Week of farewells and gatherings...
I'm still reeling in the events that happened this week (and a little of last)...
Last week, we celebrated Tehpeng's birthday by giving him a little 'surprise' - planned and coordinated by Lil' Ms Snooze no less - by hiding out in his lounge room and surprising him when they came back from the celebratory dinner in Sentosa! Together with JX, Uncle 'Caipor', Ms Clover, LiBing, Lil'Ms Snooze and of coz, Lil Nat, we celebrated his transition from 29 to the big 3-0 with Liverpool cupcakes and a Piper champagne no less :p
hehehe... a year older, a year wiser. Read all about it here on LMS's entry.
This week was rather a week of many gatherings... after the shoot on Monday, the next day was to meet up with the Pau gang to bid Xiao Long Pau farewell as she will be going over to Chicago for the next 6 months as part of her work programme. The farewell wasn't really easy coz although it's a mere 6 months, it's neither short or long and we will definitely miss the impromptu meet-ups, the late night supper @ Holland Village's La Mien Xia Long Bao (Crystal Jade), the lunches @ SGH and the occasional smses to see how's life and work...
Thank God for modern day communications where we still are able to keep in touch but nothing beats meeting up physically and enjoying each other's company. The supper at Tong Shui Cafe along Thomson Rd with Char Siu Pau, Lian Rong Pau, CY and myself is definitely memorable coz we are all close friends for a really long time.
Met another friend of XLP @ the airport also and R, who has also came especially to send her off, is really really funny. Glad to have met him also!
Friday was another gathering with the gang I went Sri Lanka with back in 2006 (under SIF, YEP project to rebuild homes for the Tsunami victims in Balapitiya area). Kindly organised by Esme who got us a very nice location in China Square's Ricciotti Italian Deli and Pastry (3 Pickering St, #01-36/37. Nankin Row. China Square Central) for some light bites and wine.
Amongst the group, GX will be relocating to France as she starts her new life with her French fiance and plans to get married by next year as well. The other members like Shin and W.W (aka the Balapitiya Idol) have also relocated to Italy and Shanghai as well. The night was peppered with lotsa exchanges, reminiscences of our trip and adventures in Sri Lanka, getting to know more friends as well as updating each other of our well being. Not forgetting also that we had like 4- 5 bottles of premium grade Australian red wines to try as kindly arranged by Esme's wine broker who kindly provided a lot of insights to Aussie wine market, trading, brokering and the potential of buying wine as investments.
By the time the night was over, we polished off all 4 - 5 bottles of wine, with the proportion that almost 4 of us (minus 2 non-drinkers + 1 social drinker coz he needs to drive) had nearly drank 1 bottle worth of wine throughout the night... hic! Seriously, by the time I met up with CY ard midnight to get some stuff from her @ Tong Shui Cafe in Thomsom, I was quite woosy already... frankly, I can;t even remember what I ate there also... hehehe....
side note: Ohh yeah, I met my ex-client couple who happened to be in the same deli for dinner as well! Small world!
Saturday - had a really early start despite knocking out around 2am from the alcohol. Met up with Tehpeng and Uncle P. (Tehpeng's dad) at the golf range around 8am. Yes, finally Tehpeng is on-board with golf and he is quite a natural coz by the time we are done around 9.30am, he is able to get the golf ball flying with a good loft angle using only 1/2 swing on an 8 iron! 1st timer only lor..... well done!
After the bak gu teh breakfast, I went back to take a nap coz my stomach is having a really bad handover from the alcohol and it's the next round of gathering @ Mudgod and Ms P's new place in the East side! It's DURIAN and tropical FRUITS + the impromptu Punggol Nasi Lemak dinner.
So it was at this big gathering of friends that I managed to catch up with the very busy couple, JemeJ, caught up with my ex clients Lyn + Siang Chee & their lil' boy Chew, who are all friends with the Mudgang (talk about small world lor), met up with J.Chua whom I will be shooting their Pre-Wedding and their Actual this year and next, met up with the recently married Mr and Mrs Quek (Ead's clients) and a whole bunch of friends we bumped into occasionally when there's an event revolving around this group :)
One of the biggest surprises that night was the appearance of my poly mate, J... When I spied her walking through the door, I went like "no way the world is so small!" She was the nicknamed 'pocket dynamo' (for her small size but extremely energetic personality) when we were still studying in Ngee Poly (more like slogging our youth away in the dark and very cold animation studio in Blk 52) and we did our final year project together as well... After Poly graduation, we sorta lost touch with each other until the appearance of Facebook but no physical meet-up till that Sat! Ha! Really the 6 degrees of separation is just so mind-numbing coz she knew one of the mutual friends of the group when she was studying in Uni!
Anyway, here's some careless shots from the night's event:
The night didn't end there for me coz since I was in the area, I parted ways with the group to meet up with Char Siu Pau for a cup of coffee .......
and what originally was a kopi session turned into a Chivas drinking session @ Sharky's bar (212 Telok Kurau Road #01-216 Tel: 63450580) in Telok Kurau! No idea how that happened but in the end, we were there with Lian Rong Pau's brother (or CSP's Bro-in-law otherwise known) for an hour plus.. drinking scotch at the bar, chatting and catching up... (I also remembered I had a little bit of Cat Mountain King (猫山王) durians during the fruits session earlier but what the heck...)
* disclaimer: durian and hard liquor is strongly not recommended so please don't try. I was blessed enough to have digested the durian before I hit the scotch. People have died from the combination before.
So my Saturday ended around 4am coz I need to get the alcohol to clear out of my system before I can rest properly but with a wake-up call @ 7.30am to get ready for Sunday church band kinda made me a little dazed today.....
Yupz, and such was my wonderful week of farewells and gatherings :D
Labels: Celebrations, Clover, Food, Friends, Golf, Images, Local, RICOH GrD, Thoughts
super long post filled with so many activites! hahah!! but indeed a fun one! =p
Posted by =eLaiNe= | 2:34 PM
i'm stumped at the fact that tehpeng's dad has a blog. and a frequently-updated one!
Posted by michelle | 3:24 PM
What a week of indulgence! Hah. Thanks for the bubbly!
mich :: Hahaha. We are equally surprised :) And he's a man of few words in person. :P
Posted by Little Miss Snooze | 10:07 AM
Elaine:
haha.. yeah lor.. it was an amazing week! Have a great time in HKG!
Michelle:
hahaha.. yeah but I love reading this thoughts coz he is a very interesting and intriguing person!
LMS:
no prob! :D So when are you planning to join Tehpeng at the Golf range? :p
Posted by ShutterBug | 7:29 AM