Mingle Mingle: My Wedding Proposal in Japan

They said marriage is a scary thing. Things changed after marriage. It will make the sweetie pie turns into tiger mom and charming prince into couch potato...

 mother showing daughters how to tame their man

Some said after marriage, you lost your freedom to hang out late with friends, lost market value and the opportunity to do awesome stuffs like drifting a car across flooded road in horse mask and fart out light while singing...

Some afraid they will turn into slave that need to clean the whole world while some weary of losing their private space...

To many, marriage marks the end of their dream...

People says love is blind... When you are in love, you might do irrational things according to your own. You might do stuffs that you usually don't...

2 years ago I met her in a friend's friend's house, it was a Christmas gathering; the mood was festival with sprinkle of rain falling from sky as if they were snow... when Ryan said Rose is joining in the dinner I thought I would see a lady aged around 40 (Rose was not common name used by young lady of my time)... 

But turns out it was a cute girl with curly hair in tight blue dress. We did not get to talk to each other during the dinner but we crossed eye contact quite a occasions and her smile stopped my brain working for a few times as well. After the dinner everybody was high and craving for more party. So we had our second round beer session(everybody went out again after reaching home) in a smaller group followed by deeper talks and getting to know more of each others story with the chemical effect of alcohol; it felt like the conversation can continue for days if it was not for our body seriously needs to rest because of the tiredness and chemical burden of alcohol...

This is Rose, the girl whose smile would bring me energy on my downs; the girl whose laughter would make my engineer brain stop working. 

How not to fall in love to such a cute girl ?

She was into running during the time I knew her, and I started to run and join quite a few running event because of her. During my first marathon I suffered injury on my right knee at 10km, my mind was full of her and that supported me to limp through the rest of 32km. Being a lazy person, I did the decision I could not imagine... Because of her, I started to join gym...

Scarily cute hor?

Us, after KK marathon event:

Fast forward the time, I have decided to ask her to officially become my girlfriend. I brought her to Singapore during Christmas time, and decided to propose to her below a huge beautiful Christmas tree at Orchard road. Everything went well during the trip, except the Christmas parade was not there as I expected. She seemed to enjoyed so much during the trip and I felt I will succeed asking her to be my official girlfriend. I brought her to this Christmas tree below:

 and this is what happened:

Yup, I was turned down. The wish I made inside the huge Christmas tree did not came true (yet). It struck me by surprise as I was sure I will succeed. But keep trying I shall, few days later after after she came back from KL attending her friend's wedding I made my move again; I brought her to a place with a nice little surprise, kneel down and propose to her to be my official girlfriend; with couple rings this time. She was a bit surprised and did not gave me a verbal answer. But I take it as a yes since she did not resisted me to put on the ring on her finger.

I should not say we lived happily ever after since then but we really enjoyed each other's companion. Throughout the year we have been through so many things and went to so many place together. We have conquered the Great Wall of China together and stayed cold and hungry in Beijing street together; we did silly stuff in the rain, crazy stuffs together and meaningful stuff side by side; we have influenced each other to change and improve ourselves; we had become part of each other's life that we could not live without for.

So I think the time is right to marry her; in fact I have already sure she will be the one I want to spend the rest of my life together with several months after we are together. Yes this might seemed like acting on emotion than thinking properly. But I have not had any regret doing that decision in my mind and pretty sure I will give the same answer many years later.

Now the question is, how to make the proposal?

what if somebody else beat your score or they have reset the machine?

I could imagine if some kid played godzilla and destroy my sand castle

She will probably freaks out and swim away before the dolphin could surface

Can't use this, it has been used.

It will be nice if she is gamer girl

needless to say

Ok so theme park ride is out and the ring will probably gone during the ride

not the way I wanted to be though...

Proposal is hard nowadays as many couple chooses to film their proposal and uploads onto YouTube; be it flash mob, musical style, throwing video onto gigantic screen on the mall... there are so many wedding proposal that you though it will appear only on drama or movie appear on YouTube and being shared. The standard of wedding proposal has been raising faster than inflation especially with wedding planners that could lend helping hands and brains. With so many market spoiler around, it makes marriage proposal to woman a mission to MARS to nerd like me.

Having watched some of the video, I have decided not to do anything like it and go for more traditional 'just-the-two-of-us' kind of proposal. I don't really like being film while doing the important things in my life; I am not a celebrity or lion in safari, I don't need whole world's attention and we have our own way to document our memorable moment. I can't do flash mob as Rose and I hangout together too often and surely she would notice something is going on before the surprise ( I felt like watching plotted drama while some of the wedding proposal video you can clearly see the woman knew what was going on and played along with the surprise). It's just a personal preference, some of the wedding proposal on YouTube are really amazing.

