Ah Zheng's wedding

The 2nd wedding I attended this year was my cousin Ah Zheng's wedding at Sibu, held last Saturday. The 1st was of course, the Yeos' wedding =) ah the memories- sleeping at 3am to iron wedding dress and waking up at 6am.

When I was younger, my family and I used to drive up to Sibu (my mum's hometown) almost every Chinese New Year to spend it with our relatives. You can't say you'd spent a REAL Chinese New Year until you've experienced it in Sibu =) The neverending fireworks, the REDness everywhere, age-old traditions, and the festive atmosphere...

Anyway. 27th of December is supposed to be a good date to get married. Hence the amount of cars on the road/parking spaces decorated with pink and red ribbons.

Dad drove all the way to Sibu on the 26th, together with my other cousins and family. Attended the wedding and lunch the next day before heading back to Kuching at night.

Photos to tell the story:

Older cousin styling younger cousin's hair =P
Btw younger cousin's sister is the one getting married
"older" cousin is the next in line to get married *teehee*

with my lovely cousins!
Ah Zheng (bride) and Florence, who's studying at Auckland uni

lil brother "pulling" the cloth attached to the groom's car...
apparently it's a tradition done to represent the bride's family not fully letting go of her =P

at the church
I love the spontaneity of this photo =)

the bridal party. so cute right the ring boy. not sure if the teddy bears he's carrying come with the rings or not. The flower girl behind him NEVER smiled even once, even the maid of honour is not smiley either

choir singing in the background

l.o.v.e

kissing photo deleted at cousin's request =)

the moment everyone's been waiting for.. the kiss!
but coz paiseh so only a peck on the cheek

lighting the candles- something new to me as well
both the bride and groom's parents light a candle and give each candle to them, the 3rd candle (middle) is then lit by the bride and groom.

the whole BIG family =) see the ring boy super duper cute!
notice also the ah ma standing next to the groom. She has an LV-lookalike handbag, her glasses super thick and round =P
I'm hidden somewhere hehe

The photoshoot+photo album+video had costed more than RM3000 according to my cousin! *look of horror* Apparently it's not uncommon to spend heaps on wedding photos and skimp on other expenditures. Anyway, congratulations again dear cousin!!! =D

More photos uploaded on facebook yesterday. Will blog about the new church building at Tabuan Heights soon. Was great meeting up with some of the youths who came back for the holidays: Debs, Ik Sung, and Lionel. Didn't have time to go for a drink/chit chat due to the lack of time =( but I'll see you all again during CNY holidays!

MIA

Sorry for the lack of updates this week!

I'm stuck with super slow dial-up connection at home, meaning it's impossible to upload some of the hundreds of photos I took throughout this week.

Went with cousins & family to Sibu (about 6 hours drive from Kuching) yesterday morning. Had a "reunion dinner" last night and caught up with more cousins/relatives from Sibu. The wedding was held this morning at a church, followed by lunch at a local restaurant. Drove back to Kuching at 3pm-ish, arrived at around 8pm just in time for dinner.

Going back to SG tomorrow night =(
More work awaits me. Not looking forward to writing the long report at all.

I didn't even have the chance to eat laksa or my fave char bee hoon YET.

But I am going back for Chinese New Year again for 1 week!!! =D

tis the season to be jolly

The free optical mouse that came with my laptop has DIED on me. *frowns* So I'll be taking twice as long to write a blog now using just the touchpad which is OK to use until it comes to blogging. I'll get one when I go home to Kuching this coming Wednesday. *whhhhheeeeee!*

Some random pics taken in the past week:

looks familiar? hehe =P
for those who don't know, Queen St was my home this year @ Dunedin, NZ

mee sua!!! at a cafe @ bugis, where I had late lunch with Jaslin last week before shopping and church. It was not bad, quite authentic actually.

@ chinatown with my mum when she visited.
I love the repainted old buildings there

so flowery hehe

Today I learnt 2 things:

1. Ms Sharon T (my flattie huneeeeey) has an online super stalker!!! Now we can start a "stalker-victims club" thing and talk in a circle every week about how our lives are forever changed by creepy people who enjoy stalking our every move. I'll now refer to Sharon's stalker to Mr STS (sharon t's stalker, makes sense right? =P ). The reason why her blog's no longer open for anyone to see is because Mr STS follows her blog FERVENTLY (I'm exaggerating, but who knows?), even her friendster and facebook accounts too. AND asks for her number too! So bear with ms Sharon as she tries very hard to remember the password to her blogger account to allow access to those she calls friends to read her blog, haha!

Speaking of which, I realised that I've been getting DAILY visits from a reader all the way from Garfield, New Jersey. I don't think I know anyone from there. Whoever you are, do I know you?

To Sharon: Miss you already! YESH innardless kuehchap and my fave fried bee hoon sooooooon! =D

I'm leaving S'pore for Kuching on Christmas eve right after work btw. Can't wait!

2. I found out that Kong Hee's (City Harvest's founder/pastor) wife is actually SUN Ho, the pop singer! I thought I'd heard wrongly when my friend pointed out to me that the lady he just invited to the stage just now was his wife- until I heard it again with my own ears. She hasn't been back in SG for more than a year now, since she's been granted PR at the States. And yes, she does look glamorous. It was then that I remembered her concert many years back in Kuching as the 1st ever concert I'd ever been to- and I even bought her compiled diary and autographed CD!

