Day 2 - Part 4

We continued to Reception in Skatval Restaurant (Formerly a train station).

There we met Rune (the MC for the event) and his wife Chavanat. Chavanat is also 5 months pregnant like me of her second child.

We also met Nina Mjosund and her husband who went to Bali for their honeymoon. Nina was also wearing traditional Norwegian dress.

The appetizer was fried rice with seafood. Then Ninni gave her speech about Thomas being a very curious boy, for example, sticking his nose to lightbulb out of curiosity.

Then the main course of Moose Steak came, served with potatoes, cauliflower, Brussels sprout, and carrot, served with cream sauce.

During dinner, Nina told us the story about moose hunting

• A permit is necessary to hunt moose or reindeer, renewable every year upon passing the shooting test
• A group of around six hunters goes camping in the wood for one week to hunt. They eat moose liver in the camp.
• The hunter can only kill the male moose.
• Sometimes dogs are involved in the hunt. The dogs will chase and distract the moose, making it easier for the Moose to be shot.
• After being shot down, the moose is cut into small parts and brought back to camp.
• The innards & head are thrown away in the forest
• The meat (approximately 50kg) is brought home and is enough for 1 year
• If the moose is old and the meat tends to be hard, the meat will then be roasted over small fire overnight. The result is juicy, red, tender meat

Nina also told us that she is not using her husband's name. All her kids are using her family name instead of her husbands, because Mjosund name is getting rarer.

After the main course, Elok's father gave speech about how Thomas proposed to him to marry Elok in Sydney.

Then Tor Otto gave Thomas 3 envelope containing 3 stories about Thomas. Thomas picked one envelope, and Tor Otto proceeded to read the speech in it. He said Thomas is a really active person, but not in his studies.

Then Nina Mjosund gave speech on how pretty Elok is, and how her children was really impressed seeing Elok's photo. Then the dessert came: caramel pudding, which was really good & creamy, no words can describe it! It was really a heavenly caramel pudding.

After the dessert, Rune asked the guest to help clean up the room for Sungkeman ceremony. Amazingly, all the guests are helping to clean up the room, even the brides and groom too.

The Sungkeman ceremony was really touching. This is where Elok apologized to her parents, and seek acceptance in Mjosund family. Nina was really touched and cried listening to the speech. Oma commented how Thomas has touched her as the “weather man” when she was in Sydney.

After Sungkeman, the guests willingly helped to rearranged the tables for cake cutting ceremony at 10.30pm (we did not realized that almost six hours elapsed since the wedding reception in the restaurant started).

The newlyweds and the cake!

The cakes were really really good! Even the marzipan frosting tasted heavenly. The cakes were served with coffee, tea, cognac, and tia maria. Most of Indonesian guests were already quite exhausted, especially us, who are just arrived the day before. But all Norwegian guests were still high spirited and had the energy to continue chatting until after midnight. We told the story on how Elok has been the one who encouraged us to be together. At 12.30am, vegetable cream soup with bread was served, and the guests continued to chat until wee hours.

We were amazed on how only two cooks and one helper prepared for the meal for 50-60 people! We were impressed how Europeans can work fast and sharp, and still have good social life, not needing working overtime like Asians do.

At around 1.30am I was too tired and Odd was really kind to drive us back to Elok and Thomas’s house.