I rented a BMW convertible at Mr. Rent A Car for my wedding. When I return the car, the rental shop accuse us scratch the bottom of the car and charged me for damage. I should be suspicious when I pick up the car. The guy at the rental counter didn’t inspect the car with me. He just ask me to look for any scratches myself. I thought it is just the usual sloppiness of Chinese rental shop, so I didn’t pay any much attention. I looked at the skirt of the car, but who would aware to check the underside of the car. You can’t really see the scratch unless you get down on the ground. Luckily, I rent the car with my Visa card, which comes with free rental insurance, so I don’t have to pay the damage. Since I don’t have to pay anything, I don’t bother fight hard against the wrongful accusation.
I think the car already has scratch before I pick up the car and the rental company is fully aware of it. They don’t want pay to fix the car themselves and they know I have Visa insurance, so they just blame it on me. If I have to pay out of my own pocket, I will definitely fight hard to prove my innocent. Here are two lessons I learn from this bad car rental experience. First, next time when you pick up the car, ask the rental employee go through the car inspection with you. Ask them check exactly the same things they will check when you return the car. If he missed anything, it is his fault. Second, always use a Visa car with free auto rental insurance. I just receive the refund cheque today!
I am officially a married man. Horace and Patricia has become one under the witness of over 200 families and friends. The wedding is very successful, thanks to the helps from our good friends. I don’t want to repeat my wedding speech again in the blog, but I must say thank you to those who have helped us one more time. It is great to see all of my good friends to celebrate my biggest day in life with me. Many of them come from far away, some even just stay for a few days. We had good time and able to catch up with each other before the wedding.
The wedding is very well planned, down to time resolution in 15 minutes. However, Murphy’s Law always rules. Thing is working pretty well in the morning. Except no one knows I had a stomachache due to too nervous. I have to ask my best man drove me to McDonald’s for a washroom break before the the door opening game begins. I don’t think asking to use the washroom in Pat’s house would work. The morning photo session is pretty fun, we have lots of group pictures with the groomsmen and bridesmaids. Everyting seems running so smooth that we were able to arrive early in the church.
Probably none of the guests notice, the church ceremony is really off schedule and liturgically wrong in a few places. Too bad that there is another wedding right after ours, so we were literally kicked out from the church. We did not get enough time to have group photos. Luckily, we were able to make it up in the banquet. Those group photo are most boring photo in a wedding anyways. It is more like a record of who has shown up. So consolidate group photos into bigger groups to speed things up wasn’t really a big lost. We planned another photo session in Stanley Park between church and banquet. In the original plan, the wedding party will tag along too. We are running short of time, so we decide to take more couple pictures instead of group shots. The groomsmen and bridesmaids went straight to the restaurant to setup. They got some rest and with just us and the photographers, we were able to take photos quite efficiently. It is important to have take engagement photo with the same photographers, so that we know how to work with each other on the wedding day.
I am really tired at the banquet. We have good MC and wedding planner, so the banquet runs pretty well. I just have to follow the instruction. I don’t have to think too much. It seems my brain has shut down and I am just react with subconscious reflections. We have some silly games in the wedding. One of the game is hiding the groom. It is the first break I have since the morning. I was hiding quite relaxingly at the table in the far corner. That table is full of Pat’s high school friends, the girls could not finish the dishes, so I can share some food. I was enjoying a chicken leg when Pat finally found me. After the banquet, we have another challenge. We received lots of gifts, some of the gifts are in huge boxes. I love gifts in general, but some gifts I got simply shows the giver has no common sense. For example, I got a huge fancy garbage bin. It is nice, but it is inconvenient to bring to the restaurant in the first place. Did the giver ever think about how could I possible move it home? Luckily my groomsmen are really good friends, although it’s pretty late after the banquet, they still helped me to bring the gifts home. It takes three cars to load all the gifts.
I will write a more detail blog entry about my wedding experience when I have more time to digest it. There are so many things happening in the wedding day. I could use some quiet time in my honey moon trip to think over it when I am sun bathing on the deck of a cruise ship.
T minus one and counting. Only one more day from my big day. Things are piling up. I already passed the point I feel nervous or pressured. I simply could not feel anything. Tonight, my groomsmen and bridesmaids met and have dinner together. It is the first time the whole group is gathering in one place.
We had done the church rehearsal, it’s funny that the guy who conduct our rehearsal seems even more stressful than we are. He lost his temper over some silly questions, yelled at us and have to walk to the side to clam himself down. Maybe I simply have the talent to push people over the edge, or maybe he is just nuts. The only thing important in the church is the entry, the exchange of the ring and the exit. Who cares about the liturgy, no one knows the “correct” way anyways. If we screwed up and missed some steps, as long as we improvise on the spot, no one will notice.
Traditional Vancouver special style wedding requires lots of work and co-oridination. I am glad that we have lots of good friend helping us out. With their help, we are in reasonably good shape. I stronger suggest those who are about to get marry, consider keeping it simply. Travel wedding just with the family and a few close friends would be much easier.
If you are walking down Vancouver downtown at night, seeing a group of guys with one weirdly dressed guy, don’t be afraid. They are not crazy. They are just having a bachelor party. It seems this is the tradition in Vancouver. Last night I had my bachelor party and I met at least 3 other groups of bachelor parties. One guy is dressed as WWE whestler with a mark, one guy is in a cow girl outfit, one guy is a princess with a crown. I dressed as a Hawaii girl. Sorry guys, the photos are off the record. I am not going to post any pictures of my bachelor party and I will not write about what have I done. The secret of bachelor party is for guys only.
I just got the package from Royal Caribean for my Mediterranean cruise. I have to check-in online to register my passport and credit card. There are some information of onshore excursion tours come with the package. On each port the cruise ship stop over, we can get off the ship to visit the place. You don’t want to travel around on your own, if you are lost or get into trouble, the ship won’t wait for you. It is better to join the day tour package run by the cruise. At least they gaurantee the ship will wait for you. On average the tour cost about $50 for half day trip and $100 for full day trip. Two people stopping 5 ports easily add another thousand dollar to your cruise bill. That add almost a quater of the cost of the cruise.
Paying that much for the day trip, I would expect I get some decent information help me to decision which trip to join. All I got in the booklet is a few wordy paragraph for each trip on each port. I would expect the online version is more helpful, but it is even worst! The online version is the same as wordy paragraph from the paper copy, but the list is sorted according to type of activities. Please list all the tours of a port in the same. I can only do one or two things at each port, it is important to see see all my options is one place? I have a hard time deciding which tour to join. All the tour description looks quite similar, there are only a few famous places at each port after all. What I really need is a matrix highlight the difference between each tour.
