Okay, less than a week now. And the day went by so quickly. I wonder if the honeymoon is going to be as quick…

Monday is only a few hours away. So what happened today?

Well, there was the miko girls practice this morning. Since I had some semi-official duties to perform in Klang, I left Chin Jin to attend to this.

Looks good so far. I unwrapped the mattress and tomorrow the bedsheet and quilt goes on it. Also, I need to prepare an Ang Pow for my parents for this duty they have to perform - preparing the matrimonial bed.

Chin Jin will be coming tomorrow to deliver some goods for the Chinese ceremony. A spit-bowl (Tam Tung) is part of that I think…

Well, I’ve got to rest now. It’s been a long daaaay. I look forward to tomorrow.

It’s Saturday. Exactly one week to the big day. So what did I do?

Morning, I woke up a little late. Later than I intended. I intended to take a drive with Dad to Klang Gates big dam to look at the big body of water and hopefully catch a beautiful sunrise. Well, I woke up too late, at 7:30AM. So I went alone and found the place to be a private land managed by a private company. So happens that it is a restricted area. After chatting with the policeman stationed there to ward off trespassers, I decided to try to do a quick hike up the path I saw earlier. I hoped that the path would lead me to a high ground where I could spy on the beautiful place. However, I was so disappointed to find that there were a bunch of illegal houses built with guard dogs. Anyway, I walked as far as the path took me, and found no such clearing, nor high enough a ground. So I took some pictures of the mountains instead and head back to my car.

I reached home at about 8:30AM. I had my bath and breakfast and waited for Chin Jin to come over to get me. Our next stop was at Volvo’s showroom along Jalan Ampang. Nope, we were not looking to buy a Volvo for our family car… We were going to see her former art teacher and his work was being showcased in the showroom! Yes, artist Yap Kim Boon, famous for his haleconias and painting using bamboo. His artwork so very vibrant and life was leaping out. So was his passion for life when speaking about his art and how he made it this far as a fine artist.

Then we had lunch at Great Eastern mall before going back to my place to work out the guest list once more. Yep, Kwok Yan called to reconfirm his attendance. Nice of him.

We finished at about 4PM and headed out again to See Ling’s ThumbArt studio for our group fellowship meeting and then to Damansara Jaya for dinner with Chin Jin’s relatives.

The dinner was great and I got to meet her uncles and aunts from all over the world. Nice and funny people. I had a great time and such a pleasant evening.

So, there, the last saturday as a bachelor, spent meeting the in-laws relatives. *smile*

Ha! I just got a text message from Eathan. It seems that the new studio furniture has arrived! Yay! I’m going to enjoy working in the studio more and more now. It may be simple furniture, just a chair and two drawer units, but these few humble pieces of furniture make me happy! Just like being able to eat simple meals like ‘siu yook‘ (roast pork) just so yummy!

Had a hard time waking up this morning. I slept pretty late, and I was quite tired. Since I had several things to do, I pushed myself to stay awake to do it last night, or should I say, early this morning.

The morning was so dark that I did not notice the time. I suppose I am genuinely tired. The curtain windows were drawn so the light didn’t come throught all that well. A dark room makes it nice and sleepy.

I did rush, and passed the toll gates with a little problem, my MyKad did not work for the Touch’n'Go… for some reason. I thought it would have saved me time, but it made it worse. Sorry to those lining up behind me, not my fault, blame it on their system. I still have money in my MyKad.

Just a little off-side rambling:- I still can’t believe how many drivers out there who either don’t know or care about safe distance. In case you didn’t know, the safe distance between 2 cars is 2-seconds.

Yes, if you are travelling at 36km/h, you’ll travel 10m/s (10 meters per seconds). A car going at 72km/h (20m/s) will cover 40 meters in 2 seconds.

36km/h = 36,000m/60×60s

= 10m/s
(every second of travel at 36km/h will cover 10 meters)

If there was a need for an emergency immediate braking, then the time to lift your foot from the brake is still counted… And these guys are going at 110km/h and less than 5 meters from my car. Stay away from me!

Sigh…

Got to work and started really great. Lunch was fast and I managed to eat cheaply. That’s important. Then Mum called and the bed has arrived. I sure like to see it soon. I hope they fix it up nicely. I wonder if my cousin Sean would understand that the bed is not to be slept/sat/touched until it has been rolled on by a young ‘virgin’ boy of the family. Looks like I have to place a “Please Do Not Touch” sign on the bed before he arrives.

