November 13, 2013

Wedding Wednesday: My wedding: Getting ready!



The morning of my wedding was way too short. I didn't have enough time! Yes, I admit it, I was late to my own wedding! My wedding invitation stated very clearly the time of the ceremony: 13:30. But at 2pm I was still getting ready! OMG! I literally lost track of time,  enjoying myself getting pampered by the hairstylist, laughing with my amazing bridesmaids, and just being the happiest girl.

My absolutely gorgeous dress!!! Although my favorite part is the back <3

Details! My wedding shoes, my wedding bouquet, and my bridesmaids' bouquet

Mom getting everything ready!

My BFF, bridesmaid and make-up artist Soraya, at work! :D

Truth be told, we were already behind schedule from the very beginning. We told the photographers and the hairstylists we would be arriving to the wedding venue at 9:30AM, except that for one reason or another {and important one being my mom who was driving the car was so nervous she got lost}, we ended up getting there at 10:15AM. Thumbs up for the brides who wake up at 6AM on their wedding day, I certainly wasn't one of them! The night before I slept like a baby and woke up at 8:30AM fresh as a rose. So off we went, my mom, my bridesmaid Connie who came all the way from Hong Kong for my big day, and myself, to La Garriga de Castelladral, where our wedding was held. Today's pics are what happened in the Suite of the hotel, where I got myself ready for the most important occasion of my life, surrounded by the best friends and family one could ever wish for. 




My lovely family

Mom was obviously in love with my dress, such a happy face! ^^

As i said, we arrived at 10:15AM and the photographers, video man, and stylists were already waiting for us. I still had to shower, so I did so and afterwards the hairstylist dried my hair and curled it a bit. Then, like this and without any makeup, the photographers, the camera man and I hopped on a car and off we went to a nearby old house with the most perfect swing in the middle of the woods, where I enjoyed myself like a baby taking pictures all dressed in white {not the wedding dress!} with white... WINGS! Yes, I had wings! I felt just like Tinkerbell or some other lovely fairy. This idea was all Noemi Jariod's, who was my wedding photographer. She is such a talented artist, I'm so glad she was the one to immortalise my wedding, as you will see, she did an excellent job. Anyway, you won't be able to see the pics on the swing today, I leave those for another day. 








By the time I got back from the abandoned house it was already noon, OMG, what?!? I even spotted three of my bridesmaids in the car park! I had asked them {except Connie and Soraya who were there with me from the very beginning} to come at noon, and now there they were, and I still had EVERYTHING to do! Make-up, hair... Jeez! I still don't understand how I managed to stay so calm with this tight schedule. By 1PM I peered through the window and realized almost everyone was already there! But I was far from done, I didn't go down the aisle until 2:15PM! And had it been for me, it would have been at 4PM haha. About the window, yes, there is an awesome window in the bathroom of the suite, you can see the whole ceremony venue and spy on everyone, but no one can see you! I had little time for spying though, busy as I was!

Herman, J's best friend came to the room to give me my beautiful wedding bouquet. It is a tradition that the brother or best friend of the groom brings the bouquet to the bride, with a special message from the groom, who is dying to see the bride but can't see her until the wedding ceremony :p
Today's pics are all about what happened at the suite while I got my makeup and my hair done, put on my dress, and was blessed with my beautiful and helpful bridesmaids. You may not know that it is not customary in Spain to have bridesmaids, so my wedding was certainly a special one!!! When the bride is getting ready for the wedding, she is usually only accompanied by her most direct family, and no other friends are there with her. I have to say that I believe the fact that my bridesmaids were there with me really made a difference in my wedding day. I already mentioned that day, October 6th, 2013, was the happiest of my life, and my bridesmaids are some of the people who made it possible for this feeling to be so strong.


Dear Eva helped me write this cute message to J to be carried by our flower girl down the aisle... :)




You already know I wasn't really nervous for my big day, and I think my bridesmaids helped in that a lot. They made me laugh, helped me in every possible way, and filled the room with happiness. They were my stars during the whole day, they looked so gorgeous! Even as I picked the bridesmaids dresses for them, I could have never imagined my girls would make the dresses look so classy. The moment I saw them all dressed up looking like real dolls was a moment I'll never forget. They exceeded all my expectations! I have to thank my bridesmaid and BFF Soraya for convincing me to have bridesmaids. Being surrounded by your best friends in this way is a feeling words cannot describe.






Thank you girls, I couldn't have done it without you! And, of course, a big thanks to my perfect family, specially to my stunning mom, for all the effort she put on the big day of her little princess, me :) I am so blessed to have you all in my life.




