wedding reception invitation card

I received my first invitation to a wedding dinner. In the past, I always attend wedding dinner with family. So, the invitation card will be addressed to my dad’s name AND FAMILY. That’s how they always wrote it. This time it is different. It is one of my BFF in Medan’s brother’s wedding. So she gave me this invitation card with my name written on it. I see 2 differences between invitation cards used by Chinese in Malaysia and Chinese in Medan. What are they?

First, the colour of the card. In Malaysia, I always see invitation cards in RED or PINK with gold writings on it. Red brings luck and mean prosperity to Chinese. The one I received from my friend here is different. The card is in light yellow with a cover outside the card in dark cocoa colour. I’ve never seen Chinese wedding invitation card using dark colour like this. The card they’re using here is the thick, something like hard cover. I guess it must cost a lot just to print these invitation cards.

Second, the small sign by the end of the page. I’m a Chinese who didn’t really know to read Chinese because I studied in an English school since young. I’m still learning to read Chinese now. So I was reading the card that night with a friend next to me teaching me the words. Guess what, they translated all the addresses from Indonesian language to Chinese language. That must be hard because reading it was hard. Then I see these signs down there. I’ve never seen signs like this in the card we received in Malaysia.

They told me, the first round sign meant RED PACKET, the second round sign meant NO FLOWERS, and the last round sign meant NO GIFTS. As conclusion, it meant “we DO NOT accept flowers and gifts, we ONLY ACCEPT RED PACKETS.” WOW~ I’ve never gave red packet to anyone. Dr. William and his wife must be feeling honored LOL.

I’ve asked around my Malaysian Chinese friends. At my place, those who haven’t married will be giving gifts as to congratulate the newlywed. Only married couples will be giving red packets to the newlywed couple. At some other places in Malaysia, they will always give red packet no matter the invited guests are married or not. Perhaps this is what people say ‘different place having different culture’?

Ethan's belated birthday celebration

Ethan was given birth on the same day as me =) He wasn’t here in Medan on the 2^nd day of January so we had a little celebration for his belated birthday just few hours ago. His girlfriend went dinner with him first while Roxanne, Kam Hoong, and I went to the mall looking for a mouse as a birthday gift. Of course, not those mouse that can breathe! I didn’t know what to give him best. Roxanne told me his mouse is spoilt so I thought of getting him a mouse for game. I guess he would love it since See Theng told me once that he loves DOTA. Too bad, the one I looked around in the mall just now was way too much than my budget and we ran out of time so in the end I just get him a simple USB extension =.+!

3 of us went to Clover to get him a birthday cake. We chose Chocolate Pudding cake and it was yummy-licious!

We called for taxi and again they ignored us sighs. I already called to reserve a room in K2 Karaoke. Ethan and his girlfriend were already there an hour ago. We arrived there late so leaving us no room. We changed plan. Preparation for Plan B was done on the 2^nd floor of the Karaoke centre. The workers there helped out. They were nice! Thanks to them we didn’t used too much time. I prepared the cake with candle. Roxanne was busy choosing hats and masks.

Kam Hoong used all energy he had to fill the balloons with air. Balloons again! These balloons looked way better than mine the other day but anyway, I still love them =)

Everything's prepared. Time to move to the room!

Once everything’s ready, we went into the room. Both of them in the room were scared. They thought we were robbers LOL what a joke! Seriously, they looked a little frightened but we never thought they would think us as robbers =.=! Perhaps it is because Kam Hoong’s wearing black and with mask.

Does this look like a robber? He went in like this, with a hat, a mask, and blowing that I don't know what we call it.

Robber 2.

Robber 3.

Then, the next thing was as usual, sang song, made belated wish, blew off candle, and time to open up presents.

After that, were all about song singing until about an hour later. We got home by taxi together. Roxanne was caring as usual to remind me about locking my doors and all.

We all said we would put the photo of ourselves with mask as our profile picture and both the belated birthday boy and girl had a little different one.

