Wedding, Subak Style

Dengarlah kisah persekutuan si nona Pengembara Dunia dan jejakanya Penginap Laut. Dalam perjalananya untuk menyelamatkan dunia sebelum masa tidur, dia pun menemui temannya, dan selepas beribu-ribu lemon kini bila bulan menjelang di akhir pengembaraannya

Frak that shyte. This is why we stick to writing factual BM essays for school exams, our vocabulary and flair was limited. We still remember our Form 5 BM tuition teacher giving an example of how fictional BM essays need to be written to really score well: "the leaves danced in the currents of air under the ceiling fan" or something along those lines, it sounded much fancier in BM.

So anyways, HL and JT tied the knot last month (yes, late posting...), and while invites were handed out a couple of months before, due to forgetfulness on our part we've only received the invite (via Lad Express, the impressions were still fresh on the card when we got it cos he sat on it, haha) after the wedding dinner. Thankfully HL texted us a reminder and we could check with the others regarding dress code and dinner venue, so we weren't to worried.

A quick check online as to where Subak was and we were initially quite confident we could get there easily - it was a straight road from TTDI into Kampung Sungai Penchala. We knew we were checking up the correct place too because the website informed that they were closed for a private function in the evening!

It was only when we were on said straight road that we had a slight niggling doubt that we might be missing some bit of direction. Puddy even made a U-turn back at first!

Finally we arrived at Subak! Could tell we were at the right place when there were rows of cars parked on both sides of the road.

The setting was certainly a different one! One thing we knew beforehand was that we were to expect a outdoor garden dinner setting, so there was no need (for us guests) to come in black tie. Which was fine, Subak made sure that there were plenty of fans fixed up and the drinks were all chilled. What we didn't expect was them handing out insect repellant patches. Not that we got bitten any time at all during the night!

We were unfortunately late and missed out the speech that had HL with damp eyes...

But in time to appreciate the effort put into the venue and celebration.

We're not too sure how Subak is on normal occasions, and am a bit afraid it doesn't live up to this anymore.

The food, however, was enjoyable. And colourful! Of note is their Balinese Chicken Soto soup, because...because it's the only photo we took with a label and we remember it as being good.

There was the band, who slowly made their way from table to table to serenade us all with songs (and have the more tipsy guests sing along with them).

And after dinner and speeches and the toastings, it was time to dance.

Certainly it was something different. If we concentrated we could probably convince ourself that the dinner was held in Bali and we were all invited guests each with their own private villa, where at the end of the party we could head back and ease ourself into the outdoor jacuzzi pool that comes with each villa, surrounded with scented candles and nothing but a scenic view and undisturbed by other guests...

Ok, maybe not. And the Chief and us didn't dance.

But as wedding dinner goes, HL and JT's goes to show that you don't really have to go to the end of the world to have a beautiful wedding.

Congratulations on finishing one journey, and on beginning another longer one!

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!

It Starts In College...

...and this is the second story we know of where a relationship started off since college, and after nearly ten years, ends in marriage. The first being 'Nic and LiL. This time it's beween Puddy and her beau Eddy - knew each other since school days, started going steady in college when he offered her a ride, and now, ten years later, have tied the knot.

Ok, so for 'Nic it probably wasn't ten years. But close enough.

It's a rather small world when at the dinner reception we were grabbed by the elbow to face to of our college classmates, and somehow we stopped ourself from blurting, "Eh why are you here?" We chatted a bit and found out that they were friends of the groom (as we were the bride's) either since Taylor's or while at Imperial. So at this dinner we had friends from college, our pharmacy coursemates and the Taman Tun-ites as well.

We wonder what kind of wedding dinner it would be if we had the bloggers, the Taman Tun-iutes, the Klangites, college friends, and pharmacy coursemates in attendance. Quite likely our own wedding, if it ever happens!

One thing of note at Puddy's wedding - there weren't any reminders that this was a Chinese wedding dinner in any way by way of decor. Some handcrafted trees with wellwishes written on the paper leaves, everything in a thematic robin's egg blue, and an absence of the chinese word 'Hei' or the colour red anywhere. Otherwise, we still had a bilingual MC and the shouts of yamseng to remind us where we were.

Another thing of note. We're still not used to Puddy's and Eddy's first names.

Jon Low handled the photography and after having his name appearing at the opening and closing of the wedding shoot, we were sure to remember him (and the photos were rather good). If ever we want wedding photos done this would be another photographer to think of.

