shoe and a pair of slippers.

For ladies, you actually don't need so many different color because your dress will cover your leg 85% of the photo-shoot, of course unless you want the photographer to capture your feet as well. Again, it's depending on what kind of photo-shoot you want.

If you're like me, cannot decide what heels to wear and must ask photographer, then bring all you've got. Hah.

For guys, please just bring all the shoes if I may, because obviously your shoes will be seen 100% of the time, unless you want to hide your feet behind the dress, which happened to Koay.

He realized that his sport shoes didn't really match with his clothes, so he stood behind me during that specific location and block his feet. Heh.

Make sure the groom trims his hair a week before and nose hair a day before.

Okay, maybe I should not use the word 'make sure', but 'encourage'. Hah. In all seriousness though, remind the huz-to-be to cut his hair a week prior because if he does it few days before, it may not look as how he wants it. I don't think girls would wantto cut their hair before the photo-shoot, but even if you do, do it at least a week before.

For his nose hair, seriously remind him constantly. I had my share of sending reminders, but it somehow didn't work because well, he is a busy man with all the stocks to see and monitor and all the clients to entertain. Kidding. Heh. 

He forgot about it and on that photo-shoot morning, I asked casually and his eyes opened. 

I was like, "Do whatever you need to do! Just pull it! Cry also cry don't care already or just push all of them in and don't breathe out hard!"

Fun times.

If you need to do facial or hair treatment, go one week prior.

This is to avoid any unpredictable things to happen okay. You never know that your skin may decide to go all crazy on you even though you have gone through the same treatment a thousand times, so please do all these treatments a week before. 

Know what kind of hairstyle you would want to match for each outfit.

Girls, listen to me okay. No one warned me on this so I had no idea and I had to pay for the consequences. Heh. So serious pulak. 

The makeup artist asked me if I had any hair style preferences and I honestly was okay with any kind, till she started making and I was like, "Hmm.."

Turns out, I didn't really like the hairstyles that I had on me that day, but I did not do any homework prior to that so it's okay lah. Beautiful face what hairstyle also beautiful right? :)

So, please do a lot of Pinterest-searching and Googling for hair styles that you like and save these images on your phone. Remember that you are the client and client is always right. Heh.

Please wear the nude bra from home.

This one can save time and save you from feeling embarrassed because the makeup artist will be in the changing room with you to help you put on everything including the dress. 

Do know that it feels as though you are not wearing anything but it is completely normal.

Eat heavy breakfast before heading to the studio.

For boys not so bad because they will not be putting on lipstick. So they can eat whenever they want. For ladies, not so much okay. I opted to eat sushi because I can just put everything inside my mouth and chew. There is no time to eat okay so make sure you makan dulu. 

Even if you're not a morning person (like me) and you find it super hard to eat so early, you just got to suck it up and eat. If not later sure suffer. 

Our photographers gave us 30 minutes for lunch so that was pretty okay. 

Bring facial towels/tissue for the whole day use.

We did not bring any because we forgot. Heh. 

We didn't have to also because our assistant, Boy brought all the things that we need and constantly wiping our sweat on our faces during the photo-shoot. Boy definitely helped to "carry" Vanessa's responsibility. 

You may not have an additional assistant on your photo-shoot day so do remember because tissue is really needed eh. We got an assistant because of what happened with My Dream Wedding KL, so that feels pretty amazing. 

Cut down on your carbs a week before photo-shoot.

This apparently is highly recommended when you read in Google search all.

Pump up your protein intake such as meat (preferably white meat) and eggs and stuff. Food items like rice and bread and koay-teow basah has got  to go. Just tahan for the one-week.

You want to look camera-ready for the photo-shoot yes?

Easier said than done. I tried doing a week before, but I crave for rice so much (after depriving from it for few days), I went to eat rice for dinner the night before.

So my advice is eat in moderation for carbs but lesser than you normally would, unless of course you really are a hardcore-disciplined kind of person, then do it! I believe you can do it!

Don't be strangers with the team.

This is a golden rule.

Koay is a big believer of that. Ask questions that are not only photo-shoot related. Ask personal questions like you sincerely want to know about them.

