Shorty and I were up by 7AM this past Saturday. I can’t even remember the last time we were up so early on a Saturday. We had a good reason to be up though…. to start a long day of wedding photo shoots. There were going to be 3 locations.
In the morning we would go to a studio to take pictures. In the afternoon to a park in TTDI and at night we ended up at Petaling Street. There are so many things to decide on when doing a pre-wedding shoot. First you have to pick a photographer, then a theme and then where you want to do it.
Well the first thing was easy. We picked One Way Ticket to do our photos, I’ll explain why I picked them in the next entry. The theme… well Shorty came up with that entirely so credit to her.
The last part though was the venue. Lots of my friends go overseas for their pre-wedding shoots to take pictures in beautiful locations all over the world. One thing Shorty and I always wanted to do though was to have our shoot in KL. Why KL?Because it’s the place we met, the place we spent the past 3 years of our lives in and the place where we will start our married life together.
Plus I always believed that a good photographer will always be able to find and bring out the beauty in any location you choose. So we did that.
It was a really tiring day and we took loads of pictures that day. At the end of it I figured that it was something I wouldn’t really wanna do again… but then again it’s something I’m glad I did.
Our official pictures are not out yet though. All these pictures I posted here were taken from my phone camera. When it does come out though, Shorty and I promised that we will look at the pictures together and we will share some of them up here for you guys 🙂
The photos are expected out end of this week so I guess you’ll only hear about that then. So until then… have a great week everyone.
Here’s from Tim and Aurdrey… haha.
You can read more about the behind the scenes of this shoot at Shorty’s blog.
Shorty and I just discovered this version of Christina Perri’s A Thousand Years and it’s beautiful. So beautiful that we’re thinking of using it for our wedding.
We were just talking yesterday when I told Shorty that like it or not, “our song” for the rest of our lives is going to be “A Thousand Years”, the soundtrack for the recent Twilight. The irony is that Shorty and I don’t like Twilight at all. Twilight actually still holds the record for the only movie that we ever walked out of the cinema of halfway through the movie. So much that when we first found out the song in our meme proposal video was from Twilight we were thinking of changing it. But we loved it so much that we decided to keep it.
And now… A Thousand Years will always be the song of Fatty and Shorty.
This week is only halfway through and it’s already been a pretty cool week for me. For the start of it, some of the Nuffies from the Nuffnang Hong Kong and Nuffnang Singapore office were down in KL for training. So I took them for dinner at where all hipsters go.
Publika.
I love getting to know all the Nuffies from all the different countries. They’re all similar in the way that the share the same culture but they’re different based on the different backgrounds they come from.
In this short week so far though I managed to see five pretty cool things. Here are the Top 4.
4) Superman Sticker
I saw this sticker on the back of Wilson from Milkadeal.com’s laptop. I thought it was especially cool when the laptop was turned on and the Apple logo lit up.
It wasn’t as cool though as what I saw on his girlfriend’s laptop which brings me to Number 3.
3) Minions!
This was on the back of Wilson’s girlfriend’s laptop. Her name is Huey Chin. Makes me wanna go… Ba ba ba ba… ba ba na na.
2) Man Utd Chair
If you watch football enough you would probably know what this is.
At Old Trafford, Alex Ferguson and some of the players often sit on this red Audi chair. When visiting Pierre’s house on Sunday she showed me this one that he had. It was signed by all the players in Man Utd.
Cool shit. Nobody dared to sit on it though. Some chairs are not meant for sitting.
1) Wedding Invitation Card
The number 1 cool thing I saw this week has got to be the first print of our wedding invitation card. Shorty and I didn’t want a grand wedding or anything. We wanted to a happy and colourful one so we opted for an UP-themed wedding (from Disney Pixar’s UP).
So we decided that our invitation card had to be along that theme too. So here it is.
I just got back from Manila after spending a whole week there. Most of my time was spent with Ming and the 4 other Nuffies we brought along for the management training program.
We spent our days in the training program and we spent our nights recapping everything we learned and strategizing how to apply it to our company.
Thursday night though was a night we all decided to take off and go find the Nuffies at Nuffnang Philippines. The hotel we were staying was just 5 minutes walk away from our Nuffnang Philippines office at the Fort Bonifacio. So we walked over there.
When we got there it was 7PM and all the Nuffies were all still hard at work.
Someone asked me just a few days before how many Nuffies we had in Nuffnang Philippines. At first I thought it was just 8 but that day I realized there were actually 17 Nuffies already at work there. One thing we all love in our offices all over are snacks. So Nuffnang Philippines had their own home-made vending machine that “dispensed” chips.
It was a joke of course. The chips below can be taken out for free. I don’t even know what happens when you put the money at the top or who collects it. All I could see was that it was written on the “machine” that “Honesty is golden, so honesty system please”.
