You must bear in mind that throughout this entire time of planning, Huiyi has absolutely no idea that she would become my fiancée before we arrived in Perth. Every other day, I imagine her imagining the sunset scene that Perth promises – great! – it’s going according to plan.

But there’s a part of me that fears giving away the idea for I used to have a reputation of a surprise spoiler. So the last thing that I wanted was to spoil what possibly would be the greatest surprise I would ever spring on anyone!

We had wanted to visit Universal Studios Singapore (USS) for the longest time but was always reluctant because of the exorbitant entry fee and average rides. Hence it was our blessing that Huiyi had friends in right places; Rudith worked in USS and was a friend from Huiyi’s university days. They had lunch together recently and seemed to hit it off well. Well, well enough for Rudith to magnanimously offer two of her limited eight annual staff discounts to us so that we could enter USS at a knock-down price.

Huiyi proceeded to purchase a pair of tickets through Rudith and I offered to pay for it as part of her birthday present. We had wanted to go on a Thursday instead of a Friday simply because we speculated a smaller crowd. But after a week of deliberation, we decided to have it on Friday instead.

Next chapter: the third idea – Universal Studios Singapore.