Well, last weekend we went south to Kota Tinggi in Johor to attend our friend's wedding. To avoid a 10 hour journey on bus from Penang to Johor, we have decided to take a flight. Due to budget constraint (everyone would want to save a buck or two during this time right?), we decided to take Firefly instead of Air Asia. Let me just summarize the journey to Kota Tinggi was smooth except when the plane tilted it's wing to land / change direction, my palms and feet were sweating (I am pretty sure Lit'Bird feels the same but too shy to let me know. Haha ...).
Kota Tinggi is a small quiet town and eveyone as usual busy carry on with their daily routine. We took a taxi from Senai airport to Kota Tinggi. On the way, we chatted with the taxi uncle who has a passion on food, but not a good sense of road direction. We managed get to the Mayrest hotel thanks to the direction given by Om, Sreem and the road map shown in the invitation card.
At that evening, there is nothing much that we can do except getting some rest at night to prepare for the wedding at 3am. This is the first time that we attended the wedding during the wee hours of the early mornig. Sorry Om, we really thought that it was a typo at first, but after clarification, then we realize it is
3am. However, we get up by 1.30am and get dressed in casual. Then we join Mugilan, Reeng and the rest of the family at 12th floor.
As you can see here, nanny and Reeng were preparing to go. Everyone is happy although a little bit tired. We went to the temple together with the rest of the family.
Many thanks to Om and Sreem. We have the exclusive rights to take pictures of the bride before the wedding ceremony. (sounds like paparazi right? Hehe ...) I know many of you out there would agree with me that the bride looks absolutely beautiful ... The accessories were fabulous ... by the way, we were told that Indran has arranged to have 2 undercover policemen at the temple to avoid any unpleasant event took place.
The wedding ceremony started at 3am. There were many people at the temple, mostly are friends and relatives. Indran arrived at the temple and we know he was quite tension. His eyes stared straight and couldn’t smile at all. Well, it is understandable that it is like once-in-a-lifetime event and surely everyone will be tensed up too.
The full wedding ceremony started with the blessing from the temple's priest and then the close family. The ceremony took 3 hours and although we do not know the meaning of each stage of the ceremony, it is very formal and meaningful...
The peak of the ceremony is when Indran ties the "tali" around Sreem's neck and place a red dot on her forehead that symbolizes the union of the couple. In our heart, we are very happy for both of them. After the ceremony, we had a light breakfast at the temple with the family. We followed Mugilan and Reeng together with the rest of the family to Indran's house for house welcoming ceremony to the new couple.
By 9am, most of us went back to the hotel to catch a few zzz. We were knocked out in the hotel. Lit' Bird was excited in selecting the pictures for the new couple's montage that will be displayed during the wedding dinner. We debated on the Flash Player trouble shooting after encountered several errors in previewing and managed to selecte a few candid photos together with Om and included them in the montage.
In the evening, we went to the hall earlier to help setup the montage with the help of the AV system guys. The hall was nicely decorated with flowers and it looks grand. The dinner was simple, nice and very heart-warming. Although we may not know everyone in the hall, we all are there to celebrate this new couple. We met Goh at the dinner. As usual, our big sis Om was busy with her speech, hehe ... By the way, Om made a ncie bouquet of flowers for Sreem during the dinner in the evening. It was so colorful and lovely :)
After the dinner, we spent some time at Indran's house together with Raj and Neemi. Tommy was there also. I forgot to mention that Tommy has grown so big and strong. He can easily over power anyone of us. Luckily, Indran's dad can still discipline it with a stick :P At the end of the night, we bid good bye to Indran, Sreem, Om, Reeng, and the rest of the family and friends as we will travel to Singapore the next day.
Singapore Trip
On Sunday morning, we woke up early, packed our stuff and checked out from the hotel. We took the bus to Johor Bharu custom building as advised by Indran. It was a long and bumpy journey to the custom building. By the time we reached at the custom, it was already about 11am. Then, we took a bus to Bugis street in Singapore. We book a room at the hive backpackers stay. Frankly speaking, this is our first time staying in a backpackers stay. Anyway, we lost our way in Bugis street. After carefully studying the map, we manage to find our way to Serangoon road. Along that road, we reached at Little India and then the backpackers stay. It was a long walk from Bugis street to Lavender street where the backpacker's stay is located at.
Well, we want to travel to some of the interesting places in Singapore as backpackers, so that means more journey on foot. We manage to tour around Little India, the Raffles place, the City Hall, the statue of Merlion, etc. The first thing that struck me was that Singaporean was very friendly and helpful. We were looking at the MRT map and trying to figure our way from Little India to City Hall. There was a lady came forward and offer us some advice on the way to get to City Hall. While we were kind of lost in the MRT station at certain point, they actually take the initiative to approach us and give us thorough explanation on how to get our way out...that moment really change our perception. Thinking back, how often do many actually help the tourist at bus or LRT station here...
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When we are at the Merlion and city hall, there were a lot of students participated in Singapore national day's rehearsal. The children were wearing red color t-shirt with their own creative decoration. They were really cute. I notice one of the kids actually has black berry to take their photos... Kids nowadays are so advanced :P
Our trip in Singapore was very fruitful and tiring as well. The next day, we had our lunch and started our journey back to Johor's Senai airport for our flight back to Penang. Well, our flight was at 4.30pm and we were still stucked at the traffic jam in causeway link by 3.00pm!! The traffic was at a crawl at the causeway link. Our bus has to fight our way through and reached at the custom area by 3.10pm. We ran our way through the custom building and hop on a taxi. The taxi driver was smart and asked us that are we rushing to the airport. When we said yes and advised him that please hurry that we may miss our flight. He stepped on the gas pedal and the taxi flew along the highway and reached at the airport by 3.45pm. We rushed to the ticket counter and luckily the counter is still open, we were on time. Thinking back, it was such a thrill and the adrenaline in our body reached the maximum level. haha ...
The flight back home was smooth. When we reached at the PNG airport, Ludov called Lit' Bird that he was at PNG right then. We decided to meet up with him at Komtar. Ludov is still Ludov with his big afro.
He even showed us his passport. He did tell us his unpleasant ordeal with the Singapore custom that confiscate his bottle of french wine (for his friends) and a small knife (which is given by his dad when he was young). He even lost his laptop on his flight from Singapore to PNG!! We felt sorry to him... One thing we can learn from him is that he is always positive no matter how bad is the outlook of things :D
Well, it is a long story. No matter, we wish to congratulate our friend Indran and Sreem again here and ask when is hippo's turn? hehehehe ...
With love,
Big Tr33 & Lit' Bird
"My Little Girl"