That way you will feel less awkward spending the entire day with them and taking photos. One of the things that I really love about our team is that Marcus, the chief photographer always make funny 'jokes' and hokkien sentences that are way too hilarious.

A very effective way to get us laugh naturally and capture that moment. Not just us okay. He and Boy also always burst out laughing when Adrian does something silly. So, it's all good.

We made new friends that day :)

Bring your own makeup sponge.

This one is for those who really want to save money okay. For me, I had wished someone would have told me all this, so I no need to spend a single cent that day. 

I'm not stingy okay. We paid RM4,988 for this entire experience and I really expect not to pay anything anymore because that is not a small amount okay. 

They charge me RM12 for a makeup sponge that I get to bring home afterwards. I went to Daiso and they sell 5 makeup sponges for RM5 only. 

Oh goodness me. 

Yes, if I can save on this, I will feel happy also. Maybe you feel it's just RM12, what's so big deal about it right. 

Try to have a room/house renovation and a wedding for 450 people to happen all at the same season. Yeah. Heh. 

Please do not apply any hair/make-up products on the day from home.

It is really difficult for the makeup artist to style your hair if you have already styled them with your wax/gel. Leave it to the pro okay. 

For men, if you are the kind that knows exactly what kind of hairstyle you want, then go ahead and do it.

For women, a big no-no. Don't even apply any hair cream if you can. If you insist, then bring the cream/serum to the studio and let the makeup artist know first. You wouldn't want your hair to look super oily and wet for the photo-shoot, right? There's only so much that photoshop can do. I'm no expert but I'm guessing that removing the "oily-feel" from the hair is cannot-do. Heh.

Same goes for make-ups okay. Boys, you will wear some foundation-like cream on your face and your eyebrows will lightly be touched up because you just have to. Heh.

Girls, no need to say also understood. You will spend more time on that chair for your face and hair.

Pack some snacks.

You will get hungry after few hours even after having a heavy breakfast. Taking photos is hard-work and hard-work means you use your energy more than the normal days, and once your energy is used up, you will need food to make more energy. That or more sleep, and since sleep is not possible, forget sleep.

Wait, sleep is quite possible if you are not driving. For bride-to-be however, you will not be able to sleep even in the car because you don't want to mess the hairdo. Yep, no resting your head on the head-rest too. Hardwork, remember? Heh.

Be comfortable underneath.

Umm, this should be a common-sense yeah.

You will spend whole day outside, under the sun or not, standing and walking and doing lots of posing (depending on your creativity), so you should be in your most comfortable undies. This applies for both boys and girls okay. You wouldn't want to be always 'adjusting' it the whole time. You all know what I mean. Heh.

For girls, you can get like a corset kind if you feel comfortable in it but if not, just put on your favorite. For boys, same goes to you all okay.

I believe that humans' confidence is partly affected by the undergarments that we wear, hence all the nice-looking and good materials in the market that can cost so much it's crazy. So, put on the best and most comfortable then for sure, you will also feel good about yourself and the rest of the day will be great.

Avoid drinking too much water a day before.

Yes, this one I think will help. 

It is highly recommended that you avoid drinking any liquid after 8pm the night before the your photo-shoot, to avoid eye puffiness and looking camera-ready.

Caution: Dehydrating your body is quite a bad-thing, so if you experience any dizziness and discomfort, quickly go drink all the water you can find okay. 

Remember to bring your slippers.

This could save your life feet! I kid you not.

For ladies only. You don't want to be wearing your heels the entire time, trust me you just don't! Even if you are very comfortable with all your heels and you are a heels-pro-wearer, you need the slippers! You hear me? YOU NEED THEM FLAT SLIPPERS!

I thought that I had forgotten to bring my slippers out to the location, so I wore the heels the entire time outside. My feet died. I was in so much pain that it actually affected my mood for the rest of the photo-shooting. So, please do yourself a favor and bring your slippers everywhere you go.

Life is tough yeah. Bring your slippers. Hah.

Bring umbrellas.

Don't say, "Oh, it's okay we like the sun that's why we are so dark!" because it's not true when you are in a wedding dress and a tuxedo and you have makeup on your face.

The last thing you want is sweat on the face and worse if your makeup starts to melt then you really g.

