Mei Leng & Francis' Wedding

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Having watched "Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban" until 2 am, we got up late & made our way to Pudaraya bus station. The station was a collection of food stalls & a mass of tiny ticket booths all, confusingly, selling bus tickets. We were helped to decipher which one we needed by a man with a walkie-talkie. Tickets to the Cameron Highlands were readily available, but all buses to Penang were fully booked as the forthcoming weekend celebrated both Divali & Id making Penang the place to be (but unfortunately not for us).
We got to the Westin Hotel at 3 pm for the wedding banquet rehearsal, after travelling up & down in what must be the fastest lift in the world (my ears popped every time) we found Mei Leng & Francis (beaming) in the restaurant just above reception & then went up to the Grand Ballroom. The ballroom had been decorated with white willow branches & orchids, with a stage at the opposite end supporting a huge 8 tiered cake. After working out where to stand & how fast Sam should walk down the aisle (requiring several repeats of Darryl's song & changes of cue) we got changed ready for the evening (including a MAC makeover from Bee Bee for Sam!).
The front of the banqueting hall was decorated with orchids (matching Mei Leng's beautiful bouquet) & ice sculptures. There was a drinks reception where a never-ending stream of people arrived to sip drinks. When everyone was there & had filtered into the hall it was time for Francis & I (honorary best man) to stand at the front with video cameras trained on us so that we appeared on huge screens on either side of the stage. Darryl's song cued Sam & Simron (Francis' niece & flower girl) to enter with their pink bouquets, then Mei Leng in a beautiful gold ensemble, & her father.
The 9 course banquet that followed was exquisite-from shark fin soup to oat-covered prawns to Belgian chocolates. After the banquet & Sam doing her bridesmaid duty tour of the 34 tables with Mei Leng & Francis for photos, a good crowd headed to the Q-bar on the ground floor for drinks & we didn't head home until 3am.

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