Amy and Jason Pre Wedding Part 2

The second part of our pre-wedding shoot was the formal part where Amy was to wear her wedding dress and I was to wear my suit. We finally picked University Putra Malaysia as the place to shoot because it looked really nice and quite a few people have done it before. You will need to get approval from UPM to do the shoot and there is a charge imposed for it.

Initially I was thinking the place is so big and how would they know if you paid up or not. Not 5 minutes after we got on location one of UPM employees came and asked us for our permit. We showed it to him and he said he wanted a closer look to inspect the date. Apparently some wedding photographers have been cheating them by using the same letter over and over again.

One thing we never noticed about UPM in other people's pictures is the amount of cow DUNG there was around the place. I tell you, it was like a field of "land mines" and they were everywhere. Some of them were fresh but most of them were dried up.

We started the shoot with some of the more fragile props that we brought along. This set of props, I thought about 2 days before our pre wedding shoot. I had to go buy all the stuff from Sunway Pyramid before sending it to Amy for her to do. She got it done the day before the pre wedding shoot. I almost gave up on the idea when I could find the one most important thing. In a final last ditch effort, I decided to check out Daiso and to my amazement, they actually had it. So we got this for the pictures....

Basically we made Styrofoam hearts and arrows with Amy and my name on it. I had this whole cool idea where Amy would have half a heart and I would have the arrow to shoot at her heart. The colors stood out pretty well too. We had some real fun with it and I think Joshua did too.

After all the "shooting" we finally had a full heart shape as well.

Amy also brought a blanket and brought a Polaroid camera. We first did the "romantic" shot first on the blanket.

I have to say Amy looks absolutely stunning in the last shot and both Amy, Joshua and Leric really did a good job in the shot above. I think it is my fav shot of the day. We next again went a bit wonky with the Polaroid camera. 

We lingered around the first section for a bit longer taking some walking photos and some lalang shots as well. The walking photos were a bit of a toughie as we had to walk while looking at each other (not forward) while trying to avoid the "landmines". For me it is ok but for Amy with her dragging dress, not good.

Just as we were walking out of the first section, I had a brilliant idea of taking some photos on top of the white fence. Amy didn't want to take pictures along the fence because alot of people have done it. So we decided to go on top of the fence. At that point of time I thought it would be a good idea.

The pictures looked great until I decided hey, it would be even better if I had my legs on the fence...

It looked good except the fence was right between my butt cheeks and it was really hurting like heck. I had to control my face and Joshua was telling me don't worry the pictures will come out nice. Yea tell that to my butt crack. Hahaha.

We left the first section of UPM and headed to another place. We took some alone shots...

 

and we finished off the second part with a  nice couple shot...

Once we were done, Amy changed back to her casual dress in the car while I finally got to remove my jacket and took some casual shots along a nice pond. Joshua scouted this area in his previous shoot and ask us if we were willing to try it. Why not I said?

Another absolutely fabulous session by Joshua and he had one more site up his sleeve in Putrajaya. Stay tuned for the final part of our pre wedding shoot.

Amy and Jason Pre Wedding Part 1

It has been more then 4 months now since Amy and I did our pre-wedding photoshoot with Joshua from InlightPhotos. InlightPhotos has done a fantastic job for us and normally most of the professional wedding photographers give you 5 hours and that is it. Maybe they give you an hour extra as a bonus but Joshua went out of his way and suggested we split our 5 hour session into 2 2.5 hour sessions. That means he was with us when the sun raised around 8am till the sun set around 7pm.

The pre-wedding shoot day started pretty gloomy as we woke up and I could smell rain in the air. Leric our makeup artist came bright and early and got Amy all dolled up and ready. He also followed us from the start of the day till the end of the day. We left my place in Subang at 8.30am to reach our first destination which is a nice restaurant in downtown KL called Bar Italia. Amy and I fell in love with this place the first time Chong brought us for some Gelato. It is a 3 story building on Jalan Berangan (near Sommerset) with a rooftop bar.

