Our Engagement
Nov 17, 2008
THE PREQUEL(S)
At the early part of 2008, Bryan and I planned on taking our 5 consecutive days VL together on the week of my birthday (Nov 17-21)… Towards the middle of the year, Bryan told me that he was anticipating tons of work for that week and will not be able to push through with the 5-day VL …sad… To make up, he, instead, promised to take an off on my birthday (Nov 19, Wednesday)…fair enough…
Around September, Bryan was floating the idea of spending a November weekend in Genting, Malaysia…nice idea! We’ve never been to Genting together and we really adore theme parks. So it seems like this is where we might spend our leave.
In October, I had the opportunity to choose between two trainings. The first one is in Singapore and the other one is in Malaysia. Bryan is prodding me to take the Malaysia training to maximize time and resources and spend the adjacent weekend in Genting. But I prefer the SG training, so that’s where I signed up. I win =).
Since the training is on the week of my birthday (Nov 18-19), I thought it’s automatic that he comes with me …we were planning to leave by Nov 15, Saturday…spend the weekend together to tour some of the remaining places in SG that we haven’t visited, then he goes home Monday night, Nov 17 or early morning of Tuesday, Nov 18…a 1 day VL for him.
We were about to buy his plane tickets, but he suddenly started having second thoughts in joining me, told me we have been in Singapore for several times already anyway, so it might not be a wise spend to go there again…The usual me, tampo galore… Isn’t being together for my birthday (not even my birthDAY itself!) non-negotiable enough?! Needless to say, I emerge victorious, again … =)
THE SINGAPORE ITINERARY
Nov 11, Bryan sends me an email with a very detailed Singapore itinerary in a tabular form, cute! Super detailed to the point that even the exact time, the activity, the place and the “participants” we’re indicated (we’re meeting some friends too!). He is fond of preparing our trips, I remember having followed a similar itinerary when my Lola & I went to visit him December of 2007 (I can still remember an agenda with the title “talk about the future” hihi)
Nov 14, Friday…Ray Andallon (with the usual kilig/”bry bry mode” look) handed me a brown envelope, told me to give it to Bryan, asked me if I am excited… huh?! What is there to be excited about when we’ve been both in SG before? (later on realized the envelope contained our tickets to the Singapore Flyer)
THE ENGAGEMENT DAY
Fast forward Nov 17, Monday…I was scheduled to meet a headhunter, too bad the rain and the traffic jam didn’t permit me to make it on time…sad…told myself that it was probably not my day…we just went malling… at one point, Bryan tells me he had to leave me for some time in Funan (few minutes lang actually)… hmmm, ok… earlier that day, he took several phone calls and texted a lot, I peek a lot at his phone which is not my usual since I was expecting calls or messages that were “my” headhunter-related… And there are instances where he deliberately covers his phone so I won’t see his messages – something he rarely does. But I still didn’t have the slightest idea of what he was about to do, haha, dense, uh… Even despite having read an sms from Janice with the message “Bry Bry”
Just before the night falls, based on the itinerary, we headed off to the Singapore Flyer… we were about to enter when Bryan asked, “hindi ka ba naiihi?”… huh?! Told him no, so off we walked…after a few steps, he said, “ok, ako na lang, punta kong CR…”… ok… then after his CR break, when we were about to enter the capsule with some other riders, Bryan whispers something to an attendant… the attendant then lets the other riders go in the open capsule…waits for the next capsule and before he lets us in, calls some other attendants…one handed us a paper bag with some Singapore Flyer stuffs, another with 2 tall glasses of wine (wow! romantic!), one handed a bouquet of roses, this guy tells us as he handed the bouquet, “I don’t know what to do with this!” hahahaha!… and then off we went inside a capsule that was reserved for just the 2 of us! Hihihi…
On our way up, I was thanking him with all my heart for having to arrange this romantic flight for my advance birthday celebration… he opens one of the boxes, there was a pink teddy bear inside that says “I love you” in a very cute (funny actually) manner when you squeeze its stomach, cute ;-) … We took some pictures but since the lighting of my camera is quite poor with inadequate lighting, we were able to take just a couple of photos…
When we were at the peak of the Flyer, he whispers to me something like “…we haven’t had any romantic date yet… so this will be the first… pero kahit una to, mangangahas na ko… sandali, kailangan kong lumuhod…” hahahaha, it was something I totally didn’t expect! I can laugh now about this but during that time I was actually speechless!!! When he was about to go down on his knees, I was trying to hold him to just stand because I didn’t want him to kneel…I think he did anyway, then he handed me the ring…it was a really super nice ring that I will love to wear everyday as a sign that I am marrying my best friend!
I can’t remember what happened next, maybe it’s because of the mocktails or simply because I am so happy… After the flight, we were off to meet friends for dinner… all of them actually knew about his proposal plans! Special mention of course to Singapore’s upcoming big star, Allan Ticatic as I learned that he was the one who actually arranged everything… and for several instances, he received some well wishes from the Singapore Flyer staff who were mostly Pinoys having mistaken him to be the one proposing ;-)
I had a difficult time falling asleep that night… So I just went to upload all our pics in multiply…and emailed some closest friends about the engagement ;-) Then off to the actual reason why I was in Singapore to begin with – the training.. =)
