An Overdue Note

To all my friends who attended our wedding reception on the 28th of Dec 2008, my humble apology for this long overdue thank you note, my wife and I hope you all have had a wonderful time and enjoyed as much as we do.

I feel extremely lucky to have you all as our witnesses, not just for celebrating this meaningful and memorable day with us but also for supporting us along our love journey over the years.


Special thanks to
Chong Weng: you pretty much single-handedly managed and coordinated our reception, you are my best friend, my brother;
Lip Chean: you helped us so much in confirming attending guests and tirelessly making those millions of phone calls;
Chai Ling: you took up such an important role as our MC and you performed outstandingly, the night wouldn't be as smooth without you;

And of course to all the 'brothers and sisters' for the morning, we couldn't do it without you all:
Cheah Seng, Jian Hao, Kah Hoong, Charmaine, Nicole, Pei Yik, Alice, Hannie.

Lastly,
Thank you dad and mum for raising me and giving me such a wonderful life.
Thank you Fui Yin's dad and mum for raising her and giving me such lovely wife.

To Fui Yin, you're my friend, my lover, and now my wife, thanks for sticking around for all the years, I love you so much.

ROM 19 October 2008 -- Wedding Speech

"Good afternoon ladies and gentleman, our beloved families, our amazing friends and fellow colleagues. First of all, thank you to all of you, we are extremely pleased by your effort to attend our wedding today. We are very grateful to have you all here celebrating this wonderful and most memorable day with us.  A few special thank you notes: to Mr. Leong Ung Tiong, who flew from Adelaide arriving yesterday; to Mr. Greg Li and his partner Ms. Wei Jia Wang, who flew all the way from Singapore; to Mr. Danny Chiu who somehow managed to make it to our wedding today despite all the obstacles; to Mr. Jia Kai Hon, our close friend for over 12 years, and our dedicated videographer for the day; to Ms. Wei Wei Lee, who is this wonderful lady sitting next to my wife, for providing a great pair of helping hands throughout; and of course, our great friend, our emcee for this afternoon, Mr. Jason Goh, who has done a tremendous job so far, and we are sure he will keep up the good work.

Today, the 19th of October 2008, marks day number 3947 since Fui Yin and I first dated. In a different format, we have been together for 10 years 9 months and 20 days. We will like to take this opportunity to recap our love story. We met each other for the first time in 1994, at that time we were only high school classmates. We were then classmates for another 2 different years, but we had never spoken to each other for more than 10 occasions all together, largely because we mixed with completely different groups of friend.

Until 1997, during our year end class trip, by luck, by chance, or by faith, I ended up sitting next to Fui Yin on our return bus trip. For the first time we looked into each other’s eyes, we smiled at each other, and we talked through the whole bus trip. I could feel something different. I felt I wanted more from this lady, somehow.

We started seeing each other few weeks after arriving home, with our first successful date on the 30th of December, which is a date that we then celebrate annually. Fui Yin was not easy to please, but somehow I managed to hit the right button most of the times, as opposed to my mates mentioned earlier. I handmade her artificial flowers, I made her hundreds of lucky stars using coloured paper strips and sat them in jars, I sang her love songs.  We officially became couple, and it has since been a long and exciting journey. We certainly had our ups and downs, laughter and tears, joy and sorrow. There were even 2 years that we were physically separated when Fui Yin started her career in Malaysia while I was just commencing mine in Melbourne. But most importantly we are still holding on to each other strongly, with passion, with trust, with love.

Today is a milestone for both of us. While we have been together for 3947 days, it is day number 1 we become husband and wife. We know that we will only hold together stronger than ever. We know we have already found the love of our lives.

I will like to thank my parents, Mr. and Mrs. Lee, for bringing me to this world, raising me up, and weathering me through different storms. Dad and mum, I love you. And I certainly like to thank Fui Yin’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Yap, for bringing me this wonderful, lovely wife, you guys have done a fantastic job. Many thanks to my new sister in law Rachel and her husband Shaun who have provided so much of help along the way.

Fui Yin: I will like to thank my parents for bringing me to this world, looking after me, taking good care of me; I love you. I am sure Sang Yee will take over very well. And I thank Sang Yee’s parents for bringing me this great husband, you guys have raised him so well. I thank my sister Rachel and my brother-in-law Shaun for all the help all these times.

And before you all, we promise that we will love each other for the rest of our lives, we look forward to this new chapter of our lives. Once again, thanks to all of you, please enjoy the rest of the afternoon."

P.S. For our wedding photos, please visit http://picasaweb.google.com/leesangyee/ROMInMelbourne19102008#

The beginning of another journey, together.

It was a very special day.

27th of December 2007. It would be 3 day before our 10th anniversary.

It had been an emotional and stressful preparation, but it all paid off.

Six months of searching and planning, eventually everything came into places accordingly, thank god.

We arrived Nadi, Fiji on the 25th of December from Sydney, and we began our stay at Musket Cove Island Resort located on Malolo Lailai Island.

She might know something was going to happen, but I was confident that, as long as everything happened accordingly, it would be a big surprise for her. I mean, a huge surprise.

I was meant to meet up Gloria on my day of arrival, but she was busy whole day for someone else’s wedding. It really stressed me out a lot not able to discuss things in details with her on the first day. Even more stressful, I had to act normal all along.

