And The Parents' Job Is Done

When their kids get married. And then they can celebrate and be happy and joyful. Which was made very obvious in the case of Ivan's wedding.

What can we say? More Klangites are getting married this year. There's gonna be...three? Three weddings, are we right, 'Nic? Or more? It's getting more and more obvious that we're falling out of the loop when it comes to news from the Klangites.

Anyways. We attended Ivan's Klang wedding last weekend, but we can't make it for his upcoming Penang wedding (to the same girl, of course).

Had to get up early for 'Nic to pick us up to make our way down to Klang for hengdai duties in the morning. While waiting for the groom and to head off to the bride's place, some of the others actually mentioned that they were keen for the challenges the zhimuis would throw at them - because they hadn't had breakfast and were hungry! This of course reminded us that we too were hungry, and the mental image of a celery with condense milk kept popping up in our head (courtesy of ethancya and Renzze's wedding!).

Interestingly, since the bride's family stayed in Penang, the bride and her zhimuis actually rented an apartment to hold the challenges! We wonder if they had to rent the place for a month, or for a couple of days only, or how did they go about that...

The challenges were...mild. We put this down to not having enough time. And to top it off, everyone spoke in Mandarin, which left us as the bemused but uncomprehending hengdai.

It started off with the zhimuis applying lipsticks to the hengdais, after which they were supposed to kiss a cardboard until the heart-shaped bit in the center was all covered in kisses. Something to remember: the zhimui applying the lipstick started off by putting on the lipstick properly on the first hengdai...but after that she started going haywire, making everyone else look like the Joker from The Dark Knight.

The most interesting challenge would be a game of Suck-And-Blow using seaweed strips instead of a name card/credit card. This game failed as the seaweed strips tend to stick on the tip of the nose more often than on the lips! The zhimuis at least put some thought into this one, choosing wasabi seaweed strips instead of the normal flavoured ones. There was a good profile photo of NJH and Ty smooching, 'cos the seaweed strip couldn't be seen!

Oh well. The hengdais hit the table spread of food while the groom had his younger brother translate a paper full of chinese proclaimations of love which he then shouted out into the bedroom.

So, the challenges were mild. This was a good thing, because cal_el brought along his Thai girlfriend for the challenges, and she was certainly busy taking photos and notes of the happenings! Their wedding will be coming up later this year and we wonder if she will want to have her own hengdai/zhimui challenge...if the challenges were much more 'creative', imagine what the Thais would come up with!

After the morning's activities and lunch back at Ivan's, we headed back to shower, change, and rest up before the dinner back at Klang.

Leaving the Chief's place in the evening to head for dinner, we decided to head down the Federal, once past the toll after Subang and somewhere along Shah Alam, cut across to get to Kota Kemuning and onto the Kesas Highway, then continue our way down to Klang. We used to do this during our uni days, but have long forgotten the exact route.

And as expected, we got lost.

And found ourself at Alam Idaman. Trying to find our location on Google Maps showed forests with no roads, and calculated routes always took us to Klang via Federal Highway rather than via Kesas. And so we gave up and took the Federal into Klang...

...we could feel our soul slipping away as we slowly crawled our way towards the Klang Bridge.

Miraculously when we arrived an hour late for the dinner, it still has not started! And once seated a Carlberg was put into our ready hands to restore our soul! A cold beer does do wonders for low traffic EQ.

And it was here that we come to realize how happy parents can be when their kids marry. While yes, of course, parents should be happy to see their kids finally tying the knot, most of the time we observe parents either getting sentimental or being rather reserved. Ivan's dad was bursting at the seams! It was obvious where Ivan got his humour and happy-go-lucky attitude from!

Do we need to wish the couple happiness in years to come? Probably no need. But we'll wish them all the best and many great years ahead!