a Happening Weekend

It's already the 2nd day of October!!

The end of September ie. last weekend had been great but tiring, so much so that I'm still recovering from it.. also because i have not been feeling well.

I'm a bit behind in my posts. And although I could put a few posts of the things that had happened over the weekend, I think I shall just do one `monster' post to chronicle the `highlights'. It certainly was a pretty eventful weekend - as opposed to my usual mundane ones. It was so packed and hectic that I needed to take Monday to recover.. though I also went and watch `Lust Caution'.

Ok, so here's what had happened..

FRIDAY

On Friday afternoon, I submitted my last article for the month (it all starts again this month) in the early afternoon and decided to go and check out The Gardens at Mid Valley which just opened two days ago. Well, I would love to check out the swanky Pavillion KL but it's right in the heart of town centre and I only had two hours.. also I planned to take sis there when they're back on Sunday!

I won't say I was either impressed or disappointed with the shopping mall.. but it's definitely more spacious than Megamall and more up-market of course.

Due to time factor, I just breezely browsed around the store - which has two anchor tenants at either end - Robinsons and Isetan. I was quite pleased with myself that despite many new and chic labels (for handbags and shoes esp) I didn't buy anything! But still ended up buying a couple of skincare items but they're consider essentials anyway..

Still, I was stuck in quite a bad jam at the MV ringroad when I left - there were those leaving home to buka puasa as well as those coming into the shopping malls for their Friday evening leisure! Thank goodness the highway back home was clear so I hurried get ready and have dinner and drove back to PJ for our peer group meeting.


SATURDAY

Day
Got up a bit earlier than usual for brunch with some friends, a reunion of sort for Mr&Mrs Ng from Hong Kong. Actually they're Malaysians but now residing in HK. We went to a Jarrod & Rawlins, which features quite an impressive deli-counter. So while some went for the set breakfast, a few of us including myself chose the items from the deli.

I think there were close to 20 of us.. and it was great catching up with one another. I guess the chit-chat saved the day as the food took AGES to come!! It's good thing that I seldom eat until lunch time so the hunger pang was still bearable but maybe some of my friends were starving!



You can see some of us are still waiting for the food while some luckier ones are already eating (having also waited for some time!)

And I couldn't say much about the service either.. in fact, i was quite disappointed! I ordered bottled fruit juice and had drank less than half of it with a glass still full.. and then a fly dropped into my drink! So when I notified the waiter and asked him whether he could get me another juice, he said he couldn't! But he could replace me with bottled water.. I mean, it wasn't my fault at all that the fly dropped into my drink.. more over the fly was at their premise! I think the least they could do for the sake of good service (which they lack of obviously) was to replace me a drink. That's why I'm impressed with Starbucks which has no qualms replacing me a new cup of coffee when once I accidentally spilt it! And that was my fault! unlike the stupid fly..

Anyway, enough ranting.. to show my `protest', i told the waiter in a calm and smiling voice that I won't be recommending any of my friends there cos they have bad service! :p

That aside, it was the fellowship that counted and the food was pretty ok too. We were there like three hours!

And then I went to do some errands and then come home to rest a bit before sis and brother-in-law arrived! They have specially flown back from Hong Kong for the weekend to attend the Double Celebration dinner of my grandma's 90th birthday and my uncle's wedding.

Night
While the rest of my family could take a longer rest before the dinner, I had promised uncle to be at Hakka Restaurant at 6pm. I was to be the emcee so had to sort out a few things esp. on the P.A. systems and the overall sequences of events. But mind you, I have no experience really on emcee-ing! But well, I guess I can't say I get `stage fright' either thanks to the experience of song leading at church services.. but seriously, I had not really figured out what I would say, but I know it would be quite minimum!

We had around 130 odd guests, and almost half of them were uncle's friends and staff while the other half were relatives. Some of the guests were already there early, in particularly the Muslims for buka puasa.

(As it was a double-celebration, the bill for the dinner was split - half was footed by my uncle for his wedding and the other half split among all the working grandchildren of my grandma.)