27th of December 2007. I was supposed to bring her for dinner at the jetty. Weather was good, thank god again. We were both not too lethargic after a day of activities. As planned, we arrived the jetty around quarter to six. After some photo shooting, we sat down and were served by the lovely staffs for drinks and soups. We brought our buffet dinner from the serving area back to the jetty. It was a lovely evening. The jetty was well decorated and we were all alone there. Singings of the Fijian performers at the restaurant were soothing.

We took lots more shoots at the jetty. Wind was blowing in rhythms.

But it started raining. Oh god, it stressed me out even further! Why now!

Thank god, he must had realized he fooled me enough, he decided to just have a short and light shower over this wonderful island.

A staff came over and invited us to the evening Fijian traditional dance for tonight’s theme - ‘Pig on the Spit’. It was supposed to happen at the beach but due to the rain, the venue was changed to the lounge of the restaurant. Its the Dick’s Place.

We sat at the second row among the crowd. I saw Gloria. I knew she was wishing me luck. And acting normal had been my skill of the day. She did not seem to suspect anything. Not anymore at least, as there was nothing happening during our romantic dinner at the jetty. It was all part of the plan.

She enjoyed the show, of course with my added humor during it. Before the end of the show we even joined the last dance with the performers and the crowd. It was awesome.

We were invited back to our seats. The dancers came back to the stage and announced that the dance had finished. “But tonight was a special night”, said the lead performer, “We are going to end tonight differently, a way we have never done before.”

The lead performer invited ‘this lady in the pink dress’ to the stage. She was wearing a gorgeous pink dress with pearl necklace and pinkish flower hair clip. She was absolutely stunning.

While she was walking to the front with her back facing me, I was handed the bunch of flowers by Gloria. I was nervous. Very nervous, but the excitement was intense. I quickly pulled out the cute blue box, within sitting my shinny engagement ring from the tri-port carrying bag. I walked to the side and hide behind a Christmas tree.

The dancer showed her the banner with words as such:

“Fui Yin, Will You Marry Me?”

I walked towards her with the flowers, ring, and my sincerity.

I kneeled down and handed her the flowers, pulling the strings off the box and revealing the sparkling diamond ring within.

I saw her expression. I caught her this time. She was completely surprised. She was very happy, I could feel it.

I asked her: “Will you marry me?”.

She was speechless. The crowd went frenzy. All I could hear was applause and “Oh My God!”.

She waited awhile, and she nodded, with a big smile.

It was one of the best day in my life.

I stood up and kissed her on the lips. Everyone clapped again, this time with cheers.

We could feel the warmness from the crowd. They were part of this whole thing, they actually infused me with some ‘no turning back’ power. I felt, somehow, that I owed them something.

We were both heavily greeted by different guests from the resort. They all wished us forever lasting marriage and congratulated us.

Gloria stepped forward and congratulated us too. No hesitation, I hugged her. Without her, this would not have happened. She helped me so much in the planning. The once in a life time planning. She even gave us a complimentary Champagne!

Despite the very minor hiccups, everything was a success.

But my success in life is, I have Fui Yin as my most beloved future wife.

I love you, Fui Yin. And I will love you for the rest of my life.

15 Things It Took Me Over 50 Years To Learn

By Dave Barry…

1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved and never will achieve its full potential, that word would be “meetings.”
3. There is a very fine line between “hobby” and “mental illness.”
4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
5. You should not confuse your career with your life.
6. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.
7. Never lick a steak knife.
8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.
9. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.
10. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she’s pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
11. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.
12. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.
13. A person who is nice to you but rude to a waiter is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)
14. Your friends love you anyway.
15. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the TItanic.

Home

My new home.

The home that belongs to Fui Yin and I, it appeared in front of me that it has been completed, construction wise. I sense something inside me. Something that I have never felt before in mixture. Responsibilities, sense of secure, sense of success (to an extent), a milestone of our lives, a reward of hard work, accomplishment of a goal. What a rush of feeling, trust me it is not easy to handle, at least for that brief moment.

I can't thank you enough dad and mum for all the education and emotional support that you have provided me along the way, this is something that you could be proud of, out of my limited achievement till this stage of my life. You have been the only pair that always pull me up instead of holding me back, and I feel lucky to be out of your genomes.

Dad and mum, I assure you I will make you proud again. And again. And again.

漫画在线

http://cnc.finaleden.com/
Online manga of chinese translation. Loading speed varies with connection speed, and its free, so don't complain!

End of relaxing journey

For those whom I have not met during my time returned to Kuala Lumpur, I hereby apologise as there are too much to do during this short vacation. I hope you guys are enjoying what you are doing, and I miss you all.

For the very minority whom I have personally met and chatted with, I greatly appreciate your time spent with me as I know at this stage of our lives we are all busy with different commitment. Special thanks to Nigel Goh who shared so much of his life story with me. And I am certainly thankful for Dr. Kam Ji-Yen for bringing himself and his 33-week pregnant wife for a memorable catch-up.

To my mom and dad, I regret that I could not hang around during the special parents' days. I love you all, and do look after yourself while I am away.

It has been a great 2.5 weeks. And it is simply too short.