Objective:
A man (boyfriend) and a woman (me), who loves each other, wanting to get married and legalize the marriage. Bottomline, we want to get the marriage certificate.

Obstacles:
1. Different nationality. I am Indonesian and boyfriend is Malaysian.
2. Different religion. I was a Buddhist and boyfriend is a Christian. It was stated clearly in the documents, my IC, etc, we cannot lie to the officer.
3. Malaysia allows marriage between Buddhist-Christian, but Indonesian doesn’t allow that.

Process of getting marriage certificate:
1. Through the process, we found out that inter-religion marriage is not allowed in Indonesia. We did try to register in Malaysia first, but Indonesia Consulate insisted of not giving me the necessary statement letter hence we couldn’t move on to the next step.

2. Either one of us has to convert religion legally. Since I grow up with the mindset that a woman should follow her husband, I decided to change my religion on the paper, from my IC (Identity Card) to other documents.

3. But that is not as easy as telling the officer that I already a Christian and voila, they make changes on my IC. I have to show a proof or statement from the church. To get that statement, I have to go through the baptist path.

4. Baptist to me, is a very important thing. I could be a Buddhist who practice KongHuCu at the same time, but I never been ‘baptized in the temple’ (I don’t know what is the correct word in Buddhism) cause I’m not ready yet. After much consideration, I go for baptist path since it is the only way out. *appreciate if you not judging me and my decision*

5. Now, I am basically waiting for the baptism paper so that I can have my IC and other necessary documents changed.

6. Problem doesn’t stop here. Yesterday, I went to civil office (read: catatan sipil) only to find out that : to file the marriage in Indonesia, we need to have a marriage certificate from church or temple – depends on one’s religion. On another side, Malaysia doesn’t have that requirement – you can register your marriage in the civil office without the need to marry in church/temple first.

7. Next problem: to have our wedding done in a church, we need to have our baptist paper and need to be a member of the church. So, I am waiting for my baptist paper but boyfriend doesn’t have one. He, who has been staying in KL for more than 6 years, is not a member of any churches in his hometown too.

8. We have thought of the solution and will have an extremely simple kind of wedding church in Medan. But everything is yet to be confirmed. Hopefully it will go well.

9. Through the process in boyfriend’s hometown few weeks ago, we found someone who claimed to be capable of obtaining the marriage certificate in both countries – Malaysia and Indonesia, at the fee of RM10,000. Boyfriend and I were so frustrated and tired with the process already, it did come across our mind to just throw that sum of money and have everything settle by that person, so that we can focus on our work. But, our parents woke us up that it is better to settle it ourselves, although it takes time. Oh well, it’s RM10,000 and not RM1,000. Forget it.

I just have one thing to rant. Bear in mind, this rant comes from someone who has a very little knowledge about Christian and church related stuff. You see, I can somewhat understand the must-have-baptist-paper part, but I can’t understand why someone have to be a member of a church first then only can have a wedding church there? It sounds silly and unfair. Much like: you can’t enter the VIP lounge in the airport because you don’t have member card.

IMHO, Church is just a media of the religion – Christian. We don’t suppose to belong to a particular church but the religion. I know Christian is divided into a few – Methodist, Protestant, Catholic, Charismatic, and many more. I can accept it if the reason is because they don’t want a Protestant to marry in a Catholic church, for example. But it is super ridiculous if they don’t allow a Protestant to marry in a Protestant church just because he/she is not a member of the church!

Be in my shoes to understand where does all this frustrations come from.

Put aside all those frustrations and troubles, cause I just knew a super good news! Since last year (if I not mistaken), Indonesians can link our Paypal account and our local Bank accounts, which means we can withdraw the money directly into our Bank accounts. While Malaysia didn’t have that feature yet. They need to transfer into credit card or debit card of particular Banks.

But not anymore! Cause Paypal has add in the new feature : Withdraw funds from Malaysia PayPal account to your local bank account. Withdrawal for more than RM400 is FREE of charge! There goes the time of withdrawing to credit/debit card, being charged RM5 for every withdrawal, and USD500 as maximum withdrawal amount per day. Hooray for the improvement! As if they know that I will be migrating to Malaysia soon that they make the withdrawal process easier.

