I tried to prepare myself for the heat and humidity of Singapore and I think it worked out pretty well. When I stepped outside from the airport I didn't pass out, just got wobbily in the knees.
I had a little argument with my taxi driver on the way to my hotel. I had told him the address and he kept on going on about how I need the name of hotel because that would help him. I told him I had only the address and that it was my first time to Singapore. That didn't seem to help him. But I got to my air conditioned room safe and sound, so it was allright.
I went to 7-11 to get a SIM card for Jason's phone so I could give him a call. I spent a half hour trying to call and finally gave up. Turns out you need to dial the correct country code to reach someone. Go figure.
I got in touch with Jason through his work and he told me to meet up with him at Borders so we could go to dinner. I took the MRT (or MTR) to Borders and poked around until Jason swung by. He drove us to dinner on the riverfront. We went to a Thai restaurant and had peppered crab, along with satay and little crab cupcakes. He thought the crab wasn't up to snuff, but I thought it was pretty damn good. The place he normally goes to must have amazing food.
On Thursday Jason picked me up and we went to the wedding dress rehearsal. I met the other groomsmen and the bridesmaids, everyone was pretty cool and friendly. The bestman - Lawrence - played speed with Jason's nieces Nicole and Natasha, soundly losing to the little women. Natasha started her rouse of saying "I don't like you" to me and trying to pinch my arms. At least I think it was a rouse.
We practices walking down the aisle and ordering up correctly and then walking out. I know it's a simple thing, but I had a dread feeling that I would trip and take out my bridesmaid Cynthia in front of everyone on the wedding day.
Afterwords we all went to brunch at Jason's dad's golf club. I got the original Mee-Goreng, from which the Indo-Mie Mee-Goreng instant noodles are modeled. It was quite good. Jason's dad gave me crap for only drinking Coke instead of beer. I was trying to save myself for the nightly drinking that was to come.
I got a ride with Lawrence to a movie theatre so I could watch The Incredibles, which was a great movie. I got a hair cut afterwords in a proper salon so I could look decent for Jason's wedding.
Later I met up with Jason, the other groomsmen and a bunch of Jason's dad's friends at an Irish Pub downtown. I was only going to have one beer, but it seems to be an insult to not drink with people, so more beers were pushed my way, along with fish & chips, lamb and sausages. Hard life.
At 9pm three ladies from the upstairs bar (owned by the same guy as the Irish pub who was drinking with us) came into the pub with handcuffs and picked up Jason. All of the older people stayed at the pub while us young guys went upstairs with Jason and the ladies.
Upstairs we had a section of the bar to ourselves as the shots were poured and the ladies, okay the strippers, hung around Jason. We all had a shot of Potin (90% alcohol) with Jason and the strippers. They re-handcuffed Jason (he had somehow got out of the plastic toys) to a chair and danced around for him. The other patrons across the bar watched us jealously while they drank. It was cool to be the ones in the bar everyone else wanted to be.
At around midnight we bid the ladies adieu and headed to a "karaoke" bar. I guess it'd be more accurate to call it a hostess bar. I stumbled out of the bar an hour and a half later to catch a cab home. After a few drunken calls (one of which Ron saved on his voice mail) I finally passed out until the morning.
On Friday Jason came over at noon and helped me get to the Ritz Carleton hotel where I'd be staying the last two days. After getting checked into the 6 star hotel we met up with Alex and Susa and Jason's sister to have some lunch.
After lunch we walked back to the hotel in the warm rain and took naps before heading to the pool. They brought out towels for us as we were swimming. I have to say the Ritz was the nicest hotel I've ever stayed at, and I've been to Hotel 8! There is always someone around to help you out or bring you something. Very cool place.
That night Alex, Susa and I went to the night safari, where you can take a tram through the safari and look at all of the animals. They even had hippos. I was going to throw Alex's shoes at the bastards but I couldn't get them off of his feet until we were near the hyenas.
After the safari we went back to town and met up with Jason and two more of his friends for dinner. We had more peppered crab and other cool seafood.
