princesszhing

when we visited nagoya for a day trip last march, yoshihito was extremely excited to share with us that he was engaged to this beautiful girl. he was very excited when speaking about her and their wedding. you know? there is just this special spark in a guy's eyes? i find that super endearing.

anyway, we were sure wine was an amazing girl even without meeting her. but boy was she a stunning bride! she is one of the most calm and lovely bride ever! even on her wedding day, amidst the craziness, she recognised us from our pictures and warmly welcomed us before we were formally introduced!! her name is actually wanying but the japanese shortens it to "wine" (like the drink..) and my name becomes something like "jin". kinda funny!


she had a really poofy princessy gown, complete with a tiara and everything! she was absolutely glowing with radiance!

anyway, what makes wine SUPER special is her mastery of languages! she is from ha-er-bin, china so needles to say, her chinese is impeccable. she speaks japanese as a first language and her english is as good as any of us! amazing!!! she was switching in between languages at a snap of finger!! i was floored and a little ashamed of my half-arsed mandarin skills.


daniel sweating over his speech in japanese..


the couple at their head table onlooking the entire ballroom! it must be quite uncomfortable to be sitting on the stage with everyone watching you stuff your face!! (for that reason, we're axeing the "head table" concept at ours.. we're just gonna eat heartily with our friends!!)


in their japanese fineries making their speeches! very big on their dramatic follow on spot, eh!

wine told us the next day the head piece was super heavy!! i especially loved her dangley headpiece on her left side. it was twinkling at me from afar!


dad making his very touching speech! see those lifesize bears in the arms of the mummies? they're super heavy, like the weight of a real-life child! i bet it symbolises something good!

anyway, midway thought dinner, the planner in my brain started working. "hmm... odd! where is the official wedding planning?" i asked him. but he was still fussing over his speech so we left it as that. a few days after the wedding, we got an email from them asking for all the pictures that we have of the wedding because there had been a mess up and no photographer was hired! *gasp* yikes! plus we were too busy running around eating sashimi from their live sushi bar and catching up with cousins that we weren't as diligent with our cameras.. oops.. what a shame!!


babycakes and his muscular cousin.


hello long eyelashes! i got them from misha for $4! they're extremely long and catlike at the tail-end!!


a beautifully wrapped orange chiffon, part of our huge bag of goodies to take home! there was a CD, japanese picture frames, toys and a personal notecard for each guest! thoughtful! :)


us and the couple!

congrats guys! many blissful years ahead with many many beautiful children! we cant wait to see you next year!! :)

princesszhing

in our super short trip to japan, we squeeze in a mini-cation to west coast to visit family in kanazawa! it was even more special and important to make that trip because daniel wanted to show me around the little town that he spent a year of him life teaching. i've heard so many cute stories of kanazawa from him it felt like i already knew it very well! and boy did kanazawa live up to its stories! :)

we were received with a flurry of hugs by mum at the train station who insisted on taking us to her favorite sushi bar for our fix! man i has been a good 7 months since we had good sushi!! yum yum!! then she chauffered us to kenrouku-en, one of the three great gardens of japan(along with Kairaku-en and Koraku-en).


when you wish upon a purple-berried tree...


wandering around the gardens..


pretties!! :) if they weren't as prickley i'd have rolled in them!! darling little star-shaped grass!!


the view of the park from across the pond! see those overturn ice-cream conical trees? thats for the winter! it helps take the weight of the heavy snow expected during winter so the beautiful trees don't snap!! :) i think thats SUPER smart.

AND then it started to pour. the red leaves were swirling like a little dance around the park, the duckies all huddled close in a pack and we stood in the middle of it all, under our FLIMSY brolly taking it all in. frankly, we got pretty wet and mum freaked out a little (catch a cold and motherly stuff like that..) but it was so beautiful to miss!! in 10 mins, the rain cleared up with even blue-er skies and a generous rainbow over the entire city. tres beautiful! it made all the travel worth every minute and penny! :)

then we hopped back into the toasty car and took a drive around the city in search for daniel's little apartment & school... spotted, not-so-lonely boy back in his upper-east side hood (not really.. but it sounded right.)


ohioguzimus!! this pikkie is very sartorialist-esque, no? all daniel needed was a push-bike, an armani suit and no-sock loafers!


and came home to this little munchkin! his name is apple tree - natsuki!

and he loves melon, grilled meat, card games and competition! even though we were dripping wet and gross from travel, he had us wrapped around his little finger and played games with him for ONE whole hour!! he was extremely taken by daniel's less than swish card skills and this short hair. the games ended with him hysterically climbing onto daniel chanting, "she's no. 1 (ME!), im no. 2, grammy is no.3 and you're no. 4!!!" and "your hair is like a brush".


checking into our little bedroom, where daniel (and 30 other young boys..) stayed on their exchange.. it was really neat with a roof top view and many vintage globes!! i wanted one of those so so badly we went scouting around town the next day!


amie-chan is super sweet and cute!! she's second brother's fiancee and they were getting married the next day!!


one more of natsuki at bedtime!! he was keen to negotiate a longer TV time with spongebob..

early next morning, we loaded onto the train back to nagoya. we'll be back!! :)