Taiwanese Wedding - Part Two ......

... in my  earlier posts on our trip I showed you: some of my DS1 and DDIL1's 12 hour photo shoot photos and then the Pre-wedding rituals and ceremonies. Well, this post I will tell you about the actual wedding day.

This is the foyer outside the reception room in the hotel:

One thing I have learnt about Taiwanese weddings is that it is ALL about the PHOTOS!

Yes, that is broccoli that one of my DS1's friends is holding - it is the guys' equivalent of catching the bridal bouquet (I never quite got to the bottom of the significance of it, though).

Now, I must tell you a funny story.  When TraderVic and I first arrived in Taiwan, my DDIL's mother upon meeting TraderVic for the first time commented to her daughter that "He is a very handsome man", a compliment which TraderVic was happy to accept.  Well, at the wedding, when we were doing the rounds of the tables with the happy couple, when we arrived at the table of my DDIL's young girlfriends (all in their mid-twenties). Each and everyone, took one look at TraderVic in his navy suit, called out 007 (the new James Bond movie had just come out in Taiwan) and each one had to have a photo taken with TraderVic and put it on their FB page - lol!  Well, does TV have swelled head now! lol!  Although you must admit he does scrub up well.  Here he is, with me (on the right) and my DSister1.

... and, of course all about the FOOD!  A thirteen course banquet!

Believe it or not, this dish below is Frog ovaries!

Well, that is all for now, this post has taken me a few days to write (I always find it takes ages to get the photos together), but I am eager to get it posted online.

Have a Happy Friday everyone, 

hugs, 

TUSAL, FF and FNwF.... and a great giveaway for you to check out

Okay, well, this post is a bit of a grab bag!

First off, here  are my TUSAL updates:

For those of you who don't know, the TUSAL is a project run by Daffycat, click on the button above for more details.

2015 ORTS - an entire year's worth of threads from my work:

2016 Orts: Travel orts on the right, home on on the left:

2016 so far:

Friday Frolics and Friday Night with Friends:

Luckily for me, the first FNwF     run by the wonderful Cheryll (click on pic to find out more) happened to correspond to my first Friday night back home and, of course, Friday night is Frolic night   (you can click on this pic to get to the blog) - so all was good.

This is what I stitched for FF and FNwF:

I randomly chose "Troubled Waters" part of the Bad Neighbourhood series by Ink Circles as my FF piece. The last time I stitched on this was 11 December, 2013!  Oh, my goodness!

So, this is my before pic:

... and this is my progress after last night.

So getting there!

Anyway, enough from me - see you all tomorrow with another update on our trip - Taiwanese Wedding - Part 2!


Have a great day everyone,

hugs,

Hold the Presses!

The wonderful Nancy is having a fabulous floss giveaway, click on the pic to have a chance to win!

Drawing of the winner is on Feb 2nd.  Good luck!

Taiwanese wedding... Part One

... in my earlier post on our trip I showed you  some of my DS1 and DDIL1's 12 hour photo shoot photos.  Well, this post I will tell you about the pre-wedding day ceremonies that took place.

The day before the wedding, there were a number of traditional rituals and ceremonies which had to take place, all presided over by one of the family matriarchs who was there to ensure that all was done properly.

TraderVic and I, along with my DSister1 and several of DS1's friends, were staying at the hotel, the Chateau de Chine, where the wedding was to take place the next day. We were all picked up by various family members to be taken to DDIL1's house where the first of the ceremonies were to take place.

When we arrived, our DIL was waiting up in her bedroom (in her white wedding dress) for her groom to win his way to her.  However, he and all of us were not yet allowed inside the house. DS1 had to perform a number of tasks successfully - the Heng Tai challenge-  just to be allowed in the house to speak to her parents.  If he failed these tasks he was then "punished".

In this task the boys had to create a shape with their bodies, post it to FB and get 20 likes in ten minutes for DS1 to be able to move to the next task.

The "punishments" were all fun things he had to do as well!

Eventually he made it into the house where our DDIL's parents were waiting.

Then, DS1 performed a few more tasks and punishments but finally managed to make it up the stairs to where his bride was waiting.  He got down on one knee and proposed to her again - luckily she said "Yes!"

Then it was back in the cars, back to the hotel (which represented DS1's home), DDIL had to walk through fire to get into the building and then there were lots more photo ops and then the tea ceremony.  Sorry, there are no pictures of that, as TraderVic and I were the centre of this piece of the action. Our DIL had to serve us ceremonially serve us tea and give us ritual gifts of rice and bean.

It was all very beautiful and moving, with even more excitement to come as the wedding banquet was to be the next day!

That is all for now, 

hugs, 

The Alphabet Club - Saturday Detention for E and F.....

Well, as usual, I am a little late for my Saturday detention - I missed both December and January!  Aaaggh!

So, I have two letters to make up for, right now!

For those of you who do not know what I am talking about:

What is the Alphabet Club, I hear you ask?  Well, it is the brainchild of Chiara from The Grey Tail and Jo from Serendipitous Stitching and is loosely based on the premise of the movie "The Breakfast Club" - you can see the button for The Alphabet Club on my right sidebar.

On the first Saturday of each month, members of the club have "detention" and have to post about something that will enlighten others about their culture (as blogland is so diverse).  Of course, there should be something stitchy in there, if possible. Each month will be a different letter of the alphabet - hence the club's name - and, of course, we started with "A" and now we are up to "F"



You can see the link up of the posts of the other detainees for this month, here.

Now, I am going to be sneaky this month as my E and F make one post as they stand for ....

Errol Flynn 

Such a handsome man (and born in Tasmania) and a great Hollywood swashbuckling hero. Who could forget him as Robin Hood!

One of the many great Aussie imports into Hollywood.

So, that is all from me, 

hugs, 

I'm Baaackkk!

Hello my lovely bloggers,

Well, TraderVic and I are back safe and sound from a wonderful adventure overseas... and it was indeed an adventure!

A Taiwanese wedding, a magical lake and being chauffeured around Taipei by a billionaire - and that was just the first week!

So, if you would like to read more about it, stay tuned over the next few weeks, while I catch you up on all my travel (and stitching) news - of course, if you follow me on FB, then you will have seen most of these pics (sorry!)

Let's begin with the wedding in Kaohsiung- the whole raison d'etre for the trip, really.  Just to remind you, our DS1 married his lovely bride here in Melbourne, nearly a year ago now, you can revisit that post, here, if you wish.  However, DDIL1 is a gorgeous Taiwanese girl, who wanted to have the Taiwanese wedding experience with her family and friends as well - and what an experience it is:  12 hour wedding photo shoot for the bride and groom (pre-wedding) involving at least five changes of outfits (for both bride and groom) and different hairstyles (for the bride); a tea ceremony the day before when the groom needs to perform a number of tasks to win the hand of his bride and then a full on 13 course wedding feast the following day at which the bride wore three different gowns and then after all that we went to Karaoke!  Wow! What a couple of days!


Today, I am going to show you some of the wedding shoot photos - they are quite stunning!

Anyway, I am going to leave you here for now, watch this space for further updates on our trip.

hugs,