Primary School Gathering

It all started with a primary school graduation photo uploaded to Facebook...

Rex uploaded our 6th grade graduation photo; people started tagging each other; more and more familiar faces showed up; buddies from old days found each other again through FB, etc.

(I know not everyone is as geeky as I am, but sometimes you do have to appreciate the beauty of technology and how it really does "tie" people who have lost touch back together!) ^_^

Anyways, we were extremely lucky that we were able to reunite with many old classmates. And even more lucky that many of us made it to our first gathering!! (Thanks AuYeung for organizing it!!)

Amazing, isn't it?!

There were so many of us that we needed to sit in two different tables at the restaurant. This picture was taken from one table of the other table. (And don't ask me why Bread was making that face. I bet he must be talking about one of the "horror" stories about how he got "tortured" by one of the teachers back then!)

I was really happy to see Ida and Hazel. (Love Ida's hair!!!!) ^_^

We even got one of our old teachers, Miss Hui (bottom right), to come! She brought her son (bottom left) as well. It's was fun to have 3 "generations" of people together! =)

We went to grab drinks afterwards at a bar nearby.

Boys, don't be so shy and dodge from the camera!! ;)

Katherine came back from Sydney as well. I haven't seen her in ages!

Thanks Kent for being the "appointed photographer" for the night! I borrowed his DSLR and took a couple quick shots of him, so his face would "show up" on film as well. haha... (Though Rex on the other hand was totally trying to hide from or ignore the camera!)

We gathered everybody's emails and cells, establishing our SJS 6A Alumni network!! Yay!!

It's truly amazing to see how much we did NOT change from old times (^_~)v

And I am totally looking forward for the next gathering with all our "old buddies"!!

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Dinner with Christina

It's again time for my "quarterly" dinner with Christina, my childhood's "twin" buddy from primary school time (yes, that's what the teachers called us at the after school center) !! =D

You know what, we really should gather more often, because it's filled with so much laughters!!!! ^_^ haha...

We talked and laughed so much tonight....

My personal favorite bits were the "English school net for KITTENS" (wink wink, somebody!!! ^_~ ) and the "Canadian budget airline owned by Chinese people" (that made Mike INSTANTLY scare)... hahaha.....

Have a wonderful Taipei trip!

(And don't get lost, you know you have the map!!!! hehe....)

All Girls Night Talk

Today was Ah Gi's actual birthday date, so six of us buddies came out together, not to celebrate her birthday (since the official bday celebration dinner was last weekend, which I missed due to my heavy food poisoning), but just to have fun. With that said though, the phrase "Happy Birthday" was said multiple times!!! =)

We went to a bar near Sogo in Causeway Bay. Honestly, it was only my second time in a bar in Hong Kong. (Yea, OBVIOUSLY, not the drinking-type of person...) But since it was for ah Gi, I'll make it no matter what!!! (I even brought Mike out, so he could say "Happy Birthday" in 100% accurate Cantonese to Ah Gi.... hahaha... though he left fairly early due to the extreme noisiness in the bar, which I couldn't blame him for...)

Honestly though, drinking with just a group of all-girl friends was a fresh experience for me. I went drinking a number of times when I was in Berkeley, but usually with a bunch of both guy and girl friends. Having such a crazy "all-girls" night out drinking event was really my FIRST time.

And yea, I can assure you, it's absolutely eye-opening and crazier than what you can imagine! We played many fun dice games first (when Mike was still there), accompanying with alcohol as punishment, of course!! =p

But the best was still yet-to-come after Mike left - the ultimate "Truth-And-Only-Truth" game (a mutated version of the traditional "Truth-Or-Dare" game, where we could only choose "truth" but no "dare"). Many truths were told; many unimaginable questions were asked. (And of coz, all talks started and ended there at the same place!!!)

Since I've moved to the States, most of my close friends there were almost all guys. I had a few good girl friends back in high school, but then after we graduated and entered university we became distant because of our own busy schedules. And during university years, my time was spent EXCLUSIVELY in the campus computer labs, packed with stinky, no-shower-for-3-days geeky guys all the time. I only had one relatively-closer girl friend during those years. So tonight's "all-girls" talk and drinking experience was totally new, fresh and even a bit shocking and touching to me. Shocked by everyone's frankness and touched by the bond of friendship... which made me realize how much I have missed out since I've left Hong Kong...

