MichMatt's Big Day

Remember I said I was in Batu Pahat last weekend? Well, one of my close friend from school, Mich got hitched last weekend in Batu Pahat and I had the honor to be part of her band of sisters aka ji-mui. I was really excited especially since 'torturing' the band of brothers is one of the most fun part of a wedding. I mean seriously, the guys do deserve some teeny-weeny challenges before they can finally get the bride, no? Else it will have been too easy on them. haha! There were 8 of us altogether and we convoyed up Batu Pahat on Friday night.

Camwhoring with the rest of the sisters with our same neon pink hairbands

All of us ji-mui were in black dresses and the same neon pink belt and hairband that day

The guys were supposed to arrive at 7.30 am but we were down by the pool at 6.45am getting the place ready. In this game, we tied keys to the end of each balloon and disseminated the balloons all over the pool. The guys in return were to look for the right balloon with the right key that will open the door to Mich's room

We had quite a list of challenges at hand that the guys would need to get through before the groom can finally kiss his princess but they were actually late hence in the end, they escaped pretty easy with only a few of the challenges. Seriously, the guys called us their 'torturers' but if we were ever torturers, we must be one of the nicest and kindest in this world because they relatively had an easy time! :p

With time to spare, we started a little phototaking sessions of our own

Oh, and we had the same wrist band too. Hand made specially from our creative bride!

Finally the groom and his brothers arrived dressing up as ninjas

 The lovely bouquet of flower

Let's kick it off with a little morning exercise

The ninjas came quite prepared apparently with their swords and all!

Oh yeah, a little yoga to warm up the day

They gave up on the second yoga exercise and hence, had to wax off some of their leg's hair as punishment

The second challenge! It's called bite-the-bickie but instead of cookies, they had to get potato chips from their forehead into their mouth without using their hands. It was a pretty funny sight as their face muscles twitched and turned just trying to get that piece of chip into their mouth

The ninjas smartly utilized their swords to hook up the balloons in search for the right key

Let's count our ang pau and see how much bribed the groom had given. hehe!

Push-up cheat max but we still let them off because we sisters are nice like that

We knew the groom would be hungry from all those challenges so we decided to feed him some tarts even when he was being piggy back

The groom, Matt who is pretty much a banana had to expressed his sincerest love to our dearest princess in Chinese!

That's not all. Ah, yes getting the princess does not come easy! A marriage contract the groom had to agreed to first. Brilliant idea I would say *grin*

And finally, Matt had to serenade our dearest princess with a modified version of any song of his choice

Us sisters with the pretty bride

We even got to kiss the bride before the groom does. hahaha

At last, the groom got to kiss his bride. Awwww!

After all the fun at home, we moved on to the church for their wedding service

The newly wed

Epic posers

Our initial plan was to explore Batu Pahat after the church service, but we were too exhausted that all of us spent the afternoon napping away before heading back home.

Their wedding lunch was on Sunday and I was lucky I managed to get half day off to make it in time. 

Mich, my pretty bride

Weddings are also one of those times when you get to meet some friends that you had not been meeting for a long time

The newly wed are very busy hence we got their life size poster as a substitute

Now a real one with the newly wed

One last one, all of us nice sisters with the newly wed

I definitely had an awesome time with the rest of the girls being part of the band of sisters in Batu Pahat. It was one fun road trip but the best part of it all is seeing another of my close friend getting happily hitched. Once again, congratulations to the M & M's, just like the chocolate, wishing the both of you a very colorful and fun marital life ahead. :)

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Taiwan - Kenting, Nanwan Beach

I'm back from Batu Pahat for Mich and Matt's wedding! Had truckloads of fun and pics of course but that had to get sorted out first. Thus, for now, a travelogue post.

After spending only a day in Hualien (click to read previous post), our next destination in Taiwan was Kenting National Park, the extreme southern tip of Taiwan. I was very excited to visit Kenting because I have heard so much about how beautiful the place is and how everyone, literally everyone in Taiwan recommends that we should visit the place especially in summer. And honestly, between industrious and full of skyscrapers Kaohsiung and more laidback with generous sun, beaches and surfers Kenting, I choosed the latter anytime.