Unfortunately we couldn't stay long after the dinner was over to chat with the couple, as the Chief had work to do and it was already past 11pm, so we made our quick apologies, congratulations, took a quick couple of photos, and left.

There's still many years to go, but seeing how they've already managed these ten years, we're sure the future's no obstacle for them! Congratulations Puddy & Eddy!

Sibu Solemnizations

Now this is a tad late because we had to take the time to organize and watermark our photos, unlike the recent Sibu photolog which we could immediately upload since we've done the whole thing up via the Comic Touch app.

Of course, if we were to photolog the event of our entire trip we would run well over twenty photos, and that's way too much for a photolog! When we were making the photolog we initially included all the activities, but in the end it was too much for a comfortable read.

So our trip to Sibu in the middle of last month was to attend the wedding of our old coursemate and housemate during our uni days, ymlau to his Sarikei Sweetheart. We'd already missed the wedding of our other coursemate and housemate, AnTS, and whatwith us keeping more in touch with ymlau we dare not miss this one.

And it's our first trip to East Malaysia no less! And us being a blur case at times, it was rather a good thing that we didn't get our tickets early, because a) we would have bought tickets thinking his wedding was on 12th March instead of 23rd January; and b) we would have bought tickets to Kuching instead of Sibu.

Firstly, we must comment: the hospitality we received during our entire stay in Sibu was absolutely AMAZING. A couple of days before we were to fly over, we call to check the wedding itinerary with ymlau, and he assures us that he will be there to pick us up from Sibu Airport. If he can't make it, he will have someone come and pick us up, much to our protestations. Between Zinger and ymlau, we never needed to worry about transport to anywhere, and frankly we were rather paiseh to be imposing so much...

Upon our arrival we were greeted by the grinning faces of both our old housemates, AnTS arriving much earlier in the afternoon of the same day from Bintulu. We dropped our stuff at Kingwood Hotel, and were soon on our way to celebrate ymlau's bachelor party.

One thing we learn? ymlau's beer tolerance has indeed gone up over the years. His friends there have trained him very well. Drinks like a fish. Upon his arrival at the karaoke centre he was given a glass filled with three cans of beer to down in one go. And he did!

The amount of beer available!

This brings us to a very important lesson. DO NOT HOLD YOUR BACHELOR PARTY ON THE NIGHT BEFORE YOUR WEDDING IF PLENTY OF ALCOHOL IS INVOLVED.

The bachelor party ended by 1am-ish, and we had to wake up by 4.30am to get ready for ymlau to pick up his Sarikei Sweetheart. We got to see Sarawak's first toll booths that led onto a single carraigeway 'highway', and along the way we made nine pit stops for ymlau to get rid of yesterday's alcohol, the queasy way...Poor feller, it certainly was a day for him to remember.

Along the way we got to see large expanse of fields, and at 5am-something in the morning, it was all beautiful with mists rolling about the fields... Should have tried taking a photo during one of those pit stops.

Arrived at Sarikei Sweetheart's place to be welcomed by fireworks, and we got to try the Fuzhou Red Rice Wine noodles, which reminded us of mee suah. After which the hengdai vs zhimui battle commenced. Twenty-three hengdais. Five zhimuis. All that was involved was some declaration of love before the zhimuis would allow the groom access past the staircase.

It's Sibu. Conversation for most of the part was done in Fuzhou or Mandarin.

We're used to it, after living with two Sarawakians for 3 years.

More fireworks greeted us when we arrived back at the groom's place.

After the traditional Chinese ceremony was completed the throng headed to the church to exchange their vows. After the service, ymlau's brother brought us for a heavy seafood lunch.

We'd the afternoon off to take a quick power nap from our early morning, then it was around town going all touristy taking photos.

Come evening Zinger picked us all up for the wedding dinner at the Good Happiness Restaurant. Not all coursemates were here because it so happens that another coursemate was also celebrating her wedding on the same day! Some folks thought that they were both getting married to each other!

Day after the wedding we went about the rest of the malls, and got ready to leave by evening. Short trip indeed.

To ymlau and his Sarikei Sweetheart, wishing you happiness and joy in your marriage!

