J&M got Maui'd!

There were a couple of excursions that I had booked ahead of time before leaving on our trip. Both of these excursions were booked for today. The first was a tour of the Big Island with the Blue Hawaiian Helicopter Tours . I have always wanted to see a real volcano, and I did not think that we would be able to visit it on foot, so viewing it from the air was the next best thing! I decided to book the Big Island Spectacular as it was the only trip we could take to visit the volcano without having to drive all the way to Hilo. I did not expect too much from the Kohala portion of the trip. On board a helicopter on our way to Kilauea. Viewing the lava flows from the air gives quite a perspective of how much area is affected by any eruptions from the active volcanos on the island. Land that use to have people and houses and resorts were completely wiped out, with some odd pockets of land being spared. The lava flow of an eruption many years ago. Maggie was immediately bothe

We had an early flight out of Maui so Maggie and I had to leave before the rest of our family got up for the day. Maggie's dad got up early to see us off, so he gave her a tour of the Aston Kaanapali Shores resort that we were staying at while I checked us out. It was amazing that we had stayed there for a week and never even saw the amenities! Maggie getting on our plane in Honolulu. Our flight was fairly uneventful, but the flight crew were very friendly. We had a stopover in Honolulu before landing in Kona, so we did not arrive until around one-thirty in the afternoon. Late for lunch, but too early to check in. It was unfortunate that it took so long to fly, but next time we'll see if we can find more direct flights. The ground crew wishing us well on our trip. We had a late lunch at Lava Java, and the food there was great! When we finally checked into our room at the Outrigger Royal Sea Cliff resort we discovered that our room was a little smelly, and that roo

This was the only day in our schedule where we effectively had a day off. The morning was reserved to meet up with Scott Drexler to go over the details of the wedding photos. Maggie and I also took the time before he arrived to snorkel at the beach near the house that Barb and Alan were staying at. The coral by that beach was a little worse for wear, but there was virtually nobody around so we were able to enjoy ourselves in the water. After getting the wedding photo stuff out of the way, Maggie and I went down to Lahaina with Candace to go whale watching. Candace had already booked a whale sight seeing tour and we tried go get on the same one. Unfortunately, hers was sold out so the two of us went on a separate tour. While waiting around, we checked out the giant Banyan tree in the middle of Lahaina. The giant banyan tree in Lahaina. We were able to see whales during the tour, but most were so far away, and were only visible for a fleeting moment that we could not get any goo

Our wedding adventures continued today with Barb and Alan's wedding. I did not have to wake up as early today, nor have to worry about my hair as all of the attention was on Barb and Alan. Apart from the windiness (it was also a little windy during our wedding), they had great weather, and lots of wedding cake for us to eat! The minister and the musician was the same as for our wedding (and photographer too), except that the minister actually changed his shirt for this one (in all of the other photos I have seen of the minister he wore the same shirt in every one). The Liu group at Barb and Alan's wedding. After the wedding, our group went out to a late lunch at some BBQ place to tide us over before the dinner reception. This was a mistake. I ate my fill and found out that I would still be full by the time dinner rolled around. The reception was held at The Feast at Lele , which was a dinner and show, featuring dancing styles from the different Polynesian islands. The

Well, this is the big day! There were lots of photos taken and plenty of things that happened but the day went by quickly so I'll just link the slideshow that Scott Drexler put together for us. After the wedding Maggie and I went to get our photos done while the rest of the party went to the lunch venue. Here's an aside: We had planned to have the lunch held at the Beach House restaurant. When we originally looked at the regular restaurant menu, we were both a little disappointed in the choices. Neither of us wanted their usual catered wedding meal, as it looked boring and expensive. I did, however, come across a special Kau Kau menu that they promoted in the summertime which was a combination of dishes that were unique to Hawaii. Maggie loved the idea: Why go to the middle of the ocean to have steak when you can have poke? So the plan was to have this Kau Kau menu at the Beach House restaurant. During our photo shoot, we got a call telling us that the Beach House restaur

Maggie and I spent part of the day going over the details and preparing for our wedding on the 27th. Since we arrived late on the 23rd, we were in no condition to do anything on the 24th and everything was closed on the 25th. First thing in the morning, we went to the marriage license office, along with Barb and Alan, to get all of the paperwork done. I had printed off the forms long before we left and even partially filled them out, except I had forgotten them when we left for Hawaii. Fortunately, the office provided all of the documentation that we needed. Unfortunately, we found out that the names on the license had to match the exact names of the birth certificates for all involved, including our parents! This was.. annoying. All of the documentation was at home which required us to call our parents to verify their names on the documents. So we were there a little longer than we had planned. As such, we did not arrive at the Ritz until much later than we had planned and only ha

