The Beginning of Happily Ever After

The Beginning of Happily Ever After (2 August, 2003)


28 March, 2016

A few days ago, my wife and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. As we commemorate the happy occasion, my mind goes back to the past twelve years that we have known each other, and how blessed I am to have found this wonderful woman.

Do you remember the first time you met your spouse? I am happy to say that, not only do I know the date, I also have photographs taken on that very first time we met. It is also a reminder to me that digital photography has been an integral part of my life for over a dozen years.

Take a look at the photo above. Can you find me and my future wife Goh Chooi Yoke in it? Yes, we weren't together at that time, but little do we know, that great things were going to happen that would align our paths.

The first time I met the woman who was to become my future significant other was on the Penang Hill outing that I organized for my travel club AsiaExplorers (also known as AE). I created AsiaExplorers so that I can get to know people of like interest as me, and we can go places together. Now, as it was back then, if I want something to happen, I create it myself (which explains the number of Facebook Groups I have today!)

The date was Saturday, 2 August, 2003. At that time, AsiaExplorers had just begun, and we have had only a few outings. There was no Facebook back then, and people interacted using Yahoo Groups, which are not as happening today as it was once.

Anyway, I posted on the outing on my Yahoo Group and many friends, and friends of friends, quickly signed up to it. When I arrived at the foot of Penang Hill that morning, I met up with two of the AE members, Ivy Lim and Goh Chooi Yoke. I am more familiar with Ivy Lim, as I have known her through a colleague of mine, but the other girl was a stranger to me. I was there with my friend Sam. Before going up the hill to meet the other participants, we had breakfast at the coffee shop near the Air Itam Roundabout. At that initial encounter, I had no idea whatsoever that something special was going to develop between Chooi Yoke and me.

It was a misty morning at Penang Hill. The group of us, which also includes a few kids, hiked up to the old Penang Hill canopy walk (which I believe is no longer operating today). I remember at one point it started to rain heavily, so we rushed over to the Penang Hill hawker centre (now replaced by Astaka Bukit Bendera) where we ordered ais kacang and drinks before descending the hill.

On that fateful date, two perfect strangers met. Me, the founder of AsiaExplorers, and she, a participant at an AsiaExplorers outing. The fool that I am, I never saw it coming, but subsequent AsiaExplorers trips, both local and overseas, were going to bring the two of us closer and closer together, that our paths would intertwine in the most wonderful ways, that two perfect strangers would find in each other the ideal chemistry which leads us to going steady, to engagement, and now, to nine wonderful years of marriage, and God willing, many more to come.

Return to the Timothy Tye Homepage