After hanging out in the office for a while we hauled for dinner. The Filipino Nuffies took us for dinner at a rooftop bar called Skye. It seems almost every city in the world now has a rooftop bar called “Sky” or some variation of that.
Here are some pictures we took that night.
This is Anne. I’ve known Anne for 3 years. She was one of the early account execs that we hired at the company.
and… here’s Elise, Mimi, Jel and me 🙂
Me and Trixie.
Trixie is one of the people I know who seem to love alcohol more than she does water. Â Last year when we had our Nuffies Christmas Dinner she got so drunk we had to carry her home and she ended up missing her flight back to Manila the next day.
The Nuffies in Philippines are all a fun bunch and that’s what I kinda love about our company. Everywhere I go I see Nuffies from different backgrounds and different countries that share the same culture.
Everyone in the Philippines seems really optimistic now about their economy and how their country is growing. There is development everywhere and a growing middle class of very well educated people. My favourite part about the Philippines though is the Nuffies we have there 🙂
Yes I’m back in the Philippines again. This time for a management training course.
Ming and I have been facing new challenges this year. In the past year, our company has grown significantly to some 120 or so staff from our 7 offices in 7 countries. Growing is fun and something we never take for granted. That being said, it comes with its own set of “growing pains”. As a company grows, the entrepreneurs need to put in a strong command & control and reporting structure so we can better maneuver the company to new heights.
It was fun when we were a 20 man startup. But when you have over 100 employees, middle managers and lots of departments in between it’s a challenge to make sure that everyone shares the same culture, vision and is able to work efficiently past the necessary structure we have to put in.
That’s what Ming and I, and 4 other Nuffies are here in the Philippines to do. To learn.
We’re attending a 4 day training session by speakers from the USA on a course that was based from MIT. The other participants here are entrepreneurs from all sorts of different companies in various industries all over the world. One of the guys we met here was the boss of an air-con contractor in Australia that brings in revenues of some RM500 million a year.
That’s huge!
The course was expensive though. Costing us almost RM30K but it’s only the first of many investment Ming and I know we have to make to improve ourselves to better run the company. We’re all working really hard. Our sessions in the morning start at 8AM and last the whole day. After that we have dinner and then our team meets up every night to see how we can apply whatever we learned into our company. So that we don’t forget everything we learn too quick.
So I’ve been really busy. So busy that I just realized I don’t even have any pictures of myself with anyone at the conference. I did manage to grab a few of the event though…. conscious that I was going to blog sooner or later.
In between all these meetings and courses I have to find time to clear all my emails and manage whatever other daily business we have to do so forgive me if my updates have been a bit lacking. I’m with you at heart 🙂
Now I need to finish clearing my emails and then go for our discussion tonight. Have a great 2nd half of the week everyone!
PS: Guess who I met on the plane to Manila. Our Bank Negara governor Zeti. I saw her sitting at the front row when I walked into the plane. I leaned in and said “Hello Governor!” with a shy smile Kinda felt a little starstruck. She nodded and smiled back at me 🙂
Today was Bersih 3.0, the 3rd installment by a coalition campaigning for free and fair elections in Malaysia. Bersih is NOT about political party. It’s not a gathering to promote PR or BN, (In fact MCA Kelana division committee member Lee Hwa Beng was spotted at Bersih 3.0 according to Malaysiakini and it was made clear that no MCA members were barred from attending the protest.)
It’s a protest in an effort to fight for clean and fair elections.
When Bersih 2.0 happened, I was on my Hong Kong business trip.
I remember being glued to Twitter, reading the constant tweets about the event. I felt lousy about myself for not attending it. So this year Shorty and I decided to attend it. When I told my Dad that I was going to go, he called me every day persuading me not to. Not that he didn’t believe in Bersih’s cause, but that he feared for my safety as any father would. He was even going to be down in KL that weekend and I suspected that he was going to stop me from going if I tried walking out of the house. I was torn about going. Fighting between my desire to go and my respect for my father
Last night while attending a dinner meet in Bangkok with my Thai business partners, I decided to go. I called Shorty and told her that I was scheduled to fly back Saturday morning and we can go straight from LCCT after she picked me up. I told her to bring salt and 2 bottles of water for us. I told her though, not to tell anyone else because I didn’t want my father to know and worry.
Then this morning I woke up and went to Bangkok’s airport to take a flight back only. I was excited. All pumped from reading the tweets.
When I reached my departure gate though I realized that the Air Asia plane that was supposed to take me back wasn’t even there. They said the flight was going to be delayed for 2 hours and that drove me crazy. I wouldn’t be able to make it then. I read tweets that said the sit-down protest was supposed to be 2-4PM. So instead of reaching KLIA at 1PM, I would reach at 3PM. If my previous timing was cutting it close, with the 2 hour delay I wasn’t going to make it for sure.
