I thought I was well-prepared for a natural birth after having watched hundreds of videos on live childbirth. It seemed pretty okay and I even thought I might be able to last through it without epidural! Who am I kidding.

I was wailing in tears in the labour ward struggling to breathe through every contraction as I grabbed onto baobi's arm, with only 1cm dilation..









8 hours of contraction and close to an hour of labour, this little precious was finally in my arms! It felt like the most surreal feeling ever carrying this tiny person that's half me and half the love of my life. Our little princess came into this world on the 27th of October 2017, and I might just be the happiest mummy on earth having delivered a healthy baby girl at 2.6kg with baobi by my side throughout the entire delivery!

Couldn't rave enough of how good the service was at Thomson medical during our 3d2n stay. It practically felt like a staycation with all the wonderful nurses showing so much love and care. I had a great stay and post-birth recovery in their private ward for 2 nights. Not to mention the awesome food served with a variety of cuisine daily.

Honestly I wouldn't allow my wife to fly on her own if she was pregnant at 8 months. I was really trying my luck with baobi when I asked "Can I go Bangkok find my girlfriend tomorrow please???" Haha. After a lot of nagging concerns discussed and a long-ass pre-flight briefing, I was finally given the green light (Yaay!!). I dashed to the airport early next morning, like 5 bucks flight tickets and free hotel stay why not right????

Sneaked into Hong Kong for a short vacay and massive food hunt! I thought our itinerary was pretty cray considering someone with an oversized tummy at week 31 waddling down the streets of Hong Kong trying to cover all the following places:



Total satisfaction (with aching legs and stuffed tummies) after 3 days and.. no ragrets!! Haha. Another fantastic yolo trip with Baobi that I thought would sum up my third trimester but no, an impromptu solo trip to Bangkok came up on the following week while I crash at Veneta's place in Pratunam!!!

It wasn't really a vacay since I hopped onto the plane to join Baobi on his flight. So nostalgic hearing his announcement on the top of descent for the first time! We had a short and fun day out in Taipei reminiscing the times we were here for holiday last year. I was mostly stuffing myself with all the goodies and bubble tea!! So much that I ended up with indigestion and heartburn after the trip when I should have watched my diet especially since I am pregnant, but can I say NO RAGRETS???? Hahaha.

It was like a month after he proposed to me and somehow or rather, I started to feel extremely tired after every flight. Flying IS exhausting but this time it was a different kind of fatigue. I would crash for 10 hours straight after checking-in to my hotel room (I usually order room service first and have my fill before sleeping!!).

I remember going home to baobz and complaining to him about how my age is catching up, my body is aching all over, I am forever feeling so tired and flying must have been the cause of my deteriorating health. I also kept whining to him about how my body's constitution has never been great and its becoming worse, suggesting that we should probably have a baby early because I don't want to have a difficult pregnancy (I was so worried that I wasn't fertile), and he was like going 30!! Haha... obviously he thought I was crazy.

The following week, I started to feel nauseous onboard especially during lull period or top of descend. I thought I must have overworked. And then there was once I got helluva emotional and hid myself in the lavatory just to cry for like NO APPARENT REASONS. I thought I was going crazy LOL. So funny when I think of it now. Well you know flying does get us quite cranky and I thought it was just the part-time studies and everything else stressing me out.

Then it happened on a fateful flight to Perth.

I did the usual check-in and crash for 10 hours, then I got up and ordered room service while working on my essay. I ordered a dozen fresh oysters and a shit load of other stuff that I usually would be able to finish except this time, I felt so awful just after eating 3 oysters. I felt sick for a long time and then threw up everything. It was so bad that I started to cry (lol). I thought there was no way I could operate on the flight back feeling so weak and horrible so I called for a doctor and my IFS and the station manager and my colleague next door and inconvenienced so many people just because of 3 oysters that I ate. LOL

I was then diagnosed with food poisoning and went on to pax home in embarrassment. The doctor however did question if I could be pregnant since I wasn't running a fever. I replied him absent-mindedly with a NO, and brushed off the thought since there was no way I could be pregnant when I was barely getting enough rest??

When I came back and told baobz about it, I also recalled that I have already missed my period for 2 months. It never bothered me at first because I have irregular period some times when I get stressed out.

So of course that was how we ended up at Watsons with a pregnancy test kit attempting to reassure ourselves but instead .. TADAAAAA the baby in me must have been like "WELCOME TO MOTHERHOOD AT 23"

Ha ha .. I was about 6 weeks preggo at that time and after much of an emtional turmoil, a lot of planning and a lot of discussions with baobz, mainly a huge change of plans for us in the next few years, we finally digested the fact that I AM pregnant and started working on our plans for parenthood.