Almost all of the Chow-clan relatives were here, including some who happened to be back from overseas! Most of my cousins from Singapore also came so it was quite a nice reunion except that half the time I was busy going up and down the stage.. it was kinda stressful for me (a novice!) but at least the atmosphere was informal and relaxed.

The first part of the party was the wedding celebration.. so the usual cake-cutting and champaign pouring was done.. and then we had some entertainment! Cousins Vivian and Mandy did some pretty amazing modern dance.. I also sang a song dedicated to my uncle and Annie. Yeah I kinda volunteered my `service' :p But alas, my voice was in quite a bad condition due to a prolonged flu and also had been talking too much! So while the first part of `Power of Love' went ok.. gradually I knew my voice had gone strained and the result wasn't good.. :( Could have done much better on another day and time! But I did try my best and the response was pretty encouraging..

It was a moving moment when a slide show containing photos of grandma was played. It felt kinda heart-wrenching to see how beautiful, happy and strong she was in the past.. and now because of stroke and also aging, grandma has been bedridden for almost a year.. and also suffers from Alzheimer. She was sitting on a wheel chair throughout the evening, almost oblivious to everything going on in the party..


I've ordered a 6.5kg birthday cake - Espresso banana gateau from Celicakes. It looked very presentable and tasted good too! But because some of the guests had left, we actually got to tapau home.

After the cake cutting, the dance floor was open and uncle's dance classmates all sportingly took to the floor. They danced for quite a while - from cha-cha, rock&roll and even Latin style.. So my duty was officially over.. and finally I could relax and also got to socialise a bit more!


(left) Grandma with her children and their spouses; (right) and surrounded by her grandchildren


(left) The radiant bride and groom with mom, sis and me; (right) `the girls' at the end of the party.


SUNDAY

My mind was still too active from the event of the dinner that I had difficulty sleeping.. but I knew I had to sleep early cos I needed to get up early to church for the choir presentation. We were supposed to be at church at 7:45am thus I set my alarm clock at 6:45am.

But guess what? when the alarm went off and I opened my eyes, I sensed that something was not right as it was bright already! I looked at the clock and it read `7:45!'!! My gosh I have inadvertently set it an hour late!

Knowing that I would be megalate but still could make it before the service start (8:45am) I got ready at full-speed and grabbed a few pieces of bread and drove like a mad woman.. setting a new time record from my house to church! I know this is bad but.. so I managed to reach the hall by 8:25am.. explained and apologised to the conductor in front of everyone but he didn't seem angry (phew). So I missed the warm-up but at least I got to sing and didn't waste all the weeks of practice!! Praise God everything went pretty well too..

After singing for the 2nd service, I left to meet up with dad, mom, sis and B-I-L for lunch. Yes, we went to Pavillion KL! Ate at Madam Kwan's which food was not that good anymore and then spent the whole of the afternoon browsing the new mall and shopping! Well, more like dad and I accompanying sis and mom to shop. B-I-L very smartly went his own way to Sungei Wang, and even had a massage!

Pavillion is pretty large and has an interestingly lay-out. A little like Suria KLCC but even more spacious and modern in a way. We checked out Tang's, which interior decoration is very chic with slight Medditaranean feel. It's quite small though, just two storey of fashion mainly. But I am particularly impressed by Parkson which is really quite upmarket! We ended up having afternoon tea and its delicious chocolate banana cake at the Zang Toi cafe inside Parkson.

I was upset that I've left my camera inside my other bag in my car, which was parked in Bangsar.. so no photos of the day but here's just one that shows the interior of the mall, photo credited to another blogger - shoppingNsales.com/blog



We only had half-an-hour to shower and get ready for dinner with the newly weds, ie. uncle and Annie at Unique Seafood in Cheras.. Well, uncle said he wanted to treat all us for our help. We had Nyonya fish, clam soup, steam prawns, fried crabs etc... yum.. the food was very good.. and the price reasonable too!

When we reached home, sis and B-I-L packed and had to sleep early as their flight was very early the next morning..

I heard sis was really tired when she reached HK.. I don't blame her, I myself have yet to recover from it too.

Or maybe I should just sleep earlier tonight :p