This week has been an extremely busy week because of two major events: My new year eve's class party and my cousin's wedding...
New year eve's party was great! New Year Eve started with me meeting up with QY to buy stuff for the party, after which, together with JL, went to QY's house to prepare food... I had great fun washing squids, removing the squids' eyes, deboning and marinating the chicken breast, boiling maize, cooking fried rice... I was already quite bushed when I reached Sy's house at 530pm. BBQ started at 630 and we ate and chatted till about 11pm... Did a lot of catching up with friends who came back from overseas and heard a lot of interesting stories about the culture and people there... We went back to the house and watched the countdown... Watched "Kill BIll" and found the scences quite hilarious to the point of being ridiculous (esp how the blood gushed out like a fountain from the victims' wound.)

Now at the point of writing, I have just returned from my cousin's wedding dinner. It was a fantastic wedding dinner, complete with delectable food, beautiful music , romantic ambience and exquistie decorations... i witnessed the first military wedding and it was really grand... I shall try to narrate: When the wedding dinner was about to start, lights dimmed and under the light of flickering candles, soft music wafted out and surrounded the whole ballroom... MC made an introductory speech and then as the light brightened up, a group of 12 lieutanants wearing their crisp, well-starched parade uniforms marched in. They took their positions, 2 lietanants standing opposite each other. The head shouted a string of commands of which I can faintly make out the words (Sword bearers, blah blah blah) , after which all sword bearers raised up their swords and made an arc/ cross.... From here the fun began... The couple walking down the red carpet had to complete a task in order to cross an arch... Those tasks included kissing the bride Noisily, my cousin having to express her love to her husband, the cousin in law having to carry his wife to the stage, etc, causing much laughter and joy to the audience...

It's true that when you have a group of army guys together, u can expect it to be rowdy, to the point of riotous. They shouted YAM SENG at the top of their voices and their loudness were really sufficient to cause momentary deafness. But this unity and camaderiare they possessed were really infectious, pushing the mood of the wedding dinner to its zenieth.

As we ate our dinner, we watched a video clip of what had happenened in the day when the bridegroom went to fetch his bride... Wow, the customs that one had to follow were very lei ceh... Too many to list them down here but I have now a better understanding of the reasons for following certain traditions...