Hence, we left Hualien early morning and took the normal express rail to Fang Liao station which is really the station you should stop at instead of Kaohsiung if you want to get to Kenting from the east coast. The train took us approximately 3-4 hours and from the train station, we paid about another 750 NTD for a private cab to take us to Kenting which took another 2-3 hours. A cab isn't exactly the cheapest mode of transport, there's the supposedly public buses but certainly, a cab saved us more time than the buses.

By the time we got to our hostel, we were hungry max and the first thing we did was asking for the best places around to eat. The hostel owner recommended two restaurants to us, one a little too pricey and the other said to have the best beef noodle around. We were intrigued by the beef noodles as that was one of our must-eat-in-Taiwan food but honestly, I was disappointed after trying them. There was nothing to shout about and no offence but it tasted just like a very average bowl of beef noodle.

The said beef noodle with it's chunky huge pieces of beef and soup with very strong smell of beef

Our surfer hostel

This was the initial dorm we were supposed to stay in at 400 NTD a night until the owner decided to upgrade us FOC to a priave room for 3 later that night

 A surprise visitor! This is Fei-zhai aka Fatty, a handsome Husky that sleeps almost all the time in our dorm

See, he's so soundly alseep he couldn't even be bothered with our presence. Seriously he would even snort if you make too much noise and disturbed his sleep.

Our hostel is located super near the beach, like just 5 minutes walk from Nanwan beach. Thus after lunch and freshening up, we decided to head down to the beach!

Most of the shops along the beach are just two-storeys high like this and selling a lot of beach wears and accessories

And water sports are abundantly available on this beach at pretty reasonable prices too. We signed up for a triple combo water sports package that includes jet ski, banana boat and this other Taiwan invention that pulls you on this inflated boat for only 600 NTD! One of the operator stall where you can sign up for the water sports

The beach is situated side by side along with a nuclear power plant which can be seen in the distance

Different umbrellas actually belong to different water sports operators so you can only sit under the umbrellas of the operator you signed up with and not the rest, else they will chase you away

They have all these cute little chairs under each umbrella instead of the usual long beach chairs

Surfers attempting to surf

The helmet we had to put on aside from the life jackets

Jet skis everywhere on the beach

The banana boat and the inflated Taiwan version thingy

I love jet ski! It can get very bumpy and dangerous but it's thrilling

This was the best ride we all had that day. We could lie or sit or stand on that thing while being pulled around by a jet ski, something like a banana boat only faster, more exciting and fun

Honestly, I find Nanwan beach insanely dangerous because amidst swimmers, paddlers, surfers, sun-bathers and sand-castlers, tractors, ATVs and jet skis are actually weaving crazily in between them. Seriously, the jet skis are like just weaving pass swimmers by inches at times and it's horrfying.  It's not even funny imagining the consequences if any one of the jet ski missed seeing a swimmer, surfer or children happily burying themselves in the sand and accidentally hit them. I mean if they are so into water sports commercialism, they should really segregrate the beach so at least all those motorised sports and tractors do not run drunkenly between people.

And of course, being laden with so much water sports could only mean that the beach is pretty much polluted. The sands are obviously no longer white and all disfigured by huge tyre tracks of tractors and ATVs. Even the sea breeze is intoxicated with waves of carbon monoxide. 

Nanwan beach is definitely not one of the most beautiful beach in Kenting, but it is definitely one of the more closer to the town one and easily accesible thus making it a popular beach still among tourist and locals alike. So if it's me, aside from going to Nanwan beach for water sports, I don't see why I would want to go there to sun-bathe/paddle/surf/swim actually knowing the fact that I can't really sun-bathe/paddle/surf/swim in peace for fear that a jet ski might just be weaving pass me possibly missing me by my nose only any minute! I did enjoyed myself with the water sports that day though especially since we managed to persuade SY to try all those water sports for the very first time in her life. :)

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