of the wedding and afterwards
Da Lat was sooooo nice and cool (sometimes even cold!), we had forgotten how muggy and a stinker it was to be in Ho Chi Minh City. Gah.
We busied ourselves with finding outfits for the wedding, taking clothes in to be tailored, and various other things I can’t seem to remember…
Oh! Tim and I did end up meeting up with some of our maternal relatives. Aunt Phuong and Hoang drove us to the temple where we paid our respects to our maternal grandparents.
It’s been a while since I’ve been on a scooter (2001, the last time I was here in Vietnam) and I had forgotten how fun and free you feel on it…. besides constantly being freaked out by the honks from cars, buses, and trucks (which didn’t seem so bad while we were *in* the vehicle), as well as the vehicles themselves. Traffic really sucks.
It was also really dust, as my brother found out XD and he wished he had a mask to wear.
They then took us to play a bit of pool and then had bubble tea =D
They wanted us to stay the night, but the next day was the wedding (early start and all that).. so we had to decline. But it was so awkward because we weren’t too sure how much they knew and if they knew why we were here =.=;;
Got ready and I realised just how thin my Ao Dai (traditional Vietnamese long dress + pants) actually was. =.= And because it was so see through, I had to wear a white bra… which wasn’t even mine because I don’t own any white bras T___T
So we had a little ceremony and official “meeting of the families” type thing at the bride’s house. Then we were whisked off to lunch and Bat Dat Hotel.
After lunch, we went to get our hair done at the same place we got our hair cut. To be honest, looking back (and at the photos), I kinda really didn’t like my hair. Coupled with the colour choice of traditional Chinese dress, I apparently looked quite old O_O
We arrived quite early to the reception and so bummed in the apartment dad hired for the night. Somewhere out of the blue, a massive storm broke out. Torrential rain and gusty winds. It was quite scary, but kinda cool. But this meant that people were delayed, especially the dude who was in charge of the seating plans.
It was a bit crazy for a while, but once everyone was properly seated, the reception began.
The food was quite good and being the typical Asian wedding, there was like a bazillion courses T_T was so utterly full by the 7th course.
There were two ice sculptures by the stage, and the kids thought it would be great fun to dip their hands in the pool of water beneath and then clamp their frozen hands onto someone’s bare arms. More than a couple were sniffling from the cold by the end of the night. Brats. =P
On our way home, we were struck by how empty the streets were (by this time the storm wore itself out into a light drizzle). We marvelled at the eerieness of it all… and then we were like… is that… *water* on the road?!
And that’s when we also noticed a loooong line of scooters stranded on top of the islands in the middle of the road.
There were a couple of cyclists who strained to pedal through water, and a few lucky scooters that managed to keep their momentum and hadn’t stopped (as supposedly that’s when the water will go into the exhaust pipe and kill the engine).
It was all very exciting.
We were in a 7-seater 4wd, so I wasn’t too concerned of us getting bogged down, but I was sitting right at the back… so after asking my grandmother to wind down her window, I stuck my camera out and pretty much flashed everyone as we went past, taking photographs of the flooded HCM’s main artery streets.
We had a little early celebration of my brother’s 17th birthday the next night. Dad popped into a cake shop for the cake and we ate loads of seafood at Ngoc Suong Marina. We we sooooo completely stuffed that we couldn’t eat the cake! Hahah
So we ended up taking it home to have it there.
Tim wanted to put the sparklers on the cake, but remembering all the black particles it left behind on the cake, I said no and suggested that we’d go into one of the empty guest rooms and take photos of the sparklers… Khanh Ha and Tim weren’t too sure what I was talking about, but they soon found out! =D So much fun ^___^
Oh yeah! And Tim got caked by Khanh Ha!! ^___________^ lol.. good work!
It’s the last day and Tim and I feel like we’re coming down with something. It wasn’t the best way to end a mini holiday, but oh wells!
For some reason, our luggage went with some of my Aunt’s relos, and we caught a taxi. The wet weather coupled with road construction really delayed us from getting to the airport, but when we did… our luggage wasn’t there yet!
It was a good 15 minute panic because for some reason Khanh Ha’s and Aunt Nga’s flight was displayed to be leaving 30 minutes earlier than the scheduled time… and we didn’t have the relo who has our luggage’s number!
Fortunately, Aunt Nga contacted them in time and rushed through check-in. Meanwhile, I was stuck at check-in for reasons I’m still unsure about. First I heard something about my name being spelt differently or ordered differently, then it was because I don’t look like my passport photo (really need to get that fixed), and then it was a visa issue! WTH?! Bah.
All good. It all worked out, save due to some mysterious reason, our plane was delayed until 21:30.
We actually didn’t leave the airport til about 1am-ish – and supposedly they were late because our original plane suffered some technical problems and so had to wait for a replacement plane.
During that time though, I managed to get a massive high score on Lumines XD hahahaha the game lasted for 50mins and by the time I died, I was incredibly stiff and sore.
