Wedding Wednesday: About our Honeymoon

I don't think I ever mentioned where we'd like to spend our honeymoon, so here is a whole post dedicated exclusively to our honeymoon plans! I didn't really know what to talk about today and I asked you guys on my instagram what you'd like me to write, and I got a nice comment suggesting honeymoon, so here it is. 

Now, before I tell you about what we have in mind, let's talk about honeymoon per se. I think honeymoon is not what it used to be some years ago, for my parents generation, let's say. Why do I think this? Well, I don't know about your parents, but mine had never really traveled together until their honeymoon, so it was a HUGE thing. Jeff and I, as most of the couples our age, have traveled together many many times and to gorgeous places that could perfectly be a honeymoon destination, like our trip to Thailand some months ago. Because of this reason, I think planning the honeymoon is now more difficult than it has never been, and this trend has obviously just begun. People travel more and to more remote locations, making it difficult to choose a honeymoon trip, which is supposed to be the grandest and bestest trip of your life!

With this scenario I personally could only think of two kind of trips that fulfilled the grandeur requirements: 1. A round-the-world tour 2. A water villa in Maldives / Seychelles / French Polynesia, etc.

So... yes, we decided we'd like to go to the Maldives for a week and pamper ourselves in a water villa!!! We've never done this before so it looks special enough for it to be our honeymoon :) J has been wanting to go to Maldives since forever, so I think we both are really going to enjoy this trip! {Now, with this being said I know a lot of people who have been there without it being their honeymoon, and I'd really like to ask them what they did they do for their honeymoon then??}

The timing of our honeymoon is going to be a bit special because it won't be right after our wedding, and this for several reasons. First of all, as I mentioned several times, we're getting married in Catalonia on the 6th of October, but we're having a wedding reception in Hong Kong on the 29th of December, and it seemed just wrong to go on honeymoon before celebrating with our Hong Kong family and friends. Right after our Hong Kong wedding, we'll be going on a Thailand trip for 10 days with my parents, brother and uncles who will be in Hong Kong for the reception. At the end of January is already Chinese New Year, which we have to spend with our family, and this year so even more given that it will be our first year as a married couple. So... all this brings us to mid-February... which is why optimally we'll be going on our honeymoon at the end of February or beginning of March! :) That's 5 months after our October wedding, but it really seems like the best time, so I don't mind waiting! We'll have plenty of things to do in between. Besides, weather-wise it turns out February and March are the best months to travel to Maldives, woohoo!

I'd really like to know your opinion on honeymoon nowadays. Do you believe, as I do, that it's becoming increasingly difficult to find the perfect destination?

Picture via Elegant Maldives

Afternoon Tea at Tea Saloon by Another Fine Day

Tucked in the mid-levels is the cozy Tea Saloon by Another Fine Day. Its decor is so girly, it was love at first sight for me! I visited with my friend Connie and her boyfriend, so we had a three-people high tea set. Interestingly, Tea Saloon offers a Ladies set, with more sweets, and a Gentlemen Set, with more savories. It's goes without saying that it's not a must to choose the set according to your gender, but we still did, so the set on my pictures consists of two ladies sets and one gentleman set. 

The whole ambience reminded me of The Tea Room by Antique Patisserie, which is one of my favorite places for high tea in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, I'd say the food was not as good as in Antique Patisserie. This added to the fact that the afternoon tea set for two at Tea Saloon by Another Fine Day costs a pricey HK$498 + 10% service charge, left me thinking that this set was not really worth it. 

The tea menu was good and complete, and I went for the Vanilla Rooibos which was delicious and allowed me to sleep well at night!

I'm not sure I'd come back to this place for afternoon tea. It's really pricey for what it has to offer, for a similar price (cheaper, actually!) I'd rather go to Antique Patisserie, the Shangri-la, or the Mandarin Oriental. They are cheaper, serve better food, the ambience is just as nice, and they are easier to find! Tea Saloon by Another Fine Day is really way too up in the mid-levels, we had to get a cab from Central to get there, how annoying!