Amy email the restaurant owner and we were graciously allowed to take photos while they were not open. Unfortunately, the owner forgot to tell the people taking care of the place that we were coming and lucky for us there was someone actually staying in the restaurant overnight. It took us about 30 minutes to get everything straighten out and the click click of Joshua's camera and his artistic direction started.

Soon in no time we were taking photos in all areas of the restaurant. We started off at the second floor of the place which had a full glass window and some interesting art work. There as a nice wooden table they use as dining table in front of us and Joshua used it to great effect.

Right beside the table, for decoration, Bar Italia utilized some used wine bottles as a partition and again with Joshua's direction, we managed to get some great photos with the partition as the foreground and also the light shining in from the window.

We went around some of the tables and also took some pictures with the interesting art work they had on the walls.

We brought some props of our own which were the cupcakes and the coffee beans and we got the coffee cups from Bar Italia. By the time we were done with the second floor, the gloomy skies cleared up and we decided to head upstairs to the open air bar on the 3rd floor.

Unfortunately, since the place is not open yet, all the nice chairs and pillows were not laid out and we didn't do much shooting on the open air bar area. Not to mention the place was really hot as well. So we decided to head back down to the comforts of the Aircon on the second floor and head to the back of the restaurant where there was a spiral staircase that goes through all 3 floors.

We were done with the interior of the restaurant itself and proceed into the streets for some photos. Joshua had us in the middle of the road near the restaurant walking up and down the road while waiting for cars to pass by and get out of sight. He told us, don't worry I will make sure the pictures look good and people seeing the picture won't know it was taken in Malaysia. Here are the results...

We were finally done but while walking back to the restaurant and my car, Joshua was looking every which way to see if there are some good photo opportunity and we got one with Bar Italia's Vespa...

and some random building entrance while walking back to the car.

So far so good for the photos at Bar Italia. We went back to my place for some rest, a shower and some lunch. Joshua suggested we split the session into 2 so we could go back and freshen up in between shots. It was such a great idea because after I showered I felt like a new man and was ready to go for the next part. Next part was the formal part of the pre-wedding shoot. I wasn't looking forward to this part but stay tuned for it.

Mike's trip to Kuala Lumpur

After much persuasion from me, my good friends from Australia finally decided to visit us here in Malaysia. I think it was more about the satay then Amy and I, but finally he booked his ticket and he got on the plane from Sydney to KL. We picked him up from the airport and the first thing on his mind was nothing other then Satay of course. So the only place I know where opens so late at night is in Taipan.

He had his fill of Satay, not the best but it will do for now. We vowed to feed him until he goes back fatter then ever. The next day couple of days were a frenzy as we went through the preparation for our (Amy and I) wedding and the wedding day itself. We resumed the eating frenzy and sight seeing on Sunday where we brought him to have a typical Malaysian breakfast at K3K in Subang Jaya.

We ordered some roti jala with curry chicken, laksa, sotong kangkung and yau char kwai with kaya. Mike mentioned that this is very strange as breakfast since in Australia normally breakfast consist of muffins and coffee. We needed to ensure we have all the energy as we are going sight seeing crazy today. After breakfast we had some fun at a pet store just beside K3K.

The pug puppy was so cute that I could have brought him and brought it home on the spot. The only thing was of course it cost freaking 2k and we do not have the time to take care of a dog at the moment. Next stop on our adventure is the place I bring most of my visitors which is KL tower. The tickets now at KL tower is so freaking expensive. Last time it was around 10-15 bucks for Malaysians and around 20-30 for non-malaysians. I paid a whopping 105 bucks for 2 Malaysians and 1 non-Malaysian. That to me is way too high a price just to go up there. I think it will most likely be the last time I bring a visitor there because it just cost too much.

There was a cultural exhibit around the KL tower area and Mike wanted to fit into the local scene...