When I touched down at LCCT, I called my friends who were at Bersih and asked if it was too late. They told me that the riot police had just shot tear gas into the crowd and the crowd was dispersing.
I rushed over from LCCT but by the time I had reached the city, I could see the crowd, dressed in yellow walking home. To me, they looked like war heroes who had just fought a fight.
Today I once again let my other fellow Malaysians risk their safety to fight for my rights as a voter. To these Malaysians I say Thank you.
Thank you for fighting for me… and my children. One day, I will fight for you and your children.
I’m traveling again. I was in Singapore for Ming’s birthday on Wednesday night when I learned I was going to flyaway again on Thursday morning (straight from Singapore).
Ended up flying off to Thailand on Thursday morning only to land there and shop for the clothes, underwear and socks that I didn’t have a chance to pack for the trip. Haha cool huh.
While I’m away though check out this video that got me laughing lately.
I actually don’t know if to laugh or cry. I feel happy and sad at the same time but well check it out for yourself and tell me if you laughed or cried.
Saturday was a really busy day for me. Spent the whole day at this training I had to attend. Was up from 7AM and my training ended only around 6PM. So Sunday was a day I decided I was going to do nothing but nua at home.
It turned out to be quite the opposite. I spent Sunday morning working from home.
My friend Melissa came down from SG so I went to Pavilion with her. My other friend Leon ended up joining as well …. and he ended up wearing the same pants as I did. What are the odds of that?
The later part of the evening for me was spent at the Mister Potato Viewing Party for the Manchester United vs Everton match at Sunway. There was a huge crowd of Man Utd supporters there. It’s true when they say sports unite people. Because when I walked in with my Man Utd jersey, all the other fans of all race and ages gave me a smile. It’s like they knew were … together.
There was a long queue getting into the viewing at the Sunway Lagoon amphitheater.
The viewing was well worth it though.
I estimate to be about 1,000 people there so the atmosphere there was the closest thing you could get in KL to the atmosphere at Old Trafford. You could tell they were ALL Man Utd fans. When Everton scored, there wasn’t a hint of cheering but when Man Utd scored, the crowd erupted in loud cheers.
Eventhough Man Utd needed the win badly, the game ended with a 4-4 draw.
It was an awesome game to watch though. I admire the perseverence of Everton.
After the game ended with a draw, the crowd looked disappointed but nobody looked more disappointed than the 2 Man Utd legends (ex-players) who were watching the game with us.Gary Pallister and Ronny Johnsen.
Mister Potato brought them over so Malaysian fans could meet them and watch the game with them. I never expected to really meet them that afternoon. At first Pierre asked me to meet him at Pyramid for dinner before the game. I thought we were going to eat Nandos or something so I just wore my jersey and shorts. Then when I was there he told me “Dude I think we’ll have dinner at the event. We can have dinner with the Man Utd Legends there”.
I was like “Thanks dude… gimme less notice next time!”.
For a minute there I nearly wanted to run into Sunway Pyramid and buy a pair of proper pants or something but Pierre told me it’s okay.
It was awesome meeting these Man Utd legends. That made my Sunday (eventhough we drew).
I recently saw this latest Nestle TV commercial and it brought back loads of memories.
This year Nestle celebrates its 100 years as a company. While I don’t necessarily feel an emotional bond when a company hit 100 years, I did with Nestle. When I look back at my 27 years of my life, Nestle has been there all the way, creating fond memories of my childhood that I will forever cherish. Look at the full list of brands that are under Nestle and see if it evokes a kind of nostalgia in you.
Here are some of my childhood memories growing up with Nestle.
1) Maggi Mee
I never really enjoyed my primary school days. I went to a private school in Penang called Sri Inai that started at 8AM and ended at 2.50PM every day. That means we would even have lunch in school. I didn’t like what I studied and the only fun I had was playing around at recess or something even during class. I did look forward to one thing every day after school though. I would get home about 3.30PM or 4PM. While still dressed in my school uniform I would then make myself a nice bowl of Maggi Mee. My parents were cautious about letting me go near fire so I always made it with my microwave and I loved it.
As the months went by though I started taking pride in my Maggi Mee and got creative. I added eggs and even cheese in there (looking back now it seemed to simple but to me then it was like an achievement). I would then lay the hot bowl of Maggi Mee on my dining table and properly arrange the cutlery, pepper and soya sauce around it. Then one last thing I would do before I slurped the noodles up… was turn Cartoon Network on what used to be a service called Mega TV. Anyone remember that?
That 1 hour of Maggi Mee wasn’t just a meal for me. It was like my little reward to myself for having gone through a tough day at school (even though looking back… again it wasn’t really that tough). But it was good. Today I still have my little Maggi Mee treats with the egg in it, but I do without the cheese. Rather than having them in the afternoons now, I now have them for late night suppers whenever I’m hungry.