Visited on: August 15, 2013

Overall Quality: 3.5*

Price: HK$498 + 10% service charge for a tea set for two, HK$288 + 10% for a tea set for one

Value for Money: 2.5*

Would I recommend it? Probably not.

Tea Saloon by Another Fine Day 

G/F, 80-82 Peel Street, Mid-Levels, Hong Kong

Closed on Monday

Wedding Wednesday: Our Cartier Wedding Rings

Back in January in another of my Wedding Wednesday posts I already told you that we decided on our wedding bands. Some weeks after writing that post, J and I went to actually buy our wedding rings :) And... today I want to show them to you! We chose the Classic Wedding Bands from Cartier in pink gold. 

Mine has a tiny diamond and is slightly thinner than J's, otherwise the bands are the same. We really wanted our wedding rings to be matched, and we are oh-so-happy with our choice! Both J and I can't wait to wear them! 

For those of you who are already married, what do your wedding bands look like? Are yours and your husband's one and the same or you went for mismatched rings?

Giveaway! Amika: hairdo bar - CLOSED

Hi girls! Read carefully because you're gonna loooove the giveaway I've prepared for you today. On Tuesday this week I visited Amika: hairdo bar, which just landed in Hong Kong straight from New York City. Amika doesn't cut or color your hair like other hair salons, they specialize in styling your hair with blowouts and  updos. They have their own product range and use their own products exclusively, which is pretty awesome! I loved the pleasant fragrance of the products, simply irresistible! 

Amika offers three different kinds of services: blowout, updo or styling. The updos are priced at HK$550, the blowouts at HK$280and the styling at HK$180. Styling is basically a blowout without hair wash, but using dry shampoo instead. The updos don't include hair wash either, since it's apparently better if hair was washed a day earlier for the updo to hold firm. 

There's a menu with 4 different styles for each of the categories, but you can actually tell your stylist what you'd like best and she will happily make some adjustments to the original style for you. You can drink champagne, smoothies or water while flipping through fashion magazines during the hairstyling process, great!

And... here comes THE GIVEAWAY! I got THREE free blowouts to share with you girls! Each coupon entitles its owner to a free blowout at Amika: hairdo bar, priced at HK$280, including hair wash, blowout and drinks! Amika is located in 8 Elgin Street, SoHo.

Here are the steps to enter the giveaway, good luck!

1. LIKE Amika: hairdo bar on Facebook here.

2. LIKE my Facebook page here.

3. Send me a private message on my Facebook page with your email.

Easy, right? :) This giveaway is open to girls in Hong Kong only, and will end on Tuesday the 20th of August at 9.00 PM. The winners will be selected randomly. I'll publish the winners on this same post, as well as on my Facebook page, and I'll notify them personally by email. Best of luck!!!

The winners of the giveaway are: 1. Sara Main 2. Jennifer Daley 3. Laura EleaEfe 

CONGRATS!

Haters gonna hate

Guess what, I caused a stir on the net! Yes, you can now find a 9-page long and counting thread on forum site puahate.com about me and my relationship, featuring more than 30 pictures of myself and statements of opinion from all the members about my relationship, including bets on my divorce date and speculation about my romance with FC Barcelona's central defender Gerard Piqué. The threat is called Rate this Caucasian girl and her Asian fiance and you can read the whole thing by clicking here.

Everyone in the forum seems to agree J is a Hong Kong billionaire beta-providing for me for the rest of my life. Most of them even congratulated me on being such a clever girl for tying the knot with this rich Asian to secure a nice life ahead. Well, thank you, I also think J is a catch!

Now read carefully below!

Thank you for the praise on my pics. I try to have very high quality images on my blog, there's life after the mobile phone's camera! Something called DSLR... Wonder if you've ever heard of it. Oh, there's another software you may want to look into, it's called photoshop, for the lighting and stuff.

1. I never said my online store wasn't gonna be a job. There's more to work than doing it for someone else. I'm an entrepreneur happily devoting myself to my own project.

2. Could you read my sentence again? I said my store was launched a week ago, not that it took a week to launch it! There were several months of preparation for that to happen...

