And we're off!

Greetings from Taipei, Taiwan! What a crazy 24 no 48 hours. Thinking we had done the majority of our packing and organization we thought we were in pretty good shape. The last few days have been a blur, particularly Thursday (yes, the day we were flying out).

Luckily I got to finish work early on Thursday (TIP! Take a few days off work BEFORE you a leaving for your wedding, 4 month trip and moving out of your apartment!), and as soon as I logged off it was non-stop. Dan had taken some more boxes to his Mum's and was stuck in traffic so I started the clean down of the apartment. I scrubbed two bathrooms, cleaned out and scrubbed the fridge and freezer, vacced, mopped floors, washed windows - my manicure from Wednesday was ruined! We had our inspection from our landlord at 4.30pm, and I just managed to finish in time. We passed with flying colors!

We had done a test pack the night before, and it didn't go great. I had brought a new toiletry bag for the trip, awesome bag for a normal trip, but for a backpacking trip not so much - this sucker was taking up half the room and the material was very thick. We decided to make a last run to REI at 6pm to swap it and return a couple of other things I had brought on Wednesday. I am SO GLAD we did. Swapped it for a new lightweight Sea to Summit bag, Dan picked up a new lightweight wallet and we got a few more smaller packing cubes. We then rushed over to Best Buy for Dan to get his 'travel keyboard' for the ipad.

By the time we got bak to Brooklyn, picked up a few Clif bars and got home for the last time to 320 Bedford, it was 8.30pm. We packed our stuff (and it all fitted and I didn't have to cut anymore clothes! yeah!), loaded up the car and said goodbye to our apartment. It was off to Dan's Mum's again to drop the stuff off and head to the airport.

Our flight was super late - 1.45am so we were exhausted - they served as food on the plane around 3am and remember eating a salad and that is really all. The flight was too bad for over 15 hours. Now we are waiting for our connection to Bali! Until then xo

The Onion is better than The Village Voice

It was half a great weekend! Actually it was all pretty good :) - we just did a big chunk of packing on Sunday with isn't the funnest way to spend a weekend but definitely has helped with the stress levels!

Saturday we spent the day at Pt. Lookout at the beach with some of my mates from my swim team. Weather was looking terrible on Saturday morning, but it managed to clear up and it was a great day, except for my latest foot injury - I cut my foot on a shell while playing volleyball. The cut isn't that deep but my foot is all bruised underneath so its tender, but I did manage to belt out a few miles this morning after taking a few days rest.

Dan and I both enjoyed playing volleyball, and we both commented in the car ride home how much we miss team sports! For me its netball, for Dan baseball. I think next year when we get back it will be a must for both of us.

Sunday it was pretty overcast, the weather gods deemed it a packing day. I finally managed to pack all the little bits of crap that we had piled in the office - pens, cords, papers, extra bulk costco things - all that junk that doesn't really 'fit' anywhere logically when you are packing categories of stuff. Dan took all that stuff to his Mum's and I started on all the plates, cups and glasses. I highly recommend only taking The Onion (its a free newspaper) to wrap your fragiles - its one of the only free papers that doesnt have staples in it. When you are wrapping up lots of the breakables (and I was double wrapping them), having to take out a staple every time makes it even more painful! AVOID THE VILLAGE VOICE!

After the second round of boxes where packed, we both headed out for the drive and stopped off for lunch at a Vegetarian Chinese Dim Sum (Yum Cha to the Aussies). Absolutely delicious and so cheap. Dan's Mum had put him onto the place and they go there quite frequently. We order the mock roast beef and seriously it tasted like the real thing. So good!

Now it really just the furniture we have left, plus food, the bathroom stuff and more of my clothes. We are planning to do this on Friday. I am hoping to also do a test pack today, there are a couple more clothing items I WANT to buy, but not sure they will fit. My toiletry bag takes up half the space! 

Back to work!

Decisions, Decisions and More Decisions

I am not going to lie, planning a wedding is stressful, and we are only having a very small one! I thought once we decided on which country to have the wedding in and the location it would be smooth sailing. Initially it was, but the last month has been the most stressful as decisions have had to be made on the detail things.

Veil or no veil, what style veil if I wear one, satin edge or rough edge, how will I wear my hair, what jewelry to wear, what flowers to get in the bouquets, what color, which centerpiece, which decorations for the ceremony... and I can go on and on.

What makes this worse is that I have the 'Rob Jones' (my father) 'shop around for the ultimate best deal' trait so that plays a factor in my decision. I can't tell you how many pairs of earrings I have stared at for hours on the net, over and over again. I did actually end up buying some earrings - very plain ones which actually really like! I think I spent at least 12 hrs total making that choice!

I've said this many times to my friends, planning a wedding is a bizarre experience. The actual wedding is not even one day - will anyone even remember you had the white napkins with the cute silver monogram vs. the plain white ones? No. But, you have put so much effort and so much of your time into planning, and the monogram would be really nice personal touch, so why not? Seriously, this is what you weigh up every decision you have to make.

Luckily some of the bigger things I did not really have to much of a problem with. It took us a while to decide to have our wedding in Bali, it came down to Bali, Hawaii and New York, but once we decided on Bali we only looked at two venues and picked the Bali Mandira and a wedding planner very quickly. The food, drink and entertainment again we picked very quickly, and I also didn't have to much stress with the dress. I had looked last year with my Mum when she was over in New York and thought I would get more of a mermaid style, but when I went to try dresses on in May I found them all very constricting, so ended up picking something totally unexpected! See more about our wedding details here.