The ceremony took place in a lawyer's office, surrounded by green binders with gold lettering saying things like “Rich Chance Ltd”, or “Honest Asia Company”. We very quickly recited the text saying that we were now our respective lawful wedded husbands and wives, cracked a few jokes with my fabulous friend Victor's dad, who was marrying us, and I suddenly found myself to be quite cynical and totally unromantic, saying, when Krusty took my hand, “Are you scared or something?”, and then “So, how much do we owe you?” But then we left the “Grand Building” (appropriate, no?), floating counter-current on a cloud through Lan Kwai Fong, while others rushed home from work.
I had spent the afternoon sticking flowers in my hair, so I felt a little self-conscious, but a glass of Veuve and a classy side helping of Lay's Sour Cream and Onion helped calm my nerves. We were on the roof of the Fringe Club, where I have so many good memories and, because of its “cultural” status, I was hoping not to run into anyone, having kept the wedding a secret. How wrong I was! Of the uncountable thousands of bars and restaurants in Hong Kong, three of our friends had chosen this precise spot for their pre-prandials.
We soon left for dinner, anyway, just below at M at the Fringe. I reasoned that the M must stand for Marriage, and that since this was the place that apparently serves the best suckling pig in the city (Krusty's favourite dish) I was already being a good wifey by choosing this place for our first meal as a married couple. So we filled our bellies and made silly shadow puppets on the chairs, giggling until everyone in the restaurant had realised that this was a “special” occasion. At 10pm though, exhausted from a week of sleepless work nights, Krusty asked to go home. I reluctantly agreed, and we went off to our “wedding night” – turns out that meant Krusty checking his computer, telling me that I was now part of his chattle, that the champagne had cost a little too much that night, and that I needed to be quiet now so that he could sleep.
The next morning, at the airport, realising that this wedding (although not the big day) meant more to me than it did to him, Krusty attempted to make amends, saying he would treat me to a lovely wedding breakfast. He disappeared off to the Marco Polo lounge (to which I do not have access), and came back with a feast of cream crackers, cheddar, and Fanta, saying that if he hadn't been a man the night before, he would at least be the “provider” now. How could I stay angry when he was trying so hard to make me feel better? Why couldn't I stay angry when I really, desperately wanted to?
As we landed in Cebu, Krusty had sung Madonna's “Holiday” enough times to wipe my tears completely dry, and I realised that the most important thing in our relationship was that Krusty can make me laugh, no matter what. With that I think we can survive anything. From there we resolved to make our Funnymoon as funny as humanly possible.
As we drove from the airport to the resort, the guilt started kicking in as we were passing wooden huts lined with families of dirty children with ripped T-shirts and I realised I was worrying about whether my silk dress would be creased or not... What a spoiled brat. The rain was making me very, very depressed, and I felt like I had no right to be depressed, really... A confusing state of mind.
To forget the weather we played a few rounds of ping pong, but determined not to stay cooped up, we jumped into the pool. Then we realised we had become walking lightening rods, and so began one of many hysterical moments in the pool, the hq of the funniness of our moon. To continue soaking, we retreated to our room's bath, an outdoor tub surrounded by pebbles (also called a "Kneip" pool, hum hum, coincidence?). Krusty left the room shouting from behind the wooden shutters that separated us that I would soon see that he is in fact a romantic. He came back with two flutes and a bottle of bubbly, and we truly relaxed for the first time in days. Not that it could last, of course; opening my eyes after a few minutes, I spotted an army of mosquitoes above our heads. Bathing outside might seem like a nice idea, but we it meant that we had literally landed in a glorified mosquito nightclub. Attractive light source? Check. Stagnant bath water? Check. Hot, humid air? Check. We were the guests of honour at the mosquito banquet. Or rather, we were the plat du jour.
We hopped out, deciding that if it was going to be a case of eat or be eaten, we had better run along to dinner, where we felt just a little lonely. As we had come out of season, the resort was practically empty, save a handful of Japanese gentlemen who arrived alone but soon were in the company of lovelies they had found in neighbouring villages...
The next morning, as we opened the shutters to a big blue sky, we jumped out of bed to explore the resort's beach and the private island it boasted in the brochure. Turns out, “natural” meant “we mashed up some shells and blasted it onto some concrete to create a completely man-made, gritty, dirty beach”. Snorkeling around the island we also found out that the local fishermen had killed most of the corals by dynamite fishing, so that all that was left was a bit of seaweed and some lonely surviving fish. A little depressed, we swam back to shore, and realised that the umbrella huts lining it summed the place up – some thinning grass laid on a plastic trunk, complete with broken intercom for cocktail orders. Looks natural from afar, but is the exact opposite up close.
At least we had the place to ourselves, which was convenient, not least because the clouded sky had scorched us way more than expected and we didn't need any more embarrassing looks than we were already getting. We had sizzled and now were both very much well done. At the beginning of our stay I was getting a lot of attention, hearing a lot of “guapa” as I walked past. But that day a different word was being whispered, one I am guessing to have meant “lobster”, or something similar. The usual “Welcome Mam Jesca, Welcome Sir Steffy” of the morning definitely had an undertone of restrained laughter.
The rest of the holiday we spent messing around in the pool once we had established, after a tour of the island, that there really wasn't much else to do. (The highlight of our adventure outside of the resort was the shooting range our driver took us to. Turns out I'm quite handy with a sniper rifle, but that's another story...). (On that note, Krusty was rubbish at shooting, which makes me think that all of his hours practising on his computer games have been worthless, which also confirms that although he thinks that the time he put in on the airflight simulator qualifies him to land a plane, I'll be jumping out of the emergency exit before I ever let him be in charge of my jumbo jet...).
Anyway, our time in Cebu was a little light on the exploration front. The thing is, when Magellan landed in the Philippines and converted everyone to Catholicism, a tiny bit of architectural development occurred. But when the colon arrived on Mactan, the island we were staying on, chief Lapu-Lapu only went and killed him on the spot, protecting his place from any sort of colonialism and therefore, in a way, construction. The people are lovely, the mangoes are delicious, but there really isn't much to see apart from a few huts and some large concrete hotels. It's a real shame. Perhaps things were different before, I don't know. But it felt like we were about 40 years late.
Despite all of this, although we weren't quite laughing out loud on the way home from our Funnymoon, we definitely had enormous grins on our face. I suppose that's the thing with funnymooners, they only need each other to have a good time.
Throughout the holiday and ever since, people have been asking me how it feels to be married. I suppose I should feel different, but honestly I just feel the way I do after a birthday, when someone asks how it feels to be a year older – it feels exactly the same as the day before, just with more flowers and more champagne. Perhaps I'll feel differently when I am wearing “the” dress. All I know is that for now, being married feels right, so very right. Oh, and it burns a little around the tanning line of my swimming costume.
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