Everything is so expensive in Singapore and we had this 'lets travel the world first then have a baby' plan but obviously this couldn't-have-been-luckier baby decided for herself that she wanna crash our travel-the-world plan by joining us on this adventure. I can't stop telling baobz how lucky she is to be collecting all the stamps on her passport right from birth.

And that I thought as much as I love to share about how I found out that I was pregnant, I probably should have them blogged since they are gonna become precious (and very much hilarious) memories for ourselves in the future.

It may have been quite a surprise, but this surprise, an unplanned one, has turned out to be one of the geatest surprises for us :) We couldn't have been happier (and helplessly anxious too) and baobz is totally geared on to be a tiger dad!!

He is so determined about embracing this whole parenthood thing and he has zero considerations for both of us flying at the same time or getting a babysitter. I'm really happy to be in this with him, working out the best plan for our little one. In fact, its such a relief to know that he is so supportive and even more excited than I am.

We have therefore decided to bring her along on our travels for the first 2-3 year hopefully to spend a lot of time with her throughout her toddler years (wanderlust mommy and clingy pilot dad's best plan). Not even kidding about him being clingy because one time he told me, "I can't go for flights I'm afraid I will miss her too much :(( !!" and I was like "Ok then we shall bring her along!!!" HAHAhahaha

So yeap, this pretty much brings me to my current SAHM status while I am thoroughly enjoying every minute of my pregnancy so far. Everything has been more than wonderful and we wake up every morning praying for nothing more than to welcome a smooth delivery and a healthy baby girl in 4 months' time! :)

Lying on my back with my palm on my womb feeling my baby's move for the first time in week 17 was so incredible. I was gleaming in joy exclaiming to Baobi that I could finally feel our baby! By week 20, I could already feel her kicking and her fluttering movements are getting stronger each day. When it hit week 21, she was so active that her kicks are starting to hurt a bit. She was always squirming about and hitting my organs so bad that I would cringe in the middle of the day as I rub my womb gently trying to calm her down. By week 22, I was so intimidated by this little fella as she continues to get more active each day, kicking so furiously inside it felt as if she was almost gonna kick her way out of my tummy. I was whining for her to relax.

Then I had to google on 'why is my fetus so active', 'is it normal that my fetus is kicking all day'. Turns out that sugar, caffeine and fatty food was probably the cause of it. My already strict diet became even stricter as I had to watch my daily sugar intake and that even includes fruits! Mmm I wonder if she's gonna take after her mum being all rowdy and hyperactive when she's born. Haha.

That being said, I'm glad to know that an active fetus also indicates a healthy growth and every time it hurt a bit when she kicks, I still smile to myself looking forward to the day for her arrival :)

Moving onto the second trimester with morning sickness wearing off and better appetite got me feeling slightly more energetic and everything just seems much more manageable.

This also marks the period of ease where I slowly learn to stop worrying about every single taboo!! My first trimester was so tough because of all the sudden traditional rules that came crashing into my life. It didn't make things any better to be moving into our new home and having a lot to handle on the post-reno follow ups and etc. that just seem to clash with every chinese tradition. Ok la I'm honestly not that much of a traditional/ superstitious person evidently from my inta where I was more than ready to share my pregnancy way back in the earlier weeks, with friends and family who have been very happy for both CS and I, showing us great support.

It feels great to say that we are settling well in our nest with almost everything in place for now! I have also gotten into a daily routine of cooking and cleaning, and having all the time to myself, feeling very thankful that my days are a lot more relaxed now unlike the hectic and strenuous flying days juggling school and work.

I'm growing to enjoy this mundane lifestyle infact, where I don't have much to stress about besides thinking really hard on what to eat everyday(haha). Ok so silly. But no my life isn't that boring yet because I have the sweetest bunch of friends who occasionally drop by to check on me, showing up with goodies to satisfy my cravings, and babysitting me all day while shopping for maternity stuff. Besides, I only have this much time to relax before the little one arrives!

As of now, I feel like my years of hard work finally paid off and all those times when I scrimped and saved during my flying days were worth every minute of it. I haven't bought a single branded bag though.. and I'm not sure if I ever will but everything that I have right now is more than enough for me.

I am so very grateful for everyday.

A part of me feels sorry for not following the tradition of bursting our budget on a huge blow-out wedding. Another part of me feels extremely glad that we did not follow the trend or rather tradition just because we feel obliged to do so as a Chinese.

At the end of the day, a wedding IS the biggest day of our lives and the big day could be represented by a thousand ways. For the usual Singaporeans, we rent expensive gowns, buy expensive photo-taking packages and throw an overpriced banquet dinner inviting friends and family, but leaving ourselves with either debts or just empty pockets and a head full of stress wondering if we REALLY enjoyed our big day, besides having satisfied the traditional-chinese-wedding-day.



A marriage means so much to us, and so is our wedding. Caught in a painful dilemma planning the perfect day, we have refused to let a century of advertising distract us from what's really important.