Koay has sensitive skin so every time he starts to sweat, he gets itchy and uncomfortable. So, what he normally does is to make sure no sweat on his face or neck. He has this habit of wiping his face with his sleeves so when he did that, his white shirt turned brown on his right hand sleeve and part of his face has no more foundation and can probably see uneven skin tone. Heh. Photoshop is needed for his face then.

So, umbrella will really be helpful especially when you have outdoors shooting. You're very welcome :)

Lastly, remember who you are creating this memory with. 

I was constantly reminding myself on that. It was a long tiring day and I was so demotivated at the end of the day because my feet died and I was so drained.

I almost did not have fun starting from the 3rd location onwards but I looked at Koay, and realized that I'm not doing all this alone. I am creating a memory that only both of us know how it feels like because well, we are doing it with each other.

He made it funny and spontaneous with all his crazy weird ideas. For someone who feels shy and awkward to be standing in front of other people taking photos, he did superb. He suggested most of the embarrassing things that we did and boy, was I thankful that it was him that I'm doing this with.

Challenging chapter this one is but so what?

I have my partner-in-crime with me, so we'll be okay. We'll be more than okay.

Bye now.

Koay's Love Language #18.

We were in KL the other week and we went shopping at Atria Mall.

Him: Choose a pair that you like. I'll buy it for you.
Me: *eyesbrows raised* What do you want from me? Hah.
Him: The current shoe makes your toes painful ma, so get a new one la.
Me: Serious wan ah? I choose ah? *walks around like a queen*
Him: Nah, this one nice.
Me: This is too pink for me already dei, but others are too girly also. Hmm.
Him: This one seriously nice la, and it's Puma. Get this one.
Me: *tried it on and it looked great* Okaylah. This shall be it then.

Few weeks later back in Penang, I got a call from him during office hours.

Him: Babe, the dinner plan got cancelled so no plan tonight d okay.
Me: Okay! *in my head I was planning to go watch movie and wanted to suggest already*
Him: Okay, so tonight this is what is going to happen.
Me: Huh? Okay.. *hear and see first*
Him: After work, you go back to your house and change and then we go hiking/running at Botanical Garden, then we go Adventist Hospital to visit Adrian and Caren, then back to my house to plan our room's lighting all.
Me: Errr, okay.. G!

It looks like the 'buy sport shoes for me' thing is a trap! A trap to ask me go exercise because now I cannot say no. If I really say no, he will most likely end up not talking to me one whole day because the deal is sealed.

To be fair, he did mentioned it that time when he pay for the shoes that all he wants in return for this shoe is for both of us to exercise together, but I really thought he was joking and he will like forget about it, but nope. Not even close.

Now that I'm documenting this, it's slowly to grow on me that this is pretty sweet la. In one of our pre-marital counselling session, he did mentioned that one of his expectation and things he really enjoy doing with me is exercise time.

We used to play floorball together, okay maybe not like together-gether kind, but we would sweat together (sort of) until I decided to end my floorball chapter due to health and laziness reasons. Heh.

I guess we will be venturing more into hiking because that's for sure one thing that we both love.

Love you, Mut.

Bye now. 

Randomly Done.

This time last year, I posted up a post on my childhood photos and here I am posting up on this year's birthday celebration on Facebook.

So chun timing.

I have like about 2,000 photos from the recent Korea trip with my family, and I am obviously not going to post all of them up here so I am going to need more time to see through all the photos and figure out how I am going to write this post. 

Just so many things I want to say you know. Heh. 

Anyways, I am so looking forward to the next holiday trip: camping!

THIS IS GOING TO BE SUPER FUN!

:)

Wedding Update 12: Pre-Wedding Photoshoot Gone Bad.

I posted a photo on Instagram not too long ago with a caption that says something in line with My Dream Wedding and being very disappointed after the 2-hours long meeting.

Here is the whole story.

To tell you what happened, I have to start from the beginning so bear with me. It's really not that long of a story/drama. Heh.

Why My Dream Wedding?

That is the million dollar question that at times I almost want to feel like I regretted making this decision. Seriously.

The main reason to why we decided taking My Dream Wedding is that we love all the hipster-ish/rustic-ish/unique-ish feeling of all the photos that we saw during the wedding fair at Gurney Paragon. One particular venue that we saw was located in KL, and at that time they did not reveal to us where this specific venue is located (fearing we may hire photographer and go there ourselves).