November 12, 2013

Afternoon Tea at the Kowloon Shangri-La


Rumors have it the food at the Kowloon Shangri-La is not worth the visit. People say there is no comparing between the Hong Kong and the Kowloon Shangri-La, and I can see their point. You may recall my post on the Hong Kong Shangri-La high tea, which is not even remotely similar to the one served at the Kowloon Shangri-La. I didn't like much of this tea set, the sweet treats were very simple and didn't really taste good. The scones were just so-so, and the savories were also simple and disappointing. But most of all, I didn't like the fact that the tea wasn't served in the three-tier stand, but rather on trays laid on the table. I don't know if they were bragging of big table {our table is so big you don't need a stand to fit all the stuff} or what, but I just didn't like it.



J's mom joined us for afternoon tea, and even the three of us couldn't finish a tea set for two. It's true that all of us weren't that hungry, but it's also worth mentioning that would the food have been better, I would have eaten more for sure. J and his mom had lattes, and I went for the rose tea, which was nothing special either.

On the plus side, the atmosphere at the Lobby Lounge, where tea is served, is definitely nice and calm. There's some live music, during our stay it was a girl playing the harp, which is always welcome and relaxing.


Note that this tea set is only available Monday to Friday, on the weekends only the tea buffet is available, at around HK$270 + 10% service charge per person.


Visited on: November 11th, 2013
Overall rating: 3*
Price: HK$368 + 10% service charge for two
Value for Money: 2*
Would I recommend it? Not really, not my cup of tea!

Kowloon Shangri-La
The Lobby Lounge
(852) 2733 8740
64, Mody Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

November 10, 2013

The Secret to a Perfect Life


I believe perfection, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder. Yet I think we will agree if I say a perfect life is the one in which you have everything you could wish for. Today I wanted to write about how to achieve the life of your dreams because, yes, you can. Having a perfect life is something everyone can achieve. It took me long to get myself to write this article, mainly because the message within is so deep I didn't know where to start.

This Secret to a perfect life I'm referring to can be found in the movie or the book The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. This is a life-changing book, or at least it was for me. Read along and discover how to get all you ever wanted.

What is the Secret, you may be wondering. The Secret is in fact the Law of Attraction. The world is full of frequencies, through which signals like radio, wifi, tv, etc are transmitted. But it's not only machines that emit frequencies. We, humans, do as well. The Law of Attraction says that whatever you think of, you attract to yourself. Which is why the main point of the Secret is to keep thinking about what you want in order to get it. More than that, you actually need to imagine yourself already possessing that, and tune your frequency, your mood, into the one you would be feeling were you to really have the object of your desire. Say you want a brand new BMW car. What you would need to do is not praying to get it, but rather imagine you're already driving the car, feel the engine, the soft leather of the steering wheel on your hands... Or if what you want is a new partner, you'd have to live as if you already had him. By sleeping on one side of the bed instead of in the middle {to leave room for the other one!}, or just trying to feel happy as if you already had what you wanted, instead of moaning because you don't have it. The Secret says the world has enough ressources for each of us to achieve anything we want. So don't go thinking something is impossible, because it's not.

For my entire life I've been a very lucky girl, or so I thought. I used to think luck was the reason of my well being and all the good things that always happened to me. But after reading the Secret I realized I had unknowingly been applying a lot of its principles throughout my lifetime. I have always had a vivid imagination and would spend hours thinking about my awesome future, and how perfect it would be to have this or that to the point that I could feel as excited as if I already got it. And then, no doubt, I always ended up getting it. Since I've always been an optimist, the things I imagined where almost always good, thank God! On the rare occasions I kept thinking about bad outcomes too much, these ended up happening as well. It's all about how much importance you give to each of your thoughts. For the perfect  life, it is a must to get rid of negative thoughts. Anything that makes you feel bad is a negative thought, and should be avoided at all costs. You need to emit a happy frequency so that happy things can happen to you, this is the core of the Law of Attraction.

After realizing how much our mood influences the things that happen to us, if I had to give a single piece of advise to all of you, this would be it: Do not let situations affect your mood, rather make your happy mood shape what happens to you. This is what will ultimately lead you to the perfect life: being the master of your fate, by controlling how you feel and what you think. It's sad that most people do not know this and live their lives in permanent despair. If something bad happens to you, you can't let it affect your mood to the point where you go from emitting a happy frequency to emitting a sad one. In fact, this bad experience should be erased from the memory as soon as it took place, and you should never think about it again. When you enter a moody stage where you only see bad things around you, mind you, more and more bad things are bound to come around. In fact thinking about the things that you DON'T want, and asking for them NOT to come true, will actually make them come true. Because the Universe can't hear the NO in your prayers, all it can see is how much power you put into that thing. Let's put my own wedding as an example: like any other bride, I didn't want it to rain on my wedding day. But did I ever ask for it not to rain? Did I ever worry about it? The answer is never, not even once. I knew it would be a warm and sunny day and that's how I pictured it in my mind. Five days before our wedding, we went to see our caterers for the last arrangements, and the chef told us he had been so worried a couple days before, because there was a big thunderstorm forecasted for our wedding day, althought finally it seemed it would be coming a bit earlier. As soon as I heard this comment, my brain dismissed it. I hadn't checked the weather forecast not even once, and I would certainly not be worrying about any rain situation, when I knew deep inside that my wedding would be a very sunny one, because I had pictured it so many times. The funny thing is on the day after our wedding when I turned on the TV, the weather report was on. They were saying how the whole country had seen so much rain in that weekend. Well, guess what, there was not even the tiniest drop in our wedding venue!