Anyways, I am so glad that I've come back and see you all!!! LOVE YOU!!!!!
^_____________________^



p.s. Among the 6 of us, we managed to kill off a whole bottle of high grade Scotch!! =D And somebody was highly suspicious of being drunk (though of course, she denied....) (^_~)/

Post bday dinner with primary school buddies

I had a post-bday dinner with two of my best buddies from primary school: Carol Tse and ah Gi.

We ate tons of sushi and sashimi. Yum yum...

Carol Tse and me~

Ah Gi and me~

Silly "Pig Nose Buddies"?!!! (^_~)v

Yea, that's us!!!!

After Dinner

We were the last table to leave the restaurant, but apparently, we still had room for dessert !! haha...

Waiting outside at Lucky Dessert, where there is a always an ever-lasting long line.....

And guess what, someone ELSE was also interested in having dessert!!!! (^_~)v

Answer: "THE white guy"!!!! ~hohohoho~

What happened was - Mike originally planned to stay at home because he was still a bit sick, but then he changed his mind - he said he didn't want to miss the chance to see Crazy Gigi!! ^_^

It was Carol Tse's first time to see Mike, and it was soooo funny how she was so eager to tape Mike's Cantonese talking the whole time...

She was especially impressed when Mike said this (all in Cantonese, of course) -

"She didn't want to spend money... No heater.... I was very cold..... I got sick....."

Yea yea yea, for those who didn't know - I was that stingy girl friend who freezed her bf !!! ;p

They laughed so much talking to Mike in Cantonese the whole time!! ;)

I guess that means that somebody's Cantonese must have improved, huh?!!! ^______^

T-shirt? Tea-shirt!!

One of Mike's best friends, Andy (or should I say "Dr. P"? haha... --> Sorry, insider-jokes) , submitted a T-shirt design to CafePress and it's open for sale now.


Black

Pink

Cap-sleeve!!


Get it?! T-Shirt --> TEA-Shirt!!!!
I thought it's really funny and clever!!
(^_~)/

Dinner with Berkeley friends visiting from US

Meryl-Jane and her boyfriend came to visit Hong Kong these two weeks. We met up for dinner and dessert tonight. I haven't seen her for AGESsss~! Probably since I graduated from Berkeley or some time around then.


She hasn't changed much, still as skinny as ever like a little monkey girl, haha~ (Hey, don't yell at me, Meryl-Jane, should yell at ah Ki instead... u know, he called you that first, remember? hoho...)


The happy couple and I had dinner at a very crowded Shanghainese restaurant in Times Square. (So crowded that they even squeeze in a single person onto our 4 people's table.) I saw a line queuing up for this restaurant every time I walked by, but.... food quality was.... so-so only.... (disappointed)

As my "usual dinner rule" - must have DESSERT after dinner!! (yay!!! Sweets!!!) =D
We then moved base to the HoneyMoon Dessert in World Trade Center. HoneyMoon Dessert, as always, won't disappoint people!~ We ordered a different variety of stuff.

We had

Mango Pancake


Almond milk egg white


Mango soft tofu (flower)

And and and, my first try of :

Tong Bud Luc (sticky rice ball covered with crunchy peanut crisp and sugar mix)


Somebody likes their mango tofu~ =)


And the almond egg white thing was surprisingly yummy too~ (But sweet tofu is still my all-time favorite, haha...)

And guess what - I found out from Meryl-Jane that "somebody" has bought a new car and (half) a new house, hohoho~ So wealthy now, huh, Mr. L? You know what that means... The dinner that you owed me (what? didn't owe me any dinner?!l well.. you DO now!!) hehe~

It's always good to see old friends!! =)


Wish you guys have a great trip for the rest of the days in HK!!!
(And don't shop too much!! Be kind to your two little suitcases!! haha...)