Nah, I’m not going to talk about San Se Nai Cha – three layered tea which is a signature drink of Sarawak, Malaysia. The San Se Nai Cha that I am referring to is the name of a female. She is my favorite dog, out of total 8 dogs in boyfriend’s house.

I have flew to his hometown 3 times if I not mistaken (end of 2004, early 2006, and end of 2007), excluded the latest trip. There used to be 6 dogs in the house. Those who know me well, will understand how scare I am with dogs and cats! The first visit to his house was not easy at all. They barked at me all the time. I made a distance with them. For second and third visit, they still barked for few days until they get use to my attendance I guess.

Surprisingly on the latest visit, they no longer barked at me. *hooray* Okay, maybe once, when we just arrived from the airport. It gives me a special warm feeling. You see, they usually bark at strangers. So when they stop doing that to me, I feel so welcome and that they have started to take me as part of the family.

Out of the 8 dogs, she is my favorite one – can be count as newcomer in the house too. She was named San Se Nai Cha cause future MIL said the fur consists of 3 colors. Well, the rationale behind the name does make sense rather than naming her as Kettlebells – just because the dog is that heavy.

She looks cute but always run away whenever we try to approach her. A few times boyfriend managed to ‘catch’ her and she would pause from making any movement until we released her. Hopefully as time goes, she can be closer to us.

Let’s see, since the beginning of this year I’ve been consistently updating this blog with 15 – 20 posts per month. My goal was to post daily, just so that I won’t miss noting down my life events. There is a special feeling of reading back the old entries, reminiscing what had happened, seeing the changes of myself and random pictures such as receipt printer in the market or a pink toll in Medan.

But somehow, starting from August, my frequency of posting has gone down the hill. Not even 10 entries per month. Ah, laziness strikes in. I could also give the classic reason ‘Because my life is so dull, I have nothing to blog about.’ or ‘I am so busy with my wedding preparation, my freelance work, and my own life that I have no time to post and edit pictures.’ But aih, I’m not that clich? one okay?

Anyway, don’t care about the posting frequency, cause I have other more important thing that needs my attention. Marriage certificate, what else? Duh. All those fancy huge fabulous wedding reception will mean nothing if the certificate is not done yet. Aih, just wish me luck!

During the 2 weeks trip back in boyfriend’s hometown, we have been visiting kopitiam (read: coffee shop) quite a lot during night time and sometimes during tea time. The reasons would be for catching up with his old friends or to fill this stomach. Another reason is, one said you can’t separate FooChow’s people and kopitiam. I guess that explains why there is so many coffee shops in the town?

Anyway, I remember when boyfriend came to Medan a few months ago. We would go to a kopitiam nearby my house during tea time. There was once, we brought along a notebook and a pen. We talked about our freelance work, USD, and I also mentioned “To compare term life insurance rates go here” to boyfriend.

Out of a sudden, the auntie – who is the owner of the kopitiam – came to us and asked the following question in a very exciting and curious mode:

What MLM business are you guys talking about?

Boyfriend looked at me, I looked at him back and we both gave a puzzle look to the auntie. We quickly cleared the situation and told her that we were talking about our work, and not some MLM business with huge earning in USD. When she walked away, we couldn’t help but to giggle over her question.

Oh well, we can’t blame her for popping that question. I mean, when I see two young adults sitting in a coffee shop at 4pm, doodling on a book while discussing some stuffs and some amount of money in USD, the possibility that comes across my mind would be: they are doing MLM business or salesman.

This is the time of the year that I hate the most. Not because it is Monday or somebody has accident hence I need to find Oakland motorcycle accident lawyer, but because I will be going back to my hometown in few hours time. That means, temporary farewell and hello to LDR after the three sweet weeks of spending time together. Sigh. But it’s a relief to know that after December there will be no more long-distance-which-s*cks-to-the-max.

One afternoon in Puchong.

On another side, I do miss my hometown very much! Homesick, somewhat. It’s been a while since I have this feeling. The last time was when I still studying in college. Thinking that I will leave the town in less than 2 months time just make this missing feeling gets stronger. I gotta appreciate my life in Medan for the next 5 – 6 weeks.