Suk Keong is due to arrive on Monday afternoon. I’ll go pick him up.

Now to go back to my work.

Woke up early this morning, just before 6 o’clock. Then the alarm rang at 5:55AM. I felt good and energized, but decided to stay in bed for a little while to think of what were the things I was supposed to do.

Yep, I’m staying home this morning to take care of some things, like paying the utility bills and buying the plywood for the wedding ceremony. I spoke to my mum about the makeup for the ‘miko’ girls and she said that my aunt and cousin could do it, since my ‘luk sum’ has an appointment at 2PM. The other alternative is to have the 2 ‘miko’-sans come to my house and have their makeup done before they go to the dojo.

The 2 flower girls’ flower-baskets are sitting on the armchair. I’m supposed to bring them over to Chin Jin’s for her godmother to fill with flower petals. The baskets are nicely wrapped and decorated.

Yesterday, I sent the email to the photographer without the attached map. How careless. Anyway, I resent the map this morning. Me and the boys have some planning to do tonight. Chin Jin and the girls have their gown fittings to do. So it works out just fine.

Nine days…

09 Part deux

Spent the evening with some of the ‘heng tai‘ at Hock Shai’s place. It was so nice of him to lend us the use of his den. We made progress with the plans for the wedding dinner night. Also Shai was watching his favourite movies “Lord of the Rings”. Pretty neat set up he has. Nice and clean now that he removed his old computer that got zapped by lightning. He even made us some ‘bubur‘. It had some peas, and bobor cha cha… (is that how its said?) Nice and hot!

We finished late. Eventually I got home at 11:30 and I found myself latched out of the house! Wah! I had to phone in and let my dad know that the front entrance was locked from the inside. Luckily he was still awake. So we chatted for a bit and he went to bed, while I continued to work on some more preparatory things for the wedding.

Boy, was I sleepy.

Wow, this is it. The countdown begins. Still plenty to do. More so, business is picking up. Wow, I’ve got to be better at this gratitude practice.

Things to do:

1. Total number of guests to be confirmed. Now we only have about 480.
2. Delivery of the matrimonial bed confirmed for Friday.
3. Room is ready for inhabiting.
4. Maps done and sent to the respective officials.
5. Final wedding ceremony practice has been set and all participants confirmed.
6. Grooms coat and suit sent for dry cleaning but waiting to be collected.
7. Honeymoon package to be confirmed, faxed to hotel.
8. Corsages to be made and car to be polished.
9. Registration helpers confirmed.

Well, there is more, but I can’t think too much now.

I was hoping that most of my family would be attending the wedding ceremony that afternoon. In fact, this ceremony carries far more meaning to the both of us, than anything else that day. The ceremony of spiritual union is the one thing that makes it all so special. It is a union of families, and union of the ‘fire’ element (male) and ‘water’ element (female). This ceremony joins us spiritually. We both take our vows before the Creator.

However, since some can’t make it that time, whatever the reason, we are doing our best to make a video and still slideshow of the event. Since it will take time for the video to be ready, I suppose the slideshow would be the next best thing to be shown during the dinner reception.

We still hope you can make it, but whatever it is, we understand. It is going to be a whole day of things happening. We can’t really expect you to spend the whole day just for us. That’ll be too selfish. To all our friends and family helping out, we really are grateful.
Now, 10 is coming to a close, we’ll be on to 9 soon.

Cheers!

The groom and entourage bring the gifts over to the bride’s family. That is what the title is all about. So this morning it was my turn. Getting up early, and waiting for the 25KG roast “Golden Pig” to arrive, and packing the car with all the gifts and fighting the morning traffic to get to the house. Well, it’s done now.

I’ll leave you with some photos of the event. Now, to air my car. It smells like roast pork now.

Lai Kum

Usually these things don’t really hit me so hard as I am usually quite calm. But it is only a month away… that is only four weekends… FOUR PRECIOUS weekends! Actually less because we are usually even more busy during the weekends. I dare you to ask me why…

Anyway, preparations are looking good. I’ve got an experienced mentor and management consultant on my side. Yes, that’s my father. He has got everything under control. Not to mention my bride… she’s very organised as well.

A few days more and it’ll be time to get really busy with the custumary things.

Keep visiting and we’ll post pictures whenever possible.