Dinner with an old old friend

I had dinner with Warren, a friend from primary school days tonight. We were not in the same primary school, but we knew each other through St James Settlement (which was a bit like an after-school childcare thing for kids with working parents). Among many other kids, we were the "first generation" kids of St James Settlement. I heard from a friend the other day that the settlement is still in service even up to now. Really quite amazing to see it in service for almost 20 years!!

Last time I saw Warren was at least seven years ago, when I came back to visit Hong Kong for the first time after my family immigrated to the States. After that we somehow lost contacts of each other. (Somebody and somebody were probably too busy with university work or dating or whatever... =p )

But thanks to the magic of Facebook, we were able to meet up for dinner.


Even though we haven't seen each other for AGES, we both quickly fell back to our silly childhood-selves, making fun and teasing each other. We have known each other for soooooo long that there were too many funny, silly, crazy "stories" to reminisce about and make fun of. (well... mostly I made fun of him, haha~)

Dinner was good and oh my gosh, the chocolate tiramisu cake dessert was sooooooooooo yummy!! The cake looked like it weighed a pound or even more!! I really didn't know how we managed to finish it!! (Should have taken pictures of the tiramisu cake, but I was too excited when it was brought to the table and couldn't wait to start eating, haha...)

After dinner we walked around a little bit (to help digest the pound of cake, heh ) and somehow wandered into a sticker pic center. I don't remember when was the last time I took sticker pics. Seriously it must have been 6 years or more!! Suddenly my "old cake" friend (Note: "Old Cake" - a Cantonese slang that refers to elders, old people ^_^ ) suggested to take some sticker pics. As a result, we, two "old cakes", walked in and bravely "explored" the various sticker pic machines.


It was actually pretty fun. I didn't know that you can add tons of graffiti and drawings onto the pictures nowadays. We went crazy and drew all kinds of random crap onto the pictures. It kinda reminded me of primary school Art class. Haha...

Finally, we got the end-product!!! Next step was to split the pictures. Such an important task, of coz - won't be my duty!! ;)


See... Somebody was already carefully cutting the pictures into 2 halves. ;)


"Hey, don't mess up my half!!!" ^o^ (Yea, I was definitely *not* trying to help here!! haha...)

Besides taking sticker pic we also toured around the sticker pic/game center place a bit.

Look what we found - Dan Don, my favorite mechanical cat from the future!! (haha.. once again, "old cake" stuff~)



You hear people say "kiss ass" a lot... but "kiss poo"?!?! Really first time.... dunno what we were doing!!! (Mr. Lau, thanks to all your *bad* influence!!!!)


It was always fun to meet up with old friends. I wish that I could gather more friends from primary school days or from St James' Settlement period and have a big reunion!! =)

Half and half weekend

Yea, half working and half chilling weekend!! We didn't go hiking on Saturday. =(
Each of us worked almost a full day during the weekend but still managed to find some (short period of) time to relax and have fun.


Lunch with old-time buddies

Went to lunch with Lau Shun and ah Gi on Sunday. Those two are probably one of my "oldest" friends in Hong Kong. We knew each other since we were in primary school. Grade 2? Grade 3? So long ago that I couldn't remember now. =D


Lau Shun suggested to eat Chaozhou (潮州) cuisine. Both Mike and I never had Chaozhou food before. So it was decided - Chaozhou cuisine it was!!!


Mike kept taking all these sneaky pictures when we were not paying attention. (Though I'm sure he would call them "natural" pictures instead) ^_^


Food was pretty good. Too much meat and seafood for Mike though, haha... My poor little (fake) vegetarian!!


Ah Gi shared some of her funny "awakening" stories at work with us.
Very .... impressive, ah Gi!! That apartment guard was indeed very "inched"!!! haha, but next time you guys should .... hmm... u know.... (*evin grin*) ^o^


Thanks to Mike's superb long arm, no camera stand was needed, haha~
"超正!! "said Mike.
"Wow, ah Mike lei 好勁 ah" said ah Gi.
(Looks like somebody's Cantonese has improved a lot!!!) =D


Mike was still playing with his camera and taking sneaky pictures as we were leaving the restaurant.

