Taiwan Wedding

My buddy Frank got married to his wife June several years ago in the US, and I think also did it in some other country as well. However, June is from Taiwan, and so they had to do it there too. We went to Taiwan to witness the big event this past weekend. Frank, June, and June's sister Bi set up a really fancy western/Taiwanese/musicpeople hybrid wedding at a spa resort in the Taiwanese countryside. Following the event was a bus tour of Taiwan, or perhaps more accurately, a restaurant tour of Taiwan with a few touristic stops thrown in between. :)

Day one was essentially travel overload followed by total physical collapse. We left my mom's house in Seattle at 7AM, caught a 2.5 hour flight to LA, transferred to a 14 hour flight to Taipei, were met at the airport by Frank (thanks Frank!) and then caught a 2 hour bus ride to the resort. I went upstairs and passed out cold. Door to door, I think the trip ended up being about 26 hours. Reminds me of that tour drive from Deer Lodge MT to Des Moines IA. It was our tremendous luck that Frank met us at the airport with a charter bus... otherwise we would never have made it.

Day two was the wedding ceremony, but we had all day to hike around and explore before the event, so we did just that, and ran into this cool hilltop shrine.

inside shrine

outside shrine

Also, Reba and Jill found a petting zoo, where there was a very friendly pig. This is a bit creepy actually.

friendly piggy

That night was the wedding. Eclectic is probably an understatement. June and Bi are very Taiwanese, but they are also very international and happen to be recording and performing artists, so there were a lot of different elements to the evening. Here's a brief overview in pictures:

The scene was gorgeous, on a lanai overlooking a jungly valley, the guy speaking is a Christian preacher

There was a quartet playing stuff like Pachabel Cannon, etc., but they were dressed as pink princesses

there was a very animated MC cracking jokes and quoting Eminen songs throughout the ceremony (she is my new girlfriend but doesn't know it yet)

The MC and some of June's friends did a dance routine that included ripping off their bridesmaid's dresses

there was a huge cake that they cut with a sword, and at 3.5 feet, the cake is taller than Frank or June

we ate all manner of special Taiwanese wedding food, this one is shark fin soup!

...and of course, our band, Tales From The Birdbath played. Actually, us playing at weddings is starting to become a fairly standard deal, even though we never write new songs, never play live shows, and never do any recording. In any event, it was really really nice of Frank and June to have us play, even though we are probably the lousiest band in the world. Apparently June's mom has given Frank a new Taiwanese name: Wang Fu Ran. I think this means "jerk who married a princess" or something like this. I'm into it whatever it means, as I really dig having a buddy who is a bald Italian guy from St. Louis named Wang Fu.

jeffy :)

Stay tuned for the next installment: days 3 and 4!

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