It's not about the money or the gifts, the 100 banquet tables or the most exquisite floral centrepieces that eventually wither. It's about love leading you to take the first step of building a family together in the best possible ways you can afford despite living in this expensive city. A wedding is just about you and me declaring our eternal, undying love for each other, and that's what I've always dreamed for our wedding to be about, because I love you and I know you always will too.

We had a non-5-star-hotel kinda wedding solemnisation at a private villa and then a simple dinner with both our families in Sentosa Cove. We did our shoot right in the morning before our solemnisation and the best part was having all our 20 brothers and sisters joining us for our wedding shoot exactly as I had wished for. It was a simple affair with nothing less than sheer joy yet nothing more than what we couldn't have afforded.

Growing up has taught me that making a living is hard and you don't have to make it harder for yourself just to conform to society standards. The last thing you need to start off your life as a newly wed is a bunch of wedding debts on the list.

We had a big day, a fabulous one, probably the happiest day of my life and I never nor would I ever regret a minute of it. Thank you to my Baobi and everyone who joined us on this day. I am truly thankful, and eternally grateful to be your wife.

Pretty much sums up my Google searches in week 10 with growing anxiety and paranoia.

Craving of the week: junk food!!

I haven't really got down to writing.. and my first pregnancy made me decide that I had to document every single day of it with this growing belly that carries the wonder of a new life. Okay not literally EVERY SINGLE DAY but I never want to forget even a minute of this amazing journey!

A lot has been going through my mind and I constantly wonder if I am ready for this.

If flying isn't exhausting, I was also studying part time while in the midst of struggling to coordinate our home reno, and I was barely getting enough sleep each day. The sudden news of a baby, if not delighted, caught us pretty much unaware. And as much as we're overwhelmed, we are truly grateful to know that god has blessed us with the greatest gift ever.

So CS is going 30 and I am 24 myself, and we are absolutely thrilled to take on the role of parenting. Haha well.. I mean I don't know for sure if I'm gonna be the best parent around but what I do know is that with CS around, the baby and I are definitely in good hands and I promise to give my best shot!

I just can't wait to move into our new home :)

For the benefit of all my friends who asked how I passed my WSET with such a horrible level of alcohol tolerance and little exposure to wines. Well I had to study EXTRA hard! It was so tedious.

And guys here's the ultimate guide that I painstakingly compiled for all you who barely drink but wish to pass your wset too! Level 2 can be considerably tough for someone with no background in wine, since SQ skipped level 1 as its not required in the sommelier program.

1. Devise study plan

2. Buy a set of Colourful Pens

3. Print countless Maps of World Continents

4. Get a Sketch Book to Mindmap

If you've already attended the course, you would have received a summarised text of the LEARNING OUTCOME with Element 1 to 7. This set of note is extremely important because it is gonna be the frame of your entire study plan.


I followed closely to this note and devised my own study plan from there. Its makes learning so much easier than just reading off the chapters from textbook memorising blindly(which is practically impossible).

Don't leave out the smallest details in your mindmap thinking its insignificant because the exams could come out with the random-est specific question you never thought you would be tested on. Maybe like, which term is used on an Italian wine label to indicate that the grapes were grown in the historic centre of the district- Classico, Crianza, Riserva or Cortese? And the best vineyards of the Northern Rhone are coastal, steep or flat?

(Keep in mind to refer to WORKBOOK when studying style and quality of the wine. They give a good summary in point form as compared to the textbook.)



Element  1: Factors that influence wine style and winemaking/maturation
Range 1 to 5- Mindmap


Element 2: Principal grape varieties
Range 1 to 2- Mindmap
Range 3- Print 6 maps of world continents and indicate the producing countries and regions for each principal grape variety, and their style and quality (Lazy people like me decided to assign each colour to every grape variety so you don't drown yourself memorising all of them) What I did was:

Range 4- Refer to table as generated (Common labelling terms indicating style or quality)


Element 3: Regionally important grape varieties
Range 1 to 2-Print 2 maps of world continents and indicate the regionally important grape varieties and named wines, 1 for white wines and 1 for red wines (you probably want another separate map of ITALY for the red wines), and their style and quality
Range 3- Refer to table as generated (Common labelling terms indicating style or quality)

Element 3 on regionally important named wines is extremely confusing from the original note. It was categorised under continents of the world and then by grape varieties and named wines. These are wines that are not recognised by their variety but rather by their GI(geographical indication). This means that the name of the wine itself is the REGION, subcategorised by their grape variety (with individual black and white grapes) and then finally the style and quality of the wine. Therefore, I suggest your note for this segment be a reversed version of Element 2.