He captured this very funny one - look at the women outside on the street. Didn't they look like they were participating in some kind of drama trying to look for somebody? (okok... may be it's just me... a bit too "imaginative", hehe)

After lunch, Lau Shun went with us and helped shop for our new 250G hard drive!! haha~ yay!!! More space to host hiking pictures!!! Ohohoh.. and we even met Caleb, Lau Shun's bf. I told him how we accidentally "discovered" his blog the other day... haha.... small world~


Next : Standard Chartered Book Festival

Another book fair!!! Of coz, I, being a hardcore bookworm, won't miss it. Not to mention that this one was an outdoor one, which made it even more fun!!


"Reading is good for ya!!" the bookworm mumbled.


The book fair itself was hosted in Victoria Park. We walked by its soccer court on our way there. A pretty nostalgic scene. It reminded me of my little lovely bro Jackie, how he loved and always played soccer when he was little. (Though he mostly just followed the soccer ball around and ran, haha) Sorry, Jackie, your computer (geek) gene definitely out-beats your soccer player gene, by A LOT!!! hohohoho~


Another thing that we passed by was our beloved Hong Kong main public library. Frecking awesome-looking and clean (unlike the SF main library)!!! Doesn't it look like a Transformer?!!



We got there around evening time. But the book fair was still crowded with people.


Lots of book tents were set up. Probably using the tents to block the sunlight during day time.


Lots of simplified character books. And the crazy thing was they are usually (at least) 50% cheaper than their traditional character counterpart, if not more...


The kids book section was huge too!! Mike and I were trying to find some Chinese children books that have a political agenda for Brian, his old roommate from US. If you are a fan of "The Daily Shows with Jon Stewart", you'll know what I am talking about !! (*grin*)

Speaking of which - so sad that the show was on-hold due to the writer strike in the States.
Come on, you all money-sucking big Studio owners, give back the writers what they deserve!!!! Let them write more good shows for us!!!!


Okay, back to the book fair.... hmm... so many choices... where should I start?


Well... looked like I got my first interested target!! =)

Yeah, Mike and I splited up shortly after we entered the book fair. I didn't want to bore him with my slow "book-tasting" ;)


As a result, he went alone with his camera and took some really good pictures. This one was a giant wood craft art next to the book tents. I like how he even captured the guy appreciating the art at the back!!


More wood craft art - but mini version - There was this one tent that taught kids how to make wood craft, attracting quite a lot of children.
Come on, who doesn't like to make a cute little owl like this one? (Speaking of owl - It reminded me of the snowy owl in Harry Potter? --> Oh no, my Harry Potter fever striked again!!!! helpw...) heh~

Why did I look so puzzled? Well... What really happened was - I didn't know Mike was doing his thing taking "sneaky" pictures behind people's back again. So I was taken a bit by surprise and didn't know how to response when I saw his camera RIGHT BEHIND ME!!!


Such a warm scene - parents brining kids to the book fair, letting them pick books that they like... I reminded me of my childhood - how my mom and I used to go to book shop and shopped for books together. And I even remembered how she would buy all kinds of knowledge-based non-fiction books, while I was so crazily indulging myself in those stupid naive (mostly Taiwanese) love fictions... hahaha... I wonder if my mom still remembers that now....


Oh my gosh... looked what Mike found !!! Harry Potter ..... in Chinese!!! (Though I have to admit, Harry Potter in Chinese seems kinda strange to me... I wonder how they translated "Patronus" or "quidditch", or..... hmm.....)


Seeing people diligently picking books always make smile!! (I know i know, I probably look like an idiot smiling in public for no reason!! haha)


Was trying to find some travel books to Taiwan at the book fair, in preparation for the Taiwan trip, but didn't find any. Though I did find a lot of travel books for different provinces of China. Hmm... that plus all those simplified character books.... Anyone else smelled of the hidden (or not-so-hidden) "Mainlandized schemes" here?

Mike's "Precious Moments" Collection
(haha... yea, I just named the collection without getting his permission. I am sure he won't mind. They are such good pictures.)


Story-telling/sharing corner for kids and parents!!


Or, you can draw pictures with your kids =)


People were still reading even though it started to get dark!!


In Conclusion....


A busy (working) and yet relaxing weekend!! Yay!!!