So on this random day, I told her we will be going to Japan to spend our Christmas and New year over. She let me do all the planning as usual, this is good as I have ever saw couple quarrel over where to go during a trip. But the problem is, sometimes she does not have a clue where she is situated (like, confusing Kyoto with Tokyo).



This is day 2 of our Japan trip, I shall blog about rest of the trip in other entries. 

With our bus day pass purchased with 500 Yen each, we embark towards Kiyomizudera (literally "Pure Water Temple") in western Kyoto. The weather is very good on that day, here is a photo of her with my favourite smile:

Maple leaves along the route towards the temple:

Masks for sale along the shops, guess which is my favourite?

Kiyomizudera was founded on the site of the Otowa Waterfall and derives its name from the fall's pure waters. The temple was listed as UNESCO world heritage site in 1994.
The entrance of the site, with a guard lion looked like laughing:

A pagoda in the site:

Remember to wash your hands before entering temples in japan:

 Or if you are not sure, just follow what the locals do:

Rose, with the beautiful view from the temples:

Y you so tiny?

Rang the bell after offering...

And make a wish... are you wishing me to marry you? :P

 And after wishing, she suddenly shouted "HUAT AH!!!" Ok that scared me.... but at least I knew what was she wishing...

Word of the year: TURN; So it is my turn to get married?

 Burning incense...

And shower the face with the smoke for good luck

Kiyomizudera is easily identified by its wooden stage that juts out from its main hall, 13 meters above the hillside below. The stage provides a nice view of the numerous cherry and maple trees below that forms a sea of different color in different season on one side, and overview of the city of Kyoto on the other side...

Behind Kiyomizudera's main hall stands Jishu Shrine which is very well known by Japanese especially teens as it is dedicated to the deity of love and matchmaking. In front of the shrine are two stones which was placed 18 meters apart. It was said that if one finding his/her way from one to the other with his/her eyes closed, his/her love wish will be granted. You can also have someone guide you from one stone to the other, but that is interpreted to mean that an intermediary will be needed in your love life as well.

Picture taken from the net of Japanese woman praying for good love:

This is the place I planned to proposed to her, to let the god of love witness our love and this sacred moment. To me I think it will be more meaningful to let god of love witness this than do it in front of steel tower, skyscrapers, on random street or disneyland which we will be going in later of the trip. Ok, admittedly, I was a little nervous when we reach here...

Pic from net: The two love stones in front of the shrine...

As we arrived, there were already people trying to walk with eyes closed from one stone to another. I told her " ....., rumor says that if one closed his/her eyes and walk from one stone to another hor, their love wish will come true ler! let's play ok?" 

Naturally, she wanted me to try first while she guides me from one stone to another. During her turn I took out the long hidden ring in my bag, and kneel at the other end with ring on my palm...

"OK reach liao"
She opened her eyes, saw me in that classic pose while her eyes grow very large and into surprised emotion(or shocked?)

"..., as rumor said walking from one end to another and your love wish will be granted, just as what we did just now I will always by your side and make sure your love wish is granted... I will accompany you, take care of you and give you happiness and walk till the end of our time. ....., will you marry me?"

"!!!!!" "HUH......!!!!!" "!!!!!!....." *shocking pose continues* "why you want to to do this??" "why do you do this?" " why do you do this?" *continue to ask me why did I do that*

Yes it was nothing like in the movie, there was no touched-till-cry-like-no-tomorrow-then-nood-head-continuously scene. Only her standing there for a minute in shocked state asking me why did I proposed to her, while I continue my classic knight kneel pose. Oh ya, there was a japanese aunty beside with this expression:

" I would not stand up if you don't say yes, ....,"
 and she continue to ask me why did I proposed

" So, are you willing to marry me?"

"Hao lah (ok lah)"

and then I put the ring on her.

Well that marks the and of my proposal story. STaged at a sacred place, plotted in a meaningful way, started in a romantic way( I think la :P) reacted funnily and ended happily. Here is a photo of us, after the proposal:

Another one:

Everything became wonderful and beautiful after the moment she said yes:

We got ourself a pair of luck charms to bind our love more tightly (I thought that includes the wooden plank):

Rose, this is one way road and there is no turning back (cannot regret liao! hahaha!)

 After that, we made our wish at Otawa waterfall:

Another photo at the entrance, this time with additional ring:

A nice coffee down the street Kiyomizu Kyoami in a cafe called  'cafe & sweets'...  

 As our moods were high, we went shopping spree at Higashiyama District which shall be updated in next entry...