2) Milo
We all grew up with Milo and today I drink Milo much more than I drink Coke or any other drink. I had two fond memories with Milo
i) The first one was outside the HSBC in Beach Street Penang. When I was still in primary school, I would sometimes have to follow my mum to the bank on Beach Street. That was something I hated doing. Because I would just have to go there, sit there and wait for her while doing nothing. There was no iPhone or iPad to play with then… and I couldn’t exactly bring my Cartoon Network to the bank.
The one thing that cheered me up though was on days where there would be a Milo truck parked right outside the HSBC on Beach Street. I can’t even remember if we had to pay for it or not but I remember tasting the refreshing ice cold Milo that came out of it. It was awesome. At home I would often try to make a cold Milo as well as that but never succeeded. Still.. I made my very own ice-cold Milo as part of my Maggi Mee tea time meal.
ii) What I also LOVED about Milo was how it tastes. My baby sitter banned me from that though. She said it was too “heaty” to eat Milo in its powder form but I didn’t care. When she was doing the laundry or hanging clothes up I would sneak into the kitchen. Armed with a table spoon in my hand I would flip open the lid of the Milo Tin and put one full table spoon of Milo powder into my mouth. As the milo powder diluted in my saliva, I closed my eyes and I remember thinking that it was how the food in Heaven must’ve been like.
My nanny would often know of my crime though and give me a big scolding. The sprinkles of Milo powder on my shirt often gives me away.
3) Koko Krunch
I don’t know of any kid that didn’t love Koko Krunch growing up. I had it almost every day for breakfast before I left for school. The sun will barely be up when I came down from my room dressed in my school uniform. Set on the breakfast table will be an empty bowl with a spoon in it. Right next to it, a carton of milk and a box of Koko Krunch. I would then mix them both together myself in the bowl and gobble away
20 years later I do the same thing before going to work. In fact this morning I had Koko Krunch for breakfast right after I had finished a business conference call with people in the USA. Funny enough the only other cereal that I have been consistently in love with ever since is… the Milo cereal which is coincidentally under Nestle too.
4) Nestum
I didn’t just try to get creative with Maggi Mee. I tried it with Milo too. One day I discovered that there was such a thing called Nestum that you could add into your Milo. I got addicted to it.
5) Nescafe
My family kept the Milo tin in a cupboard right next to the Nescafe Bottle. Remember the long one? Now I wasn’t allowed to drink a lot of coffee as a kid but one thing I had to try was Nescafe in its powder form. It was BITTER!. I choked and I never did it again. This time my nanny laughed and hoped that it would teach me a lesson not to eat things the way it’s not supposed to be eaten. It didn’t work though. I continued eating my milo.
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The thing about Nestle is that its role in my life continued on till even after I grew up. When I first started Nuffnang, one of the first advertisers to run a campaign with us was Nestle. It was one of the first companies I had gone out to pitch to and I met some people who today are friends of mine. Vanda and Mr Khoo (I call them). So Nestle has played a bit part in my life and supported me too at times when I needed help the most.
So Happy 100th Anniversary Nestle. May you touch the lives of many more.
What’s your Nestle story? Share it in the comments.
I just looked into my phone to see what pictures I took in the past week. Here’s what I found.
1) Wedding Planner
We met up with our wedding planner. She’s the girl on the left and her name is Audrey! What a small world it is because it turns out I actually knew Audrey from my secondary school days in Penang. Right before I met her, Shorty was telling me how Audrey (our wedding planner) would call her and say “Hi Audrey, this is Audrey.. HAHAHA!”.
2) Shorty’s Grandma
Every Sunday, Shorty would make it a point to find some time out of her Sunday afternoon to visit her grandmother.
Sometimes I would tag along and just sit and watch while Shorty tells her about her week and what happened at work. This visit though grandma was watching some make-up show in Taiwan so Shorty gladly sat down next to her and watched the whole segment while talking all sorts of things about make-up. I feel asleep so I missed out most of the conversation.
3) Tiah Family Bak Kut Teh
On Saturday we went to do some prayers for my late grandfather. Almost the entire Tiah family of all my cousins went. After prayers we decided to go to Klang for BKT so we ended up at my favourite shop, taking up 6 tables. I took this picture of all the Tiah’s having their BKT.
They all thought it was the best BKT ever 🙂
4) Shorty and Fatty
I don’t know how this happened, but one night before we went to bed we decided to take a picture together. That’s Shorty without any of her make-up on.
I remember how Shorty used to be afraid to let me see her without make-up. But as you can all see… she’s still pretty cute without make-up and with her glasses right ? 🙂
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space