Anyway, church service this evening was AMAZING. Towards the end, everyone was handed a candle, and one by one, all candles were lit. The lights in the whole auditorium were turned off completely except for the screens, and from the first lit candle (pastor), the light was passed on to thousands of people in just a few minutes. The view was wonderful, but mostly the atmosphere was... indescribable =P We sang carols, made dedications for the new year, and wished each other Merry Christmas =)

Too bad I'll miss the Christmas Eve service here; I'll have to be at the airport by 7pm.

Sun waving to the crowd

Awww =P
I was sitting at the VERY last row btw
(this is when good zoom functions are useful)

The candles are lit!

Zoomed in

singing "Silent night"

Finally... my candle, shining!

The video above shows a snippet of the lighting of the candles

Ah, must remember to take more photos of Orchard Road nicely decorated before Wednesday. Till then, enjoy your last minute Christmas shopping, and spread the love and joy of this beautiful season. =)

It's all about class

December. The season of graduation.

Throwing of the graduation cap.

The graduation march to the town hall with mayor Peter Chin leading the way, the sound bagpipes reminding me of that memorable day in Studholme (2006) when we were woken up at 4am-ish for interhall sports training/orientation.

Wearing the regalia. With white grosgrain lining (I had to google image "grosgrain" GOSH)- I always thought that honours degree graduants would also wear hoods with fur linings, but sadly, there will be no fur. The colour of my hood will be "salvia blue" btw =) it sounds pretty.

stolen from Greg's facebook heheh just to illustrate to you non-Otago people
see how nice those hood linings are? compared to this next photo...

how grosgrain looks like. To me, it's just like any ordinary RIBBON.
of course, I have yet to see an honours hood upclose before, must remember to ask for photos from Jaq. photo by greenolive*

Taking photos (of course) in front of the clocktower.

More photos around university. Where we had lectures, spent the whole day in labs, had lunch at St David cafe & the link, Studholme hall, archway, burns, central library, computer labs, the bridge leading from the halls to St Davids, the river which even had couches thrown in before,... etc the scarfie life.

Showing off the degree certificate.

Smiling and posing for photos until your facial muscles no longer know the meaning of relax.

... guess I'll have to wait 1 more year to experience all that.

It's a strange thing, studying at varsity. 3, 4, or even 5 years for a bachelor's degree (6 or more for those professional health science courses), which may or may not guarantee a job- many who graduate with say, biochemistry, might never even work in a laboratory environment after graduation. But just having that nicely printed piece of paper with YOUR name written on it makes all the late night crammings worthwhile, doesn't it?

I wonder just how much I'll miss Uni of Otago: rushing to lectures, the beautiful architecture, the student life, etc. I wonder how much I'd miss being a student. Well, it's true that we never stop learning bla bla BUT.. you get what I mean. I wonder if I'd stay in Dunedin OR go to another city in NZ for work OR continue on with postgrad OR decide to *gasp* leave NZ (which is highly unlikely but GAH pleeeeease save me the "So-are-you-staying-in-nz-after-graduation?" questions- those are for me to find out next year and for you to find out when I know the answers myself, thank you very much.

Oh, and it does mean a lot having the chance to celebrate the Pancakes' graduation this coming May =) having missed out on the major grad ceremony 2 weeks ago.

Sometimes I wonder if I CAN push myself to get that "1st class honours" title in front. It does seem flash, you get called out first when receiving the certificate, the chancellor probably smiles a little more wider at you (who knows?), and I wonder does it really matter or how would it affect my job offers BUT like Ron said (which makes sense too I guess): we're already doing honours, might as well walk that extra mile to get that 1st class (well, I paraphrased a bit).

This is what happens when I look through too many graduation photos on facebook =P

a week to Christmas!

I'm feeling... rather odd at the moment.

Not physically, more like emotionally. Many things running through my head.

Maybe it's because mum was here for a few days, we did shopping, spent time catching up, and I just sent her off at the airport about an hour ago. It's only less than a week before I get to meet my parents again, but goodbyes are never easy no matter the distance/time, right?

On the MRT heading towards Changi, I received 3 missed calls from my dad. Knowing that he wants to speak to mum, I handed my phone to her. After that, she told me that he had been in a little "accident". He'd injured himself by falling into one of those manhole/drain on the ground as its cover has been stolen. I'm unclear of how badly he was injured, mum will tell me more when she gets home tonight: all I know was that despite the injury, dad managed to drive all the way to Normah hospital himself to get treatment.

The funny/not-so-funny thing was, mum and I were just casually talking about how poverty has driven some people (especially illegal immigrants in Malaysia) to resort to stealing manhole/drain covers for scrap metal earlier this morning. *shivers*

Logging on to Facebook just minutes ago, I saw John aka bunny's status: he fainted in the MRT today! GOSH the series of unfortunate events today sure is making me a little more cautious, from crossing the road to walking through the dark alley ways with the construction workers nearby eyeing my every movement.

Anyway. Back to work until the clock saves me at 5.30pm tomorrow. Looking forward to watching "Bolt" the movie this weekend.

Till then- keep safe, friends. =)