Ethan lil' ting

Staying home alone for about 10 days wasn’t that bad after all. I actually enjoyed staying myself here, alone. I wasn’t lonely. Feeling lonely is not about you being alone. Feeling lonely is because no one cares but there are a lot of them who cares for me here and I really do appreciate these people. See Theng had been accompanying me all the while. She had dinner with me every day. She came back from the hospital to have dinner together. I’m not sure if she did it on purpose. At least she cared =) Roxanne, on the other hand, would make sure I really lock myself in the house before she heads home herself. These big sisters of mine are GREAT sisters. I would like to say thank you again for taking good care of me here sisters!

22nd birthday

It was my 22^nd birthday yesterday. I thought staying here in Medan myself would be lonely. I thought I would go through my birthday myself for the first time. To my surprise, on the very first day of this year, 2011, my girlfriends had posted and shared a video they made. I was touched. I was happy. I was speechless even though the short video was nothing much. I would celebrate my birthday with these girls every year and this year is the first year without them and they managed to make me feel they’re here next to me this birthday with the cake in front of me at my screen. I love you girls!

My brother rang me at 12am sharp (Malaysia time) saying nobody else could call me that time because my brother somehow must be more important than others =) cute little brother I have. We were chatting for so long I guess his credit dried. I hope his girlfriend won’t be mad at him ^^ A while later when I was talking to my brother on the phone, I heard some sound outside. Honestly, I guessed it would be my friends since I received one of the wrongly sent messages saying they’ll make a surprise celebration for me but somehow, staying alone in this house, hearing people knocking the door outside that late, I’m a little scared too.

I tried looking out from the window but it was so dark I can’t see a thing. So I opened the wooden door and there I saw this cake with a candle lit on it and balloons around it! Oh balloons~

I didn’t know when I started fancy them! Then I realized there were a few others outside the gate because only 2 boys jumped in to arrange the cake and all. There we did the usual thing, sang song, made wish, blew candle, cut cake, ate cake and oh ya, Roxanne bought us some fried chicken from Texas.

Chun and Loong both made drink for us. Wei Sheng was busy taking photos =)

Bong asked why we didn't take photo of him preparing stuff so he pretended this and we took it =X

Then See Theng and Bong argued over the plan of surprise party they wanted to do. It’s so funny to see See Theng would argue with others all the time.

See Theng told me what she planned. The one we celebrated last night was Bong’s plan. See Theng and Roxanne gave me a hat as my birthday present. See Theng said I was hinting her to buy me the hat. I seriously wasn’t hinting you, See Theng! I think the hat I loved was very expensive and not worth it. There’s this hat I saw once in the mall when I went shopping with Bell.

I tried on it and Bell assured me I look good with it, of course because it matches the clothes I wore that day when I went out with her. I told See Theng about it when I went shopping with her, getting present for Ethan. She lied to me saying she needs to work the next day. She actually went and gets the hat for me!

Thank you very much See Theng and Roxanne.

Grandma’s call woke me up. I can’t believe she really remembers every of her grandchild’s birthday! I called her back since the line wasn’t that good and talked for quite a while, telling her about my coming convocation =) I had another session of drama marathon towards evening. See Theng and Roxanne came back from hospital to have dinner with me. The restaurant named The Paddock is still new.

I thought they should be providing us better service. To our disappointments, their service sucks, their food are tasteless, and they’re expensive!

This cup of carrot juice on the left costs Rp. 15.000 (around Rm5.50) and iced tea on the right costs Rp. 8.000 (around RM2.90) OMG! Just a glass of iced tea!

I hope there won’t be any spot check in the hospital right now or else I wonder what will happen to these two girls, running out of the hospital without permission to have dinner.

Besides, there were many who wished me online, also via sms. Some even called me and sang birthday song for me. I appreciate all these good friends I have. I love you all buddies! Thanks for the present, thank you for the preparations, thank you for the arrangements, thank you for the celebration, thank you for the surprises, and thanks a lot for the wonderful wishes!