ahbeng's finally back from a 3 week long hiatus which saw him travelling from Sydney to Indonesia for 6 days, then Singapore for another 5 and finally to Hong Kong for 7 more.

ahbeng went to Indonesia primarily because his best friend Simon was getting married, and who better than to be the bestman than ahbeng (who's naturally the best).

Simon cruelly tricked ahbeng into going to Indonesia way too early. His wedding was supposed to be on the Saturday, but he wanted ahbeng to be there for the wedding rehersal. ahbeng discovered that in Indonesian church weddings, the bestman doesn't have to do anything at all. The maid of honor is the one who takes care of the rings and everything else in between.

ahbeng did not want to go to Indonesia so early, but Simon nagged him for weeks, and assured ahbeng that he would be taken care of and entertained. Simon said that he would have all his wedding preparations done by the time ahbeng arrived, hence he would spend time taking ahbeng out for sight-seeing, good food and other cheap thrills (AUD$1 bowling and 50 cent pool).

But Simon's ahbeng's best friend so ahbeng predicted accurately that Simon would not uphold his end of the bargain and leave things to the last minute. So when ahbeng turned up in Indonesia, he went for the wedding rehersal and all ahbeng had to do was to walk down the aisle and sit down on the left side. And at the end, ahbeng had to take a bible from Simon (a church tradition there) and that was it.

ahbeng spent the rest of his time in Jakarta doing absolutely nothing. Simon left most things to the last minute and wanted to visit every auntie he had, so that was what ahbeng did.

Simon and Cicilia's wedding was great fun though. There were dramas in the morning but once that was resolved everything else went smoothly. ahbeng will be making a dedicated post about it soon featuring photos from the wedding.

To make things worse, something Simon's mum bought for ahbeng to eat made him sick and gave him the runs for 7 days, which ruined ahbeng's Singapore time. ahbeng wanted to not only show Miranda Singapore, but to catch up with friends and eat the Singapore cuisine which he missed so very much. But in Singapore, the only sights ahbeng was interested in seeing were clean toilets. ahbeng also had to limit meeting times with his friends to 2 hours as he had to go back to the hotel to lau-sai, and of course ahbeng ate mostly congee (jook), not satay, rojak, roti prata or ice karchang.

So Simon you si-gi-nah... ahbeng gave you 6 days of his life. Why did you have to take 7 more? ahbeng will never forgive you for this.

Other highlights of ahbeng's holiday was spotting Hong Kong celebraties, including old time favorite Sit Ka-Yin, asking Ah Sa from Twins for a photo, and a quick public live performance from Soler.

ahbeng promises there's more to come so please stay tuned.