It is of vital  importance to always make wishes in a positive form, wishing for what you want, instead of wishing for what you don't want not to happen. Mother Theresa must have known about this power. She never agreed on joining any demonstration against war, but she always said "do call me if you ever have a pro-peace demonstration, I'll be there". The "No War" message gives strength to the word war, since the Universe can't hear the No.

The way people ought to live their lives to be able to achieve happiness is by being fully aware of their thoughts and  never letting bad situations affect their mood. Only by keeping a permanent state of happiness and optimism, in other words, transmiting LOVE and being thankful for what we have, will we surround ourselves with more love and favorable outcomes. In fact, it is not until another of Rhonda Byrne's books, The Power, that she finally states that the Secret is ultimately all about love and gratitude. Since the Law of Attraction says you bring to yourself what you think about, it's only by having loving and thankful thoughts that we will attract more good things to us.

Ask for what you want, believe that you already have it, and you will receive it. Ask. Believe. Receive. And remember, keep yourself in a happy mood, being thankful and loving those around you, for by the Law of Attraction, what you wish to others is what is bound to come back to you.

If you want start living the life of your dreams, go ahead and read The Secret, The Power, and The Magic, all by Rhonda Byrne, and then apply that knowledge to your daily life. You will be amazed by what life can be like!


November 6, 2013

Wedding Wednesday: Happy first month of marriage!




Perfect timing! Today we're celebrating our first month of marriage, and it happens to be Wednesday, so the occasion calls for a Wedding Wednesday post! 
I just got the soft copy of our wedding album and all our pictures from our official wedding photographer, I'm over excited!!! Expect lots of wedding pics in the weeks to come, because I'm dying to share all of them with you and finally getting to reveal everything about our wedding!


As for our first month of marriage, it's been an absolute bliss. Did I mention my wedding day was the happiest of my life? Well, the month that followed has been the happiest period of my life! Being married is amazing beyond words. I'm enjoying this new stage of my life oh-so-much!
People ask me whether something has changed after our wedding. And the answer is SO MUCH HAS CHANGED! Yes, we have been living together for two years and, yes, we're still living in the same apartment, but things have changed after becoming husband and wife. A wedding is much more than a party, much more than a celebration of love. The vows that we said to each other during the ceremony are deep inside my heart, and somehow that day changed everything in our relationship, for much much better. I feel our relationship is ever more safe, caring and loving. Let this fairy tale never end!


November 1, 2013

Grandma's cake


Today's post is an ode to my childhood, in memory of all the good times I had with my grandma, who always had this simple yellow cake ready for me to enjoy whenever I visited her. I used to dip it in the Spanish thick hot chocolate, and still nowadays this is how I like it best. My grandma would always let me have this combo for afternoon tea and for breakfast when I stayed over, and the memory of those days is still fresh in my mind. It's a delicious moist yellow cake and probably the easiest cake you'll ever bake. I'd say this recipe is so simple it's a good one to make with the children if they feel like playing chef! It won't take you longer than 5 minutes to prepare, so read along to know how!



Ingredients:
3 Eggs
3 tsp Baking Powder
1 natural unsweetened Yoghurt
(We will use the yoghurt container as the measure unit for the rest of the ingredients so, for example, 1 sugar would mean filling up to the top the yoghurt container with sugar and then tossing the sugar into the mix)
1 1/2 Sugar
1/2 Olive Oil
3 Cake Flour

Directions:
Mix all of the above in your blender, pour the batter into a buttered mold (I used a 8-inch round mold here but my grandma used to do it on a rectangular one) and bake in the preheated oven at 175ºC (350ºF) for 40 minutes.

If you wish to have a chocolate-flavored cake, add some chocolate chips to the batter, once all the other ingredients have been mixed. Then pour batter into the mold.

I like to top mine with a bit of icing sugar once the cake has cooled down, but that's optional as well!



The first picture of this post is how much is left of the cake at this very moment, although it's almost tea time so I don't think it's going to stay like that for long :p As you can see I have some gorgeous orange roses on my coffee table at the moment, it's Halloween season after all, and since I had no pumpkin, I figured orange blooms would do!