Maggie and I went to bed early after our first full day on the island so that we could get up at two in the morning to get ready to watch the sunrise on Mount Haleakala. Hoi and Pauline also came along in a separate car. The drive up in the pitch darkness of the night was fun and exciting, with only the lights of the cars in front and behind us illuminating the narrow road up the mountain. We arrived at the main parking lot around four - just as they closed the top parking lot. I asked the parking attendant if we could go up. He told me that we could park in the hash marked area and then closed the road behind us. Lucky! When we got to the top parking lot and turned off the car lights, I realized how dark dark could be. The moon was not out, which only left the starlight and milky way illuminating the skies. I had never seen the skies this dark before with nary a cloud in the sky. It was a fantastic view. There was something else that we noticed quickly. We were told that it would

We had planned to drive on the road to Hana today with my dad. Since the drive itself would take the entire day, we had planned to get up early. I asked my dad to wake us up for 6:30. Since our flight came in so late the night before, we did not get to bed until the wee hours in the morning. So when we got the wake up call from my dad (who was in the lobby), neither me nor Maggie were up for waking up so early so we passed on the drive. We slept in for a few more hours and enjoyed a relaxing morning. First morning in Maui. With our original plan to drive the road to Hana shot, we fell back to plan B: Lunch at Mama's Seafood House with the rest of the Lius. Maggie and I at the parking lot next to Mama's Fish House. This too was planned for the group, but we had not originally been part of this plan as I had thought that we would be halfway to Hana by then. Group shot! Taken just before we ate at Mama's Fish House. The food there was really good though, and

We got up early to get ready for our afternoon flight. Because we were worried about the combined Christmas break rush and rush hour traffic, I figured that we should head for the airport around eight: more than five hours before our flight was to depart! Of course plans never seemed to get followed in our neck of the woods and we got out closer to nine. Our fears were unwarranted when we arrived at the airport. Apart from the fact that traffic was fairly light on the roads, the airport itself was pretty much empty when we got there. We got through security and customs so quickly that I thought that nobody was traveling that day. Finding our gate (C24) was easy too: It was right in front of the security gates. Me at gate C24. So we had over three hours to kill. Maggie with a few hours to kill. The extra sleep would have been nice, but it did not really matter: We were on vacation! Viewing the Rockies from the air. The flight out was fairly uneventful, and it was eve

Maggie says... We finally picked up the wedding dress and bridesmaid dresses this past weekend. The dress fits, but I cannot gain another pound or else I'll end up with back cleavage! I will have to summon up all my will power during this holiday season and continue doing those core and upper extremity exercises. The groomsmen's outfits are pretty much set, the pants have also been hemmed... now we're on the search for 1 more belt. This coming weekend, I'm gonna help my dad find a suitable outfit for a tropical wedding. We recently just found out that all his suits are black/dark coloured, which will make it really hot for outdoor ceremonies- I don't want anyone passing out at our wedding. We're also planning to go to chinatown to find some nicnacs for the wedding. Jenning's family threw us a 'send-off' party on Sunday. I always laugh super hard when the Setos, Woos and Tos are in the house. Thanks to all the aunts/uncles, cousins, nieces/nephews who

Maggie says... We are only 65 days away from our wedding, and my sub-consciousness has been active. In the last 2 weeks, I think I have had 3 dreams about the wedding. During my waking hours, I have not stressed about the wedding, I just do the tasks when they need to be addressed and don't fuss too much about it. Earlier in the week, I was sick and one morning I woke up extra early because I had a dream that I missed a whole bunch of items I was supposed to do, but only realized it on the day before the wedding. Then last night, I dreamt that I slept though my hair & makeup appointment, and my sister Caroline had to scramble to do my hair and make-up in a super short amount of time. We didn't even have time to put hair spray on, and my hair was totally limp. We were also staying at a giant suite at the Ritz and I had to go through all the rooms (like a maze), which made my hair even worse, and wake up all my guest and beg them to get up so that we could be on time for the

Maggie says... Barbara & I celebrated our bridal shower this past Saturday. It was a fun afternoon and everyone was very impressed with the amount of detail and work put into this event. So we must give thanks to those who were able to make it to celebrate with us and their generous gifts, and those who sent well wishes even though they were not able to attend. Special thanks goes out to: - Jean for being the mastermind and 'creative director' for the event - Katherine & Adrian for letting us have the event at their house/doing double duty cooking/baking/cleaning - Shellie & Pauline for the hard work on the yummy cake - Caroline & Bob for helping to prepare for the day - Mom for helping Jean the weeks ahead in putting all the party favours together - Melanie for letting Jean borrow all the decorations/catering tools - Tina & Aunty Shen for helping out in the morning - Candace for helping orient & direct guests when they arrived As we get closer to the we

Jenning says.. So we are less than four months from the day of the wedding and things should really be picking up now. We have already started handing out some of the wedding invitations and hopefully will get a better idea as to who will be able to make it to Hawaii! As an aside, the PIT is down and has been for months. My server died back in June. I picked up a replacement this month, but I have yet to install the web server on it. Most of my (rather limited) free time has been spent cleaning up the apartment. In addition, my main PC is beginning to die as well. We should be mailing out the invitations for those we cannot deliver personally in the next few days. We've had some issues with the ink not sticking to our mailing labels! Yuk! Never fear, the laser printer is here!

