To summarize, or not to...

Its been a month++ since my last official content-laden post. Good news is that life has been rather eventful... bad news is, I'll need to squeeze 'em all in a post (or two?). This will inadvertently lead to a tediously longer-than-the-usual-long posts. So let's see.. where should I begin... *taps fingers on desk*

Sometime during September end, I had the honour of attending my colleague-cum-closefren's wedding. Even had to play host to his wedding reception dinner, but that's a disaster story I'd hate to revisit. Let's just say the restaurant management sucked big time and stomped all over our planned itinerary and such. Anyway, the highlights of the occasion were:

• It was held in Ipoh
• I was part of the 'collection' team (explained later)

The Ipoh part is simple... haven't been there in ages, so it turned out to be a splendid eating experience. Fun, too; thanks to the fun-loving bunch of guys that made up the convoy from Cyberjaya :) Furthermore, I left it to my close fren to fully dictate my 'look' for the event... did shopping for a shirt AND went to a hair stylist to try out a funky new look: spiky-cum-messy look. Apparently seemed to have turned out ok; either that or everyone was being too nice and not tell me it looked horrid :P

Now, what about the 'collection'. I'mnot sure the term they use but among the Chinese, in the morning of the tea ceremony, the bridegroom and a group of guy escorts must customarily pick-up the bride from her 'home' (in our case, it was jut a hotel room). I think they call them 'heng tai' or something... dun blame me for the bad Cantonese :P It's not as simple as it sounds. The catch is that we can't just 'pick-up' the bride... the poor groom and gang will need to go through several 'trials' that will be set-up by the bride's side (consisting of close frens and family members of the.. er.. bride :P). This may sound normal to all you Chinese out there, but I'm no Chinese... and to get the opportunity to go through this stage of a Chinese wedding is truly an honour. It was different, downright fun, and educational. I've always wondered what happened before the tea ceremony... now I don't wonder anymore :) Wouldn't wanna go too far into details 'bout the trials we went through, so I'll summarize:

• Eat fresh, large-tomatoes
• Separate the kacang hijau and kacang putih (they were mixed up in one glass)
• Sing songs (almost had to sing an indian song... *almost*)
• Do push-ups
• Er... mouth-to-mouth passing of roses (yup, between guys... no contact of course *phew*)
• Bribery (haha, yup... a lot of ang-pau had to be sacrificed to 'buy' the opposition)

Some of my friends said that our trials were rather simple as opposed to what some other (devious) people may have come up with. Simple or not, I think the fun factor really depends on the crowd. If people don't get into the mood of the moment, even the most well-planned event would turn out boring/mundane. I'm glad to say that regardless of what we really did, we all definitely had a fun time that morning.

There's a lot of tiny details about the Ipoh trip that I'm gonna skip over. There's still a months worth of info to talk about, hehe. Moving on... fast forward to... 10th October. Activity: Travel and Food!

Well, a bunch of us decided to use the holiday on the 10th for a trip down to Ulu Yam (somewhere near Batu Caves). Barbeque was the main plan for the day, but this is how the schedule really looked like, hehe:

• 0800-0830 - Breakfast (Part 1), Teh tarik ONLY!
  We had to wait for the arrival of the 2nd car. This was just a 'snack' while waiting :)
• 0830-0930 - Breakfast (Part 2), Dim sum!
  The *real* breakfast plan. 2 cars, 1 shop. Dim sum in Damansara Uptown. Not bad I must say.
• 1000-1100 - Batu Caves
  Pitstop en-route to our real destination. Most of the others haven't been to Batu Caves before, so it was quite the eye-opener for them.
• 1200-1700 - Ulu Yam
  We set camp and began our barbeque session. Food was good, crowd was better. Its an outdoor spot alongside a river. Icy cold water, crystal clear and clean. By 0300, we were all dipping in the water; mostly relaxing but with sporadic sessions of splashing and chaos :P
• 1730-1830 - Ulu Yam town
  Headed for early dinner. Our objective was to check out the famous Ulu Yam 'loh mee'. Not too sure if its really as famous as claimed, but it sure tasted different than the usual 'loh mee'. Its prepared with quite a bit of vinegar, giving the soup a distinctly identifiable hint of sourness. Also had some blackpepper udon... a dish that seriously seemed devoid of any blackpepper :P Most of us also had a helping of whatever chicken wings leftovers from the barbeque. *slurp* Satisfaction guaranteed :P
• 19:30-2100 - Berjaya Times Square
  Yeah... WAY off the general direction for the day :P It *was* a holiday and we were hunting for the nearest Swensen's spot that doesn't reside in Selangor. What better place to go to than KL. But why Swensen's? They have a 50% discount on the Earthquake on Tuesdays :P And, we wanted to celebrate a friends birthday. Btw, I *seriously* think the Earthquake should be called a Volcano.

And then it was the trip back. A day full of food and fun activities. Not to mention a mini-roadtrip, haha. Truly enjoyable for a rather impromptu outing plan. Would love to have a similar activity again in the very near, foreseeable future ;)

Then there was paintball 2 Sundays back. Since a whole bunch of them were bringing along their own friends, I invited a friend of my own... who unfortunately had a prior appointment and couldn't make it. Anyway, nothing fancy about it... went to this place in Subang. Played roughly 5 games I think. Was fun, no doubt. Too bad the guns they provided us were the shorter-range variants. Definitely kills the fun for those used to the longer-ranged variants. Got my fair share of bruises, and dealt some myself :) I got unofficially nicknamed the 'stealth guy' coz 3 of the games I managed to actually sneak past the enemy and assault them from their rears :D Well, we ended the day with hopes of doing this more regularly... considering the participation, it is definitely possible for a bi-monthly attempt perhaps.

Phew... quite a load of events (excusing some intentionally skipped details). Right now it's the first day of Hari Raya Aidilfitri. Deepavali (or my preferred term: Diwali) was about 3 days ago. Had a small gathering of the closest of frens. Mom gave a quota of 8-10 people for me to invite. Had to judiciously choose who I should call. Thankfully for me, I believe I called the right people. Everyone loved the food, mingled along well, and actually stayed around longer than I'd anticipated. Was worried sick that the guest's wouldn't be able to mingle/entertain themselves. After all, I haven't hosted a party/dinner at home in years. Still wished I could have invited a few more close friends. Some couldn't make it anyway due to some existing plans, whilst a few others I had to put on lower priority. It really tough when you have to pick and choose among friends. But alas, I'm not the one doing the cooking :P Who am I to complain, eh? :P

Before I sign-off, just wanna mention that there's a roadtrip down to Malacca tomorrow (2nd day of Raya). 1 car, 1 day... just going around and spending some time with a bunch of close frens from home. Looking forward to the trip... need to get some rest now. Its gonna be an early day tomorrow.

PS: Sorry, no photos. Photo's for most of the events mentioned here were taken by the others. Have yet to browse through the photos they gave. Shall post up some interesting shots, if any, in the next post (yeah right :P)