Which means instead of labelling the region of a particular grape variety on the world map, you now indicate the regions on the world map of White/Red Wines and then label the grape variety, with its style and quality. Coloured pens will be your saviour for this segment! You can't be embarrassed about colouring on a world map when you barely drink and cannot read french but dying to pass an exam. So pick up those coloured pens and assign each to a region. What I did was:
You should have 2 maps for white and red each, plus a separate map of Italy for the reds(Piemonte, Veneto, and Tuscany), since mine ran out of space.

There you have all the major regionally important named wines made in the key wine producing countries of the world.

Element 4: Sparkling wines and winemaking/maturation
Range 1 to 2- Mindmap
Range 3- Refer to table as generated (Common labelling terms indicating style or quality)

Element 4 ain't so bad since I have a great interest in sparkling wines. I organised the contents by mindmapping off the methods of production for sparkling wines, mainly with Champagne, Cremant, Saumur and Cava produced with the Bottle method and ASTI DOCG, Sekt, and Prosecco produced with the Tank method. Perhaps the slightly confusing part on this topic would be the methods of FERMENTATION. ASTI itself has a slightly different fermentation process(only one fermentation and CO2 is only trapped towards the end to achieve the right level of carbonation).

The most important part of this segment would be the GRAPE VARIETAL for each type of sparkling wine.


Element 5: Sweet and fortified wines
Range 1 to 2- Mindmap
Range 3- Refer to table as generated (Common labelling terms indicating style or quality)

By now you would be so drained and tired of all the wines to digest any further and there is A WHOLE LOAD MORE to study for this chapter. What I did was to skip this chapter and take on something more interesting like wine and food pairing in Range 3 of Element 7. Anyway, Sherry and Port IS BORING. Hahaha. Until you learn to pair them with cheese of course.

You probably need to refer more to the workbook to get a good picture on this chapter. I did the usual mindmap with four types of Sherry(Pedro Ximenez, Amontillado-medium, Oloroso-cream, Fino-pale cream) and three types of Port(Ruby, Vintage, Tawny). I almost died studying this chapter.

I'm not sure if you want me to go into details on sweet wines in this chapter. You would probably fall asleep reading it, well because THAT'S WHAT HAPPENED TO ME.


Element 6: International Spirits
Range 1 to 2- Mindmap
Range 3- Refer to table as generated (Common labelling terms indicating style or quality)

Flavouring and production methods are the major topics for this segment. But READ EVERYTHING anyway.

Element 7: Storage/ Selection/ Service
READ EVERYTHING
Range 1 to 4- Mindmap EVERYTHING

I bought a book from wine folly and if you don't already know, wine folly is a website founded by Madeline Puckette and Justin Hammack. The company has built an educational wine blog that publishes articles, videos, and infographics to help simplify wine. I am absolutely in love with their graphics and illustrations of wine tutorials. They make studying wine so much easier, and the fact that everything is so colourful makes learning so interesting. You don't have to buy their books. Click here for their pinterest page.


Because wine and food pairing can be rather complex and subjective, I tried referring to other sources besides the textbook for further insights, and wine folly was very informative. I made my wine and food pairing notes cross-referencing both books. Click here for wine and food pairing notes

Common Labelling terms indicating Style or Quality A.K.A. Legally defined Quality Indications 

This chapter can be quite important for learning to pick good wines since you learn to read the labels. I can't say for sure that I now know how to pick good wines. I feel like Level 3 would probably give more depth to picking and appreciating wines. Under the EU GI there are two categories mainly PDO and PDI and it is labelled on most bottles in a wide variety of languages like French, Italian, Spanish and German. They are basically branding for wines governed by laws in techniques of winemaking. But it can be tricky as well because wine without a certified strict winemaking technique doesn't necessarily mean its bad wine. In fact, it could be a good wine if the producer had blended it well.

You can however learn to differentiate the wines by their hierarchy which is labelled with legally defined quality indications.


I'm not even sure if this table is legit but I came up with this since I couldn't understand shit from chapter 4  when I first started. Well at least it helped me pass my exam??? Hahaha. You see there are tons of terminology for GI in foreign labels and it was so confusing for me! I decided to make memorising easier since I already had a ton of other stuff to remember, by generating this table of Quality Indications.

I added a few definitions below and the rest can be found in the textbook, which you already should know through all the notes you made. These definitions are quite important since I got them from all the MCQs I did.

Also, since I generated this table entirely on my own, I can't be sure if there's any mistake.


Refer to the WORKBOOK for a touch up after every mindmap for each chapter. It's a good reference for summary (which I missed out on) and I wish I'd done this earlier. 1 week before the exam, or rather 3 days before, attempt sample MCQs papers which I have included in this post. You can find more of it from your workbook. Attempt all of it repeatedly (especially those from your workbook) until you are able to score full or nearly full marks. Take online quizzes too on your free time.



And here my dear friends, is the amateur guide to passing your WSET Level 2. I hope it helps. Now everyone can go pass your Level 2 exam! All the best with your revisions and good luck!