Saturday was the actual wedding day. In accordance with Chinese tradition, Jason and his "brothers" had to go retrieve his wife from her "sisters". This meant Jason and his friends (including Alex and I) went up to Gerry's hotel room and had to bargain for her. We went inside and were met by all of the sisters who gave us tasks to complete.
The first was to have Jason eat an apple with only his mouth, no hands involved. At the same time one of his brothers (me!) ate the same way. So we had an intimate moment with an apple between us. I asked if we had time to cuddle but the sisters moved us along.
Then we all ate something sweet (chocolate), spicy (chili), sour (vinegar) and something else (a fruit type deal).
Then it was time for Jason to make a stamp with his foot on a paper and then write out Gerry's Chinese name with his toe. But first he needed to get his foot painted. This was my and Lawrence's duty. We took lipstick and painted the bottom of his foot. I have to say it was pretty fun.
After Jason cleaned up we then had to bargain for her release. This was a payoff to the sisters. They started at 8800 Singapore dollars, which we thought was too high. Jake got them down to 12 a piece, which was some nice manouvering.
This got us into the bedroom where we had more tasks. One of which was for Jason to rap about his love for her. And the brothers were to provide backup. All of us just looked around at each other for a minute or two. I came up with two lines for Jason to use:
My name is Moo
and I have nothing but love for you.
I started beat boxing as best I could, throwing in some record scratching for good measure. Jason rapped out his lines.
The sisters told us we needed more. I gave Jason another line or two:
I even took off
my shoes for you!
It's no Run-DMC, but it was good enough. They were all impressed with our rapping and beat boxing. There is a video of us out there somewhere. It'd be neat to get a copy of it all.
Jason then had to sing a Chinese song and give the top 10 reasons why he loved Gerry. He eventually got her to come out and the mission was accomplished.
I got a ride from Kian Pin (or KP), the other groomsman, to the wedding where we were to usher people into the church. After a quick stop at McDonalds of course.
The wedding went off without a hitch and was a very nice ceremony. After the ceremony we all adjourned to the reception and had snacks. Natasha kept running by and telling me "I still don't like you." Then she asked if I was married and took me to some lady and said "This is Sam." Which was a bit awkward. The woman looked at me kinda funny and I took my leave back to Alex and Susa for ice-cream.
KP, being the good guy he is, called us a taxi and we went back to the hotel for a nap. After a nap Alex, Susa and I went to Chinatown for some shopping. I was just going to round out my shopping with a few little things but ended up buying a bunch of stuff. You can never have too many things, right?
After packing all of my goodies and my dirty clothes into my backpack, I went down to the dinner reception with Alex and Susa. Everyone was decked out and looking very snazzy. I was glad I had my new tux, otherwise I'm sure I would've looked very slobby next to everyone else. Nicole and Natasha buzzed around and came by to tell me that I owed them money (apparently from the speed game with Lawrence) and that Natasha still didn't like me. They were very cute.
As a groomsman one of my duties was to usher people into the banquet hall. I mainly just followed KP around and tried to ask people to go inside. I think I failed miserably. But everyone went in despite my work.
We had a 5 course meal with everything from shark fin soup (which was pretty good) to baked cod. Inbetween courses someone would give a speech or sing a song. They had tests for Gerry and Jason where they had to determine who was their spouse while being blindfolded. Jason had to kiss 5 women and see who was Gerry. He guessed wrong and had to drink for it. Gerry had to touch the rears of 5 men (me included!). She guessed wrong too and Jason had to drink for it.
After the dinner a bunch of us went to a swanky bar named The Velvet Room. There was a huge line to get in, but KP came to the rescue and got us ushered in with minimal fuss. This guy seems to be hooked up with all of the cool people. I tried to get away with only having one beer, but Jason's "brothers" were there and gave me drinks, and it's rude to turn them down.
The next day I had breakfast with Alex and Susa and headed out to the airport. 3 flights and 24 hours later I was back home.
I'll be putting up pictures from the wedding soon.