Wow it’s so rare that I get physical cards nowadays! Most communication is done electronically through email and dots on the computer, that I’ve sort of forgotten the joys of touching a real card. So I’m really happy when Tammy passed me a Thank You card recently. It brings so much joy to my heart to read what she has written in it. This will definitely be a pick-me-up read when I go through tough times and need encouraging! Thank you Jordan and Tammy for your friendship. I really appreciate the both of you very much and pray for lots of wonderful years for the both of you!
Ali recognized us immediately the moment we stepped out of Zia Airport in Dhaka. It wasn’t very hard really. There aren’t many Chinese around. In fact, the number of foreigners on the flight could be counted with 2 hands. Our first meet up with Ali was a good one. He came with his friend Rubab (I am not sure if I got the spelling right!). Our first stop was the money changer, and then Ali treated us to Movenpick ice cream! I can’t believe we forgot to take a group photo with Ali when we arrived. We must have just been really engrossed with just talking to him.
A photo of Ali and Farhat that was sent to us before we left for Bangladesh.
Taken when we went to Movenpick. Ali has not been sleeping very much. He’s been busy mixing his music album which will be out soon! He is a singer and has his own band!
At Movenpick, we had a chat with Ali, and he said this to us… “OK I want to see your expressions… on the first day, I’ll be expecting 2000 people to turn up for the wedding.” Kee Sitt’s eye balls went really big, like ping pong balls. 500 people for the 2nd and 3rd event, AND… 6000 people for the actual wedding day! Wow!! That’s amazing! He said that the culture over in Bangladesh is to really invite every single person to the wedding, even if it’s the guy who works at the grocery shop that you just met 2 days ago.
It’s really exciting but I am getting nervous now! Ali reassured us that we should just hang out near the stage where the action is, and take random shots of the guests that arrive. Well, our first event is tomorrow night, so we’ll find out how it’ll be soon enough!
So today, we didn’t really do much except wait for our flight from Dhaka to Chittagong. We wandered the streets of Dhaka for a short while and captured some street photos. One of the things we found out was that the Bengali New Year Festival falls on the 14th of April, the day after we leave Bangladesh! We didn’t know about this festival before we booked the flight. So we’re going to miss it. :(
Dhaka is pretty chaotic with people and vehicles. There are beggars everywhere, and it is really hard to turn away when they come knocking on your car window persistently. Oh, my heart!
We found this place where lots of flowers were being sold. Later, we were told by Rubab that this is the central location where all flowers get distributed from in Dhaka.
The buses in Dhaka are really banged up. I must say the drivers in Dhaka are really skillful. It’s super challenging to navigate past trishaws, people, crazy buses, three wheeled tut-tut lookalike vehicles… etc!
We were stared at everywhere we went. Hehe, I think it’s really funny that even as we take a photo, the people behind us were ‘posing’ for the shot too!
We did some videos on the street, and will try to upload them when we can! Internet connection is quite slow where we are.
We had a following after a while.
Finally, we left Dhaka on a 45 minute flight to Chittagong. The view of Dhaka from our little propeller plane. More updates to come!
Today, I had the privilege of giving some members of the Wedding Story a send off at the airport. They’re headed out to a foreign new land – Bangladesh, and none of them have been there before. Ali and Farhat, a wonderful couple from there found us via the Internet and were suitably impressed with the quality of work offered.
Several emails later, Grace was busy processing flights and visas for the team. Here’s a short amateur video clip by me of them at the airport before leaving.
It’s a momentous event for Wedding Story. This year, we are making the move to offer HD video to our clients for all wedding film packages. The past few years we have been honing our skills and building our brand. In 2009, we started to expand our wings internationally and we believe that there is more to come in the future! Today, the 4 of us – Kee Sitt, Sharon Koo, Ian and myself will be flying over to Bangladesh to shoot Ali and Farhat’s wedding. Do keep in touch with our travels as we plan to blog frequently while we are there. It will be a week long celebration in the town of Chittagong. Apparently this is where the longest beach in the world is found! Wow!
The trip to get our new Panasonic AG-HMC 152 cameras is in itself an adventure. Alex and I booked our flight to Singapore on Monday, and on Tuesday evening, we flew over on Tiger Airways to Changi airport. What a coincidence as we bumped into people we knew on the flight! Chris Cheong from Berjaya Hotels and Michael Tang from Concorde were on their way to Singapore for a conference and coincidentally, they sat in front of us on the flight.
We arrived at 5.30pm on Tuesday, and took the MRT to City Hall where I met Sherine in Starbucks. She wrote to us to enquire about our services, and so we had a short consultation in Singapore that evening. The world is getting smaller!
Then Wang from Sensys came to meet us at the same Starbucks. It looked rather odd to do a transaction in the middle of a busy coffee place!
Our photo with Wang.
By 8pm we met a few friends for dinner.
And then by 10.30pm, Ian Chong came to pick us up to go over to his place to stay the night. I forgot to take a nice photo of him and his wife! :(But here are a few pictures of our new camera, fresh out of the box!
The next morning at 6am, we were already at the airport, to fly back to KL. And what a coincidence, we bumped into another friend Jerrica who was on the same flight! I was also supposed to meet her for a consultation this week in KL. What an exciting 14 hours.
We were supposed to have our portrait session at The Orchid Garden in KL that morning, but it poured! It was a challenge thinking of where to go in such heavy rain, but finally we decided to drive to the Solaris area in Mt Kiara for the shoot. It was my first time there. Huey Yee told me… “Don’t you know this place? All the young people hang out there.” Haha, I guess I’m not that young anymore! (or perhaps it’s a hint for my hubby to bring me out more often). With a combination of rain, hyperactive kids, and a cool location… we came up with some really fun shots!
Just look at that face of satisfaction as she grabs the plant!
