Wedding Trip

My cousin Amy (father side) got married this weekend (Friday) in the Bay Area so I took a day off and drove up with my parents and their friend visiting from Taiwan. They were going to fly up but it was cheaper to drive with 3 (or 4) people; fuel cost for my 2011 Nissan Maxima came out to ~$170 for Super Unleaded gas.

We left Thursday afternoon at ~2:30pm from work. I got a ride with a co-worker in the morning and my parents picked me up so I wouldn't have to leave a car at work. I split the drive with my dad and we got to Fremont at ~8:45pm, including a 20 minute dinner/rest stop. The new car is pretty solid, even at 85 mph, and the VQ35DE engine didn't struggle at all on the Grapevine. On Saturday, I drove the entire way home and it took ~7 hours from Foster City (uncle's house).

The wedding was held in a Methodist church in Palo Alto and dinner was at a Chinese restaurant in Cupertino, about 2 blocks away from Apple HQ. The banquet was 27 tables of 10 and took up the entire main hall of Dynasty Seafood Restaurant. It was good to meet up with family; even though most of my uncles and cousins are in California (except Larry in Singapore and Teddy in Shanghai), we hardly meet up.

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere on I-5 in Central Califrornia

Holy cow, that's a lot of cows!

On both the trip up and back from the Bay Area, we saw lots of trucks carrying a red agricultural product. We couldn't figure out want it was except it appears to grow on trees (not tomato).

Sunset near junction of I-5 and highway 152

We stayed at my mom's college friend's house... she was also my mom's bridesmaid at her wedding. I wasn't there...

First United Methodist Church of Palo Alto

Wedding party "on stage". My other uncle's family and our family were sitting in the 3rd row at first. It was roped off so we thought it was for family (there were no ushers). Right before the wedding, we were booted out by the wedding coordinator. The three rows were reserved for the bride's mom side family (not us) and for coin/veil/cord sponsors... huh? Evidently this was a Filipino wedding tradition. Anyway, seats were pretty much filled up near the front at this point so we had to split ourselves up... it was a bit embarrassing.

My cousin Stephanie taking pictures of the wedding with her phone

One of the side rooms at the restaurant. The wedding banquet was in a large hall in the back.

Banquet hall before they let everyone inside

Cupcake cake

For some reason, they kept all the lights off so we couldn't see very much. Even during scheduled "events" like toasts, it was still dark. Weird. This is a longer exposure shot with me trying to hold my Sony a100 DSLR steady... shoulda brought my new monopod. The toasts were excruciatingly long... probably almost 45 minutes for all 4 speeches.

All the single ladies out for the bouquet toss. My cousin Stephanie is in the blue dress* at the rear... she didn't even try. *Lighter colored blue dress, right in front of my camera, i.e., not the other girl with parts of her dress missing and her boobs hanging out.

Newlywed couple getting ready to dance. The crowd looked young (but really wasn't) and lots of people were drunk (well, really just their college friends). We left about this time.

Top layer of cake (non-cupcake). We ate it the next day at my uncle's house. I guess they didn't want to keep it in their freezer for one year.