Wedding Perfections

You know, for all the weddings we've been to, it's the weddings of those that we've grown up with that makes us feel our age the most. Last year there was 'Nic's, and now this year we'd just been for Ty's and KE's wedding is coming up in a few month's time. Well to be honest there's been quite a number of secondary school mates already married, but those we're not close with to start.

But it all really makes you feel, hey, these guys have passed another milestone, you're still behind...

But then again we're not one who'd be prepared for wedding anytime present, whatwith us being poor and destitute, so we'll just stay very much unmarried and attend whatever wedding ceremonies we're able to.

Interesting enough we note that we find it much easier to catch up with the uni friends than with secondary school friends at weddings. Probably because with uni friends we can all talk shop, while with secondary school friends there's many that we have never kept in touch for more than 10 years now, or were just never that close with to begin with.

Bound to be a few moments where we go, "Dang what was so-and-so's name again?" as all we would remember is which class he was from.

So prettyboy Ty and Shy have tied the knot, after eight years of walking out with each other. And 'Nic and LiL were together for seven years before walking down the aisle?

Is there a trend here among La Sallians?

In his speech, Ty quoted Sam Keen:

"You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly."

He didn't quote it perfectly lah, but we're sure Shy would still love him perfectly as he would her. After all, the list of why he likes her is rather extensive (she didn't give a speech and state her list tho'). And thankfully his speech wasn't in legal jargon (we heard that the hengdais had to decipher the zhimuis demands as they were in legalspeak).

Anyways, we're rambling on when we should be wishing a perfect marriage to the newlyweds.

Well yes we don't have any good photos because we forgot our camera...we're not perfect either.

A Wedding Dinner In Paris

On Saturday we managed to make it for the Tosh's and Tropicanan's wedding dinner. Even that was pretty much touch-go because initially when the Tosh called to invite us, we'd told him that we may be having rehearsals (based on a projection of our rehearsal schedule then) and could only attend for a while.

And here's us telling him that we could make it again after all.

In case you're wondering how we have to put rehearsals before our friend's weddings, it's because we'd to sign a contract in order to perform for the Lord Of The Rings Symphony. Must attend 90% rehearsals, must perform in all shows, et cetera. So given that there were other occasions where we would have been missing rehearsals already, there was only so many rehearsals we could miss.

Then so happened that on Saturday the rehearsal was still on, but from 10am - 4pm. So we could attend after all!

There was a bit of a hiccup when we arrived (late, of course). Seeing that we told the Tosh that we would only show up a while, we were taken off the guest list. Of course, by the time we arrived, the couple was going through their second dress change and everyone, ushers included, were already inside. So we thought to just go in and say hi to everyone and hope to catch the couple before leaving.

Turns out that there was a place for us to sit after all, because someone else was missing. So that landed us on the table 'Paris'. Every table was named after a country or city we thinks, with the couple's table being Glasgow.

Coursemate group pic, with the Tosh's brother inadvertently drawn in as well.

Should be a sort of warning that there's gonna be a trip down Memory Lane of our uni years then. Then again the two did get together then, during the final year thesis.

Didn't recognize Lil' Nicky (our ex-roommate) because he was in a suit. The poor bugger - throughout the whole time he emceed, no one realized that his mike wasn't tuned clearly. It was only when the Tosh took his mike to give his speech that the sound technicians finally fixed it.

As usual, once dressed up sometimes it may be difficult to identify some people, especially the girls. The emcees, for one. Ms Check-In we didn't recognize at first - 'cause we only had a glimpse of her as she snatched Lil' Nicky up on stage for some speech some time just after our arrival. That, plus her clear Mandarin accent made us thought she was a family friend initially. Only once she sat back down and we had a closer scrutiny did we recognize her.

As for Tropicanan, she looked very different. No glasses and we still think she somehow opened her eyes bigger. The Tosh still looked like he's never aged a day.

One thing we found a tad...disrespectful about the entire thing was that, regardless of whether the groom is giving a speech or something else going on, cries of YAAAAAAAAAAMSEEEEENG!!! could be heard continually at the back of the hall. And this, we gather, would probably be the friends of the couple's parents who'd come for the drinks. And this before the couple even gone around to drink with each table.

And well speaking of yamsengs - our alcohol tolerance has been on the decline, that after a few drinks we were tipsy and when we received a thank you text from the Tosh for making it for the wedding dinner, we'd replied (and we totally forgot about this text until we checked our Sent Messages folder, it's still there) "Congrats ya [Tosh] :) Morphine". No. We don't understand either.

