Our weekend

On Monday morning, we often get asked about what we did over the weekend. A simple question, but a little embarrassing to answer since we hardly ever do anything more than grocery shopping. With little Hannah's arrival, we have more excuse to simply vegetate at home. After all, long outings pose a logistic difficulty and unlike certain countries, we do not have baby-friendly cinemas here!

Ah, but the last weekend saw us in an unusual flurry of activity.

Firstly, Hannah's Gong Gong and Po Po had gone home to Port Dickson, so we were left with a baby who had to be constantly carried and entertained. How the two old folks keep up with her, I don't know.

Next, our apartment had marked the weekend as a time for "gotong-royong" - Malay for a joint clean-up exercise by the community, that is, the residents of the apartment complex.

However, we weren't quite going to empty out store rooms or dig up weeds. Instead, we were going to paint the stairwells of the entire complex! All in the name of saving a few thousand Ringgits and, erm, spending some quality time together?

There were a few snags though - not everyone from the the various units volunteered, although you can be sure that Chris did his fair share of work.

Most who DID volunteer were unequalled in their enthusiasm, but unfortunately had just as much experience as Chris (none). The first stairwell took a whole day to paint, and cleaning up took almost as long as the painting (much to the chagrin of our caretaker)!

And of course, you have SOME residents who just look cute and well, LOOK.

Thankfully, the second day progressed much quicker - we doubled our results and created half the mess. By early Sunday evening, we had to dump our brushes early and prepare for our next engagement...

a Hindu wedding

Hindu weddings are often lavish affairs with hundreds if not thousands of guests. This was held in a community hall of sorts with an elaborate set-up on stage. The bride and groom were seated on ornate chairs (much like a throne) where they spent a good part of the first couple of hours performing prayers with a Hindu priest and musicians in attendance.


At the end of the ceremony, guests formed a steady procession, going up the stage to personally congratulate the new bride and groom. Otherwise, how would they ever know who came for the wedding? I reckon all they saw were a sea of faces in bright garments.



There they are, in all their wedding finery.

I suppose the groom can't help being bored. After all, half the guests were like us - his wife's friends who he had never met in his life. The other half were mostly his guests, including distant relatives he had never met in his life either! After going through a lengthy prayer ceremony, shaking a few hundred hands and desperately wanting dinner, he must have wished the camera man would quickly get on with it.

Well, congratulations Nesa & Ganesh!