3. It's a casual book with lots of pics that will sell better than any boring academic stuff.

Oh, you again, hi there. Try 4. She will make four babies with him (yes, that's our plan) and live together happily ever after. We've even been stroller shopping!

Yes, it is :) J and I met in university five years ago. We were just friends in the beginning, although I had always secretly had a crush on him, and finally started going out together in senior year, three years ago. He's the most gorgeous guy I've ever seen (besides being the most caring and loving as well), one of my favorite parts from his body being zero chest hair. Eeeww to all those hairy caucasians out there! I would be more than happy if our babies were to look like J, wasn't he the most adorable thing? *o*

J is a billionaire! Woohoo! At least according to these guys below, who have known him for his whole life:

Now how awesome is my billionaire life?!

Wedding Wednesday: Our pre-wedding pics! (V/V)

Yes... alas, this is the last session of our pre-wedding pics! Awwww I loved sharing each of them with you and I'm kinda sad it's over! Well, cheer up, my Wedding Wednesday posts will continue as usual, and you'll get to read about other stuff from our wedding besides our pre-wedding pics which have occupied my blog for 5 weeks!

These were the last pics we took on that frantic 18 of May in which we took pics from 8AM until 11PM. So yes, we were basically exhausted by the time it was time for this last session. We still managed to do our best and keep on smiling, because we truly enjoyed the whole thing and this is once in a lifetime!

Which was your favorite out of all the 5 sessions? You can take a look at all of them again by clicking here. And to narrow it down even more, which was your favorite picture??

I loved how big the train of this dress was. With my crown and this big necklace I basically felt like Sissi the Empress of Austria :D

I hope you enjoyed taking a look at our pre-wedding pics as much as I loved sharing them with you. As I said in other posts, this is just a small selection, but those who attend our wedding will be able to see the whole thing. I'm so looking forward! Only 53 days to go!!!

The Joy of Baking

You may have noticed that all sorts of homemade cakes have invaded my facebook page and my instagram account this past week. You may have thought I was in a crazy sweet tooth frenzy... Well, don't worry, what happened is I got a new oven! The oven I had before was way too small to bake any cakes in it, so I've been so excited this last ten days with my new oven, I've made five different kinds of cakes.

The first thing I baked were these cute vanilla cupcakes. I used the Vanilla Cupcakes recipe from BBC. They were very easy to make and I was really pleased with the result! I used one single drop of red coloring on the buttercream icing to get the pink. Then I made some hearts with fabric tape for the perfect girlie touch.

My second creation were these AMAZING brownies. This was my favorite cake out of the 5 I made this week. You need to know that I was totally obsessed with Mrs. Fields brownies until the second I got these brownies above into my mouth. They are the MOST DELICIOUS brownies EVER EVER EVER! I used Good Food's Best-ever brownies recipe, and all I can say is there couldn't be a better name for this recipe! DEFINITELY best-ever brownies! I totally recommend you try this out.

Thirdly, I baked some more vanilla cupcakes using the same recipe as for the first ones. I basically just wanted to try new cupcake decorations here, because I bought these silver sugar pearls and these pink chocolate blossoms and couldn't wait to use them! I think this pink chocolate is so pretty, it's perfect for romantic cakes.

My fourth creation was a Green Tea Pound Cake! I used too little quantity for my big cake mold so I ended up with a super low cake, but it was still yummy! This is a cake I'm looking forward to make again at the right height. You know my weakness for green tea! I used Food.com Green Tea Pound Cake recipe.

Finally, I made a cake for J mom's birthday on the 8th of August. Today the 11th of August is my own mom's birthday, I sooo wish I could bake a cake for her too :( {Yes, J's mom is only 3 days older than my mom, they're both from the same year!}

This cake was a Jasmine tea cake with white chocolate ganache. I made cake from a jasmine tea cake pre-mix, and the white ganache from Food.com's recipe.

I hope you enjoyed seeing what I've been up to these last few days when I wasn't busy with my online shop Frill Me :)