What's on Shenji's Mind: A Day Out with my Acquaintances and Friends

The week enders. ( From top left to right) Sidhu, Akane, (From bottom left to right), John, Summer and me

Saturday is the long awaited day of the week for most individuals seeing that it's the beginning of the weekend and it's a day where people can actually spend time doing what they love the most. Unlike most people, my Saturday is usually restricted in my apartment for most of the day due to university assignments and quiz preparation. Despite I spend most of my time at my place on Saturday, I'll still go out for a movie or a hot chocolate with my university acquaintance. However