One Magic Moment is the latest offering by Lynn Kurland and it has become one of my favourites.
I've been a fan of Lynn Kurland and her novels since 2 years ago, when I have the good fortune of reading one of her books. I love her writing style, the witty dialogue, the swoon-worthy heroes and their lady loves, the clean romance, the wonderful backdrops in medieval and modern England, etc.
With so many novels under her belt and the de Piaget genealogy chart getting more complex, I can only hope she will keep writing and keep her readers entertained. The de Piaget family is definitely one of the highlights of her whole fantasy world.
Time-travel romance with medieval lords meeting modern-day ladies and vice-versa is one of my favourite themes, as with paranormal romance. Unfortunately, the bulk of this genre do not quite suit my tastes.
As discussed before in one of my reviews, while I like how the protagonists have their happily-ever afters in whatever time period, I find myself not liking those stories where the females decided to drop their lives in the present and go back in time with their love as much as those who stay in the present.
Perhaps, it's because I cannot imagine myself doing that, regardless of everything. I like the present and the modern too much to give them up.
That's why One Magic Moment is one of my favourite novels, Tess and John de Piaget stayed in the present, or Future as they called it. He time-travelled to the Future and meet Tess a few years after. Even though through some conspiracy which have them time-travelled back to the 13th century, John is willing to give up his life there and return to the Future, partly because he has grown accustomed to the perks of modern amenities.
Ahhh, this is definitely a most satisfying story I have read and there will be plenty more to come next year.
20th June:
It's the most relaxing day in the entire tour as it was supposed to be free and easy shopping. Morning call was later than usual and we went down for the dim sum breakfast again.
After that, it's time to head over to One Link Centre where shops sell their stuff in bulk. You can find almost everything here, ranging from deco for homes to knick-knacks. I assumed this is the place where vendors would frequent to buy whatever they want in bulk and then go back to their own country to sell.
My uncle and aunties were there to bring in the stocks for their year-end gifts, whilst the rest of us were just shopping for leisure sake. I managed to buy a photo frame and a jewellery box.
Lunch was settled at the extremely crowded KFC. Eating fast-food in China is really worth it, I must say. That box of 5 nuggets costs only S$1+ after conversion. My family of 5 only paid S$10+ to settle lunch. Tell me that is not cheap. It would have cost three times the cost to eat the same in Singapore.
It was off to more shopping at wholesale markets. If I ever open a shop of my own, Guangzhou will be a sure place to go for buying wholesale products. They have entire shopping malls dedicated to selling leather bags and clothes.
We had dinner in one of the live seafood restaurants where you choose whatever seafood you want and bring it up to the restaurant for cooking.
The place is stinky and fishy with lots of loud, boisterous Chinese men who smoked till no end and ordered tons of seafood. We were like the odd ones in there. Seriously. Most of the tables are occupied by people described above.
There wasn't a lot of dishes and the whole atmosphere was just too smoky and disgusting to stay for long. I thought this meal will not cost us that much because my uncle said his colleagues recommended this place and said it was cheap.
Imagine my horror when my father told me we had to pay S$200+ to my uncle who paid first. I think the the overall bill was S$500 ++. Holy crap! The meal was OK at best and we can eat better here in Singapore with that amount of money. It wasn't worth it, no sir, not in that kind of environment and mediocre dishes. Perhaps it was due to those abalones...
21st June:
Woke up early and checked out without having breakfast. We have a flight to catch. We went to the airport first before finding out a place to eat.
The airport is big but there aren't many shops and there is no directory. Furthermore, our schedule was tight. Tiger Airways is cramped and small like JetStar, except the width of the seats are bigger, but there is absolutely no extra space for legroom. Taller guys like my brother and cousin must have it tough.
We were delayed for nearly an hour. The flight home was alright, however, not as smooth as the flight there. We touched down at Budget Terminal and there was no jetway (loading bridge) for us! We had to walk directly down the steps of the plane, and it was fun pretending to be important people getting off their private jets.
Budget Terminal as its name suggests is 100% budget. Amenities aren't as good as Changi Airport and even the service isn't up to par. The terminal itself isn't the cleanest with dirty tracks on the floor. We have to wait a long time for our luggage to load onto the belt for collection.
When all the luggage are finally collected, we went out to eat our late lunch at McDonalds. Ahh, Singapore McDonalds, how I miss thee! Nothing can quite compare to Singapore McDonalds.