And congratulations once more to the Tosh and Tropicanan. Here's to more memories down the road.

The Thing That Is Marriage

Somehow there's a different feel to things when a close old friend gets married. Being someone we've known and kept in touch since secondary school days, the steady progression as 'Nic headed towards marriage never really had that sense of gravity until the final step...

Going steady - fine. Not like we see any more or less of him, since we don't meet much save boardgaming sessions and the Klangite meetups. In fact, as the enthusiastic boardgames prophet he'd even got LiL to join in the fun!

Engagement announcement - Whoa. This almost a year back now. It was a whopper of an announcement (although it shouldn't be too much of a surprise since they've been together since college!). 'Course, this triggered the RM50 Collection Call by the rest of the Klangites (we're not too sure how this worked, but essentially since he's the first among our group to get married he's lost the bet and have to pay everyone RM50, a semi-serious joke).

Marriage announcement - Okay. With the engagement announced, it's down to waiting for the Big Day. And an interesting date too, the six-seven-eight. This, we remembered, led to the discussion on dates to get married and stuff, and Webchitect suggesting 10th October 2010. As he goes, "TEN ten ten!" (you know, the chinese-accented way of dramatic sound-making). Still, 06-07-08 was easy to remember and wouldn't clash with the Olympics.

And as the date drew closer we soon had the preview of the wedding cards. Pretty things with lotsa love and effort put in.

Hen party cum zhimui event - As far as we knew, the zhimuis were throwing a karaoke party for the couple at Red Box Pavilion last Thursday, and the hengdais were invited. 'Course, it being Thursday night the Penang Klangite hengdais weren't able to make it and it was up to those of us here to provide 'Nic with backup against the zhimuis.

In the end he'd only three hengdais to help him out with the zhimui event. We were late and turned up after the challenges were over. :P And due to the motto, 'What happens at Red Box stays happened at Red Box' no one except the zhimuis will have evidence of what the hengdais had to go through...

Well, we still helped out with the karaoke and would say that our only tough bit was having to duet 'No Air' with one of the zhimui. And till that day we would say that we'd never listened to No Air completely - we didn't find the song all that nice so when it came up on radio we'd just tune into another station.

Big Day on Saturday - With the six-seven-eight stuck firmly in our head it took a bit of effort to remember that it was the lunch function that was on that date and not the church wedding itself. Starting out from his old house to meet all the hengdais at his family's new place at Ambang Botanic, a quick photo session on the bridal bed, then it's off to Bangsar to drop the flower bouquet (and for the assigned drivers NJH and TTY to pick up the bride's relatives).

Then it was down to Assumption Church for the rest of us to mill about usher guests. Coats were considered optional dress code, as it was gonna be rather warm at the church. In the end, it was coats and no tie for everyone (after all since you guys made suits in Bangkok might as well put them to use right?).

What caught our attention during the church wedding was that Bubbles was there, taking part in the marriage vows. Best man Ivan had to hold on to Bubbles while Bubbles held on to the rings. What also confused us was that Bubbles was wearing a veil. While, true, we'd never ascertained Bubble's gender but we always thought of him as male.

After the wedding ceremony and lunch, the hengdais thought to spend some time together till the open house at night ('Nic refuses to call it a wedding dinner heh). So we'd all milled about at Starbucks after balking at the long queue at MidValley GSC, then heading on to Sushi King to kill more time. It's during this period where we heard gems of ghost stories.

The open house saw us all helping 'Nic to finish some of the 5 cartons of wine that he'd bought, led by Ivan the Best Man and the rest of the Penang Klangites. Given that 'Nic isn't much of a drinker and LiL was there to tag team with him, the siblings Little 'Nic and Elder 'Nic was dragged in to drink up.

Wedding lunch at Holiday Villa Subang - With the Chief in tow. We were slightly absent minded that Chief thought we were still drunk from the night's drinking. Holiday Villa was idyllic, except that we were busy sweating so much that we lost the mood to take pictures even when Chief volunteered to help us take pictures. A good lunch, the three cheers followed by the table-to-table yamseng (while watching 'Nic's face slowly turn a darker shade of red as well as seeing how the wine level in his glass never seem to go down), the congratulating as we leave the hall...

And we'll once again congratulate the both of you for taking off to matrimonial bliss, 'Nic and LiL.

Sporeland Wedding Photolog