We took the elevator up to the ground floor and I made her show me where the toilet was. After all, she thought it was my first time at the clubhouse, remember? So thankfully, she ushered us into the washrooms that I had hope both of us would change in respectively.

I entered the gents and found Gideon and Caleb inside. All three of us were excited. I could finally show my true emotions and I could barely contain my excitement! They had to hush me down in case my voice travelled to the adjacent ladies.

I realised then that all my years of executing a change-parade in the SAF was a dress rehearsal (no pun intended!) in preparation for this. I changed into a checkered Esprit shirt, slipped on my new favourite pair of black Levi’s jeans, laced up my brown Timberland boots, touched up my hair, made a final check of the logistics required (especially the ring!) and was out of the washroom within three minutes.

Huiyi, however, took her own sweet time in changing and dolling up for the dinner. So I spent the next 10 minutes waiting for her to emerge from the ladies. Gideon and Caleb patiently waited inside the gents the entire time.

When she emerged from the washroom, she looked exactly the way I had hope she would look – the stylish girl-next-door look that I fell in love with and grew to adore. I was pleased that everything had turned out fine so far (except for the rain).

I didn’t say much to her except that I was going to bring her to somewhere special and that she needed to put on a blindfold and listen to music from my iPod (so that she could neither see the path nor hear the clicking sounds from the camera shutter).

She hesitantly complied, thinking that I must probably have something silly up my sleeves, as one of the mini-birthday surprises planned for her. Surprise, yes. Mini, I’m not too sure about that…

Next chapter: the wait is finally over!