I think we didn't feed Mike enough for breakfast unfortunately...

We were lucky when we arrived at observation deck of the KL tower, the sun started to come out behind the clouds and gave us some spectacular views of the entire KL region.

Apparently, KL tower is the 4 tallest communication tower in the world. Not sure if it is still accurate...

After KL tower, we got a so call "free" F1 simulator which basically you get to drive a Petronas Mercedes GP F1 car on the Sepang track. It was such a joke because after  about 1/4 of the lap I realised you could just step on the accelerator throughout the corner and you will easily make the corner. It actually applies the brakes for you. What a joke of an F1 simulator.

You can bring a visitor to KL without bringing them to the famous Petronas Twin Towers. However instead of going to shopping complex itself, I brought Mike to the tourist spot along Lorong Kuda. We had a fun-tastic time there again taking pictures.

After all that, we got hungry again. Mike mentioned to us during breakfast that he likes food with alot of spice in it, I could think of no better place then to bring him to have Banana Leaf rice and Nirwana Maju's in Bangsar.

I would think that after all the food we have fed him over the past couple of days during the wedding, he would have slowed down. However at Nirvana Maju's Mike had a helping of lamb bryani and when I mention the rice was free flow he had another helping of rice. I only had one small helping of normal rice and I gave up already. 

After lunch, we decided to bring Mike to Village Grocer at Bangsar Village Shopping center cause he wanted to see some local produce. We had a really fun time there explaining to him the different vegetable and fruits and spices. One thing that caught Mike's eyes was....

The pisang tanduk there was especially huge, we also had a royal laugh at the organic section where there were selling 2 cloves of garlic for 8.30. In comparison you could get a whole bag of normal garlic for like 2 bucks. After all the laughing and messing about at Village grocer, we decided to chill at Antipodean for some coffee and cakes.

Mike says he gave up because of all the food we fed him and he was still digesting Nirvana Maju. However he was the one that suggested we have the cake at Antipodean. Next we dropped by Midvalley because Mike wanted to check out the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and also the Samsung Galaxy Note. From where we decided to head to the Ampang Lookout point for some drinks and the view. On the way we drove by Jalan Ampang so that Mike can get a picture of Petronas Twin Towers up close and personal.

We finally finished the day off with some WAW (Wong Ah Wah) grilled chicken wings, satay and Siew Yoke Mien.

The next day, we took things easy and woke up around 9 something. First order of business was of course brunch and we decided to bring Mike for some good ol Bak Kut Teh..

Mike was amused by the fact that all the waiter and waitresses were wearing aprons that proudly shows the Ajinomoto brand. He says now in Australia, everyone is being health conscious and all the food packaging has MSG free and here in Malaysia all the aprons have Ajinomoto on it. 

After the tummies were filled once again, we went to Sunway pyramid for a spot of shopping. Mike wanted to get some angry birds soft toy and he did get it all right.

He asked us to.....

So we gave him some GeorgeTown Coffee and introduced him to Rotiboy.

While we were over at the Curve during one of the days, Mike was introduced to Dragon Fruit but unfortunately juice works was out of it. So we went shopping and we got 3 types of fruits for lunch. We thought we have been having too much good food so we decided to have fruits for lunch. What we got were...

1. Dragon Fruit
2. Longan
3. DURIAN

It would be the first time Mike was to have durian and this was his first reaction when smelt it up close and personal...

He had a whole seed and he said it taste good but smelt bad. The aftermath of the durian was even more funny. 5 min after Mike consumed the durian, he burped and almost killed himself.

He tried to eat everything including mint gums and biscuits and all just to get rid of the smell. He finally managed to get rid of the smell after dinner which we had Nasi Kandar.

It was Mike's last meal of the trip and we finally sent him to the airport for his return flight. I think I at least put on 2 kilos from his trip. Not sure about him, however it was good having Mike in KL and we finally managed to let him taste some Malaysian Satay and Malaysian food.