Woo hoo! The invitations & envelopes have arrived. We are going to send/hand them out starting this week.

Maggie says... Last week, our friend Jen finished creating our invitations and made an order for the printer to send the invites from the U.S. At the same time, we also ordered envelopes from another company in the U.S. We got a call yesterday that a package arrived, but we'd need to write a cheque for the brokerage fee and our concierge would have to give UPS this cheque before they hand over the package today. Then Jenning got a call today about another UPS package that arrived, and we have to write another cheque for the brokerage fee. If only both packages could have arrived on the same day, it wouldn't feel like Dejavu! Anyways, we're going to be sending/handing out the beautiful invitations real soon. Please enter your addresses under the 'Address Book' page to help us out.

Maggie says... We read an article in the paper with a list of the "Most annoying beach goers". We hope the beaches we go to in Hawaii are not over-crowded, so that we can avoid these 'annoyances'. One of the things travellers look forward to most about summer is long, languid days at the beach, which makes annoying beachgoers all that more ... annoying. With this in mind the members and editors of travel website VirtualTourist.com have compiled this list of the most annoying types of beachgoers. 1. THE SMOKER While there's not much to like about this type, the main gripe of non-smokers is that those who puff seem to think that if they're outside, the smoke won't bother anyone and that they often treat the sand as a giant ashtray. 2. THE LITTERBUG Don't get us started. This person is apparently unbothered by overflowing trashcans, food wrappers stuck in the sand, and garbage-filled water. We shudder to think what their homes must look like. 3. THE COUPL

Maggie says....Thank God for wedding coordinators! Invitations: Our wonderful family friend Jen has designed a beautiful invitation for us. They'll be sent out in a few weeks. To help us through this process, please enter your address in the 'Address book' page so that we send the invitations to the right place. Reception update: There's been a lot of going back and forth throughout this wedding planning process. We originally thought of having a reception in Toronto next February; but, after a lot of reflecting, we've decided not to have a reception in Toronto anymore. Maybe on our 10th anniversary, we'll throw a big party at home/or have a Hawaii re-union? Since we're not having the Toronto reception, we're making the wedding luncheon even better than originally planned. We're currently working with our wedding coordinator to organize a real fun experience, hopefully the resort is able to accomodate us. We're going to keep it a surprise for the

Jenning says.. Maggie and I went with Gina and Kendrick to go suit shopping for me last night. The whole ordeal took about forty-five minutes and we were able to find a nice suit and shirt for the wedding! I probably had the least amount of input, because I had the least amount of style sense in the group. If they thought it looked good, then that was good enough for me. Mind you, we spent just about as much on the suit as we did on the wedding dress.. Next up: The Invitations!

Jenning says.. Maggie and I went downtown to pick up our rings from the goldsmith. We also dragged my mom downtown with us since she had a good rapport with the lady. We had planned to pick up the rings, eat lunch, do a little shopping, and get back to my parents' place by the early afternoon but ended up spending the entire day downtown (much chatting with the goldsmith) and crawled through rush hour to get back uptown. The rings look nice though.

Maggie says... This has been a great month for wedding planning because it finally feels like the wedding is coming together! When I was in school, I always loved the feeling of crossing/checking items off my to-do list: - Flights booked - Accommodations booked - Photographer booked - Wedding-bands ordered - Meet with seamstress and get measured for alterations Jenning, myself, his mom, and her friends went with us to meet a Goldsmith today. I was referred to her by two co-workers who recently purchased rings from her. I had no idea what to expect as I wasn't sure if her workshop was going to be like a flea market type of set up with a bunch of other vendors. I had no idea what she looked like as we had only communicated by phone up to today. We got to the building, and into a tiny elevator and only realized we were meeting each other when we were getting off the elevator together. Her suite was super tiny, so all 6 of us were cramped into a tiny room. She didn't have a lot of

Finally! We booked our flights and accomodations last weekend, which is a great relief. We will be working on the rest of the wedding planning and making more updates as plans unravel.