The location is basically a museum (we found out on the meeting day with the KL team) that stores old and abandoned planes, where people may go into the plane and take photos.

It's called RMAF Museum, stands for Royal Malaysian Air Force Museum, and yes, we really were looking forward to taking lots of shots here because it's really unique kind of a place (for us la).

The other place that looks good for us is Ulu Yam, Batang Kali. It gives the lake-ish feel and they also have waterfalls so two wins.

We thought since everyone we knew has done their photo-shoot in Penang and all pretty much looks the same, we might as well go down to KL to do it, considering that both places that we love is there.

So, we make all the necessary arrangements and took annual leaves to make this happen. Please bear in mind that annual leaves for me are very precious because they are not enough so I always make sure it is well spent. Heh.

Three days of annual leaves is a lot by the way. HUGE SACRIFICE if I may put it that way.

We went down on Saturday morning and met with the photographer on Sunday morning.

It was at that time only he told us that RMAF Museum is closed for good and that they are in the process of relocating to Malacca. We were shocked to the core. Apparently they found out about this a month ago, yet we did not receive any phone calls to this news.

Bennie, our contact person for My Dream Wedding knew from the start that RMAF Museum is the main place and reason we went down to KL, and yet no updates from them.

I think that time, my head was on fire but everyone could not see it. They probably felt the heat though.

We took many deep breaths, and brainstormed for similar places to do the photo-shoot because we didn't want to "waste" this trip and my precious annual leave. Oh wait, when I say "we brainstormed", the "we" in this equation is Koay, Vanessa and myself.

We googled for abandoned tracks & planes or old unwanted buildings. We asked if they have any idea of these kind of places but seems like they do not know much of KL places. They didn't seem to know how to google as well if I may be direct.

WE DID EVERYTHING FOR THEM.

I proposed Sekinchan, but photographer turned it down saying that it's now not the "brown" season. Almost 80% of the places that we suggested, they had an excuse why cannot work. I understand Sekinchan now is not the brown-ish season, but can't we do the green season style instead at the same place?

Anyways, the locations that they suggest requires at least RM200 payment. No thanks.

After all the googling and communicating (another struggle because they do not speak fluent Hokkien or English), we decided to tell them that we want to have the photo-shoot in Penang instead.

They made a few phone calls and agreed to let us do it in Penang.

I walked out of the shop feeling sooooo disappointed with the whole situation. It's so frustrating that we have made it to KL, only to find out that photo-shoot cannot happen and now we have got to scrap whatever ideas that we originally have. IT SUCKS BIG TIME.

That same night, Bennie texted me with a long explanation of what happened and apologized. We do not want to make it a big thing so we decided not to like demand for things (although if we insist, we could). They gave us a free upgrade of album size, arranged for us to have the Penang photo-shoot that same week and have their Chief Photographer, Marcus to do it for us. That and we got ourselves an assistant, Boy to help us with everything else.

As much as I hated the fact that we were not able to take photos in some of these places, I believe in my core-being that God's timing is always perfect, and at that moment of all the hoo-hahs, it was difficult to remember that but my partner so patiently reminds me that His timing is and will always be perfect. There must be a reason to why things just did not work out with My Dream Wedding KL.

We had fun during our photo-shoot here in Penang, and that will on another update soon, I hope. Heh.

That's it people.

Bye now. 

Koay's Love Language #17

Him: When there's a whale, there's a way. 
Me: Huh? Whale? You mean WILL? *laughing at his incorrect pronunciation* You can some more say until so confident! HAHA!
Him: *raises eyebrow* I mean.. 
Me: STILL LAUGHING HARD.
Him: When there's a whale, there's a wave!
Me: HAHA. Not too bad for cover up. 

Wedding Update 11: Room Renovation Part 1.

Oh wow this place has been vacant for too long I see.

You guys must have been missing me here quite a lot lately. Heh.

I was on a one-week-long holiday with my family to Korea, and I obviously did not have time to update the blog because in Korea, you just gotta go all out you know. Eat non-stop, walk everywhere all the time, sleep for few hours and repeat all over. Hah. It was one of the best holiday ever.