Maggie says... Last weekend, the bridal team finally went shopping for bridesmaid dresses. First we headed out to Sears in Yorkdale because Jean had seen a nice dress on their flyer. When we got there, we found out that they didn't have the dresses in stock, so the sales associate took my info and said she would call me once it was ordered. We then headed to David's bridal, which just opened in Canada last month. Apparently, you need to book an appointment ahead of time so we didn't get to try any dresses out since all the change rooms and associates were busy. The dresses were definately more expensive than the U.S. stores and website. We left the store and headed a few doors down to Winners, I didn't think we'd find anything but I was up for some regular shopping. Similar to when I went for the first time to buy my wedding gown, I didn't expect us to find anything, but surprisingly, we were able to find the bridesmaid dresses there. Since Jean is a shopaholic,

Maggie's non-wedding related encounter... This entry is non-wedding related, but I thought I should post it because I have encountered this a few times in my life and find it 'interesting and frustrating'. I attended a workshop a couple of weeks ago and ended up sitting next to a fellow Chinese co-worker I just met. This was our conversation: Co-worker (CW): Are you Chinese? Me: Yes CW: Do you speak Cantonese? Me: No CW: Do you speak Mandarin? Me: No CW: But you are Chinese, how come you don't speak Chinese? Me: I speak Hakka. Do you speak Hakka? CW: No Me: You're Chinese, why don't _you_ speak Hakka? CW: No further response I find it interesting the number of times I meet Chinese individuals who seem to think that every Chinese person on earth speaks Mandarin or Cantonese; and if you don't speak either dialect, then shame on you and/or your parent for not teaching you. I find it effortful to try to explain to these individuals that there are

Maggie says... In case any of you didn't read the what's new/welcome page entries, we contacted the Ritz Carlton wedding coordinators today and have officially changed our wedding date to Tuesday, December 27th, 2011. These last few weeks have been very slow in terms of wedding planning. A group of us are still waiting for airlines to quote group rates for flights! According to WestJet, we're still early if you can believe it. We still haven't heard back from Air Canada. This makes it frustrating because we can't book our accomodations (which involves an even larger group, some who have already booked their flights individually). I am really learning that patience is a virtue. I am also crossing my fingers and toes that with the date change, we are still going to the our 1st choice photographer (Scott Drexler). A few weekends ago, we went shopping in Buffalo, and I helped my mom find a colourful dress for our oceanfront wedding ceremony. I also found really cute sho

Jenning says.. So after looking into our options, we have determined that we may have to change the date of the wedding to take into account the new Christmas break schedule that was released a little while ago. We are still looking at other options so that we can keep our current wedding date, but just to be safe, do not book anything until we get final confirmation on what is going on. Hopefully this will be in the next week or so, as we are now in March and the wedding is less than ten months away! (Delayed or not.)

Jenning says.. We just found out that the Peel district school board has set their winter break to start on the 26th this year. This can pose a problem for those people who want to come to the wedding!

Jenning and Maggie says... Our wedding is literally 10 months away!

Maggie says... Jenning already purchased a couple of tuxedos last winter when Syd Sylver, a men's attire rental company went bankrupt. The deal was really great, we could purchase a whole suit with the shoes, cufflinks, suspenders, tie etc. included for less than the price of a rental. Jenning decided to buy 2 suits since the deal was so great. At that time, we never even thought of Hawaii as an option for our wedding, it seemed like we would have the wedding in Toronto and the tuxedo would be suitable. Now that we are having a wedding in Hawaii, we are hoping that the tuxedos won't be too hot to wear. Jenning can get over heated quickly, so we planned it so that our ceremony would be in the early morning when it's supposed to be cooler weather. We're looking into possibly getting a suit made of lighter fabrics such as linen, but I am wondering if it will get wrinkled too quickly. We went to Buffalo, New York to shop since we wanted to take advantage of the Family Day l

Jenning and Maggie says... So, Happy Year of the Rabbit everyone! We have been informed that when it is the year of your animal, one has to be extra careful/cautious because of the higher chances of bad luck. Reflecting back on Maggie's year (dog), she was quite lucky because she met Jenning! We went to spend time with Jenning's mom before she flies out to Shanghai on Saturday, and she informed us that this year the dog is the rabbit's companion animal/good luck charm! So all he has to do is attach Maggie to a keychain and he'll have good luck all year. This didn't seem to be a good or practical idea so instead, his mom gave him a jade dog charm-keychain.

Maggie says... Jenning and I have finally contacted our wedding coordinator at the Ritz. She initially emailed us in November, but because of the holidays we never had time to sit down and think about what we wanted until this week. One huge advantage of having a destination weddings is that there are many package options you can select, so you don't have to do the search for vendors which is really hard when you are so far away. When we first looked into having our wedding in Hawaii, we were advised that we should stick with reputable vendors. There are stories that during the recession there have some un-trustworthy vendors, who ended up running off with some couple's money. So to avoid scams and big headaches, we decided to spend a little more to make our lives easier. On our to-do list is the selection of our wedding flowers. I have a super sensitive sinus and an unfortunately hyper-sensitive sense of smell. Since working in a hospital, I learned that I am allergic to lilie