Anyways, I thought that this time I will do a quick update on our wedding. Okay, not really about wedding, but more to marriage-related. Heh.

Here goes.

One of the most frequently asked question from people is this.

Where are you both going to stay?

The answer is where he and his mom is currently staying at. His house. No, we are not getting a new place because we don't have the money to get a house now and we are still waiting for house prices to go down. Heh. Mainly because money not enough.

So, it's not so much of a life-changing aspect for him because he is already living there. The only difference is that he will have a roommate in 4-months time till the end of his life (hah) and we will also not stay in his current room, because it is way too small for the both of us.

For me, it is going to be one of the biggest change that I will have to deal with. Not to say that I'm unhappy about it but I am sad to leave my parents and stay at a new place, with a someone, since I've been having my own room and loving the 'loneliness' for so many years.

I don't know how emotional I will get but I will sure have homesickness. Confirm.

Anyways, we will be using the master-bedroom because it it the only room in the house that can fit two human beings (with all our loads) in there. Apparently, he needs way more storage than me. I THINK HE EVEN HAS MORE CLOTHES THAN ME. So girl this boy I cannot.

Initially, we planned to do a simple renovation to beautify and fix the place because we really do not have that kind of money to do a wedding and renovate a room, but somehow along the line, the renovation seems to expand little by little.

It just seems like we needed more power sockets, a brand new water closet (it's also called toilet bowl), a brand new sink, an air-conditiner, lightings and a new window frame and many more items that we thought we could re-use but cannot.

We also had to get people to come in and get rid of all the in-built cupboards so that we may have more space. That is also another cost already.

Recently, we made a purchase of a set of bedroom items at the price of about RM4,000, consisting of a dresser that comes with a huge mirror, a queen-sized wooden platform bed with side tables and a mirrored door cupboard at the Home Dec Fair.

We thought that it's quite a bargain since it costs us less than RM5,000 for all three main items.

Moolahs really drying up quick I tell you.

I'll just share some of the photos from the beginning and now. The room is not done yet, though from the look of it, it should be anytime soon.

Oh we also have the whole house re-painted so yeah. Living room, dining room and all the rooms. We would like to renovate the general toilet but if we do that, we would probably go into debt before we start a life together. Hah. So, that shall wait till the piggy-bank fills up.

We really cannot wait to see the end product.

Our master bedroom is not big so now what we want to do is to come out with things that could make it look bigger, like mirrors and stuff. Actually all we know is to put mirrors only. We don't have any other ideas so if you know, please let us know!

Okay, so here's a list of the things that has been done so far. I'm not too sure if it's according to the timeline but yeah who cares as long as it's done.

• Replaced the window frames for all rooms (including the kitchen, living room and dining room). 
• Removed existing toilet bowl and sinks.
• Removed bathroom wall and floor tiles. This one is probably the hardest tiles they had to grilled into because the tiles just wouldn't come out. This took a few days for just a small bathroom. 
• Took out two huge in-built-wooden cabinets on both side of walls. Termites have eaten probably like a quarter of these cupboards internally already so removing them was not too  difficult. 
• Bathroom wall and floor tiles is up and done. We went for a grey-ish look. I LOVE GREY SO MUCH YOU HAVE NO IDEA. I think he had started liking grey a lot too. Thank you Google for all the amazing grey photos for rooms. Heh. 
• Toilet bowl is installed and working fine. 
• Sink is also installed and working just as fine.
• Painted a few layers of white paint all over the walls in the house. It took us few days to decide on the color of our bedroom because we could not agree on the same color. So, we googled for more samples and finally agreed to two tones. 
• We went to a shop that has a few brands for toilet items along Greenlane, and ordered a sink and a toilet bowl for the bathroom. Total damage: RM900. 
• Drew Xs on the wall where we would like to have more power sockets (RM80 for each).
• Windows grill had been installed. We decided to use the old ones because it is too expensive to change to a new one. I guess we just ahd to re-paint them and it'll look brand new. After all, we are going to put curtains over them anyways. Heh. 
• Two chosen tones were already painted in the room. 
• All bedroom doors are painted grey already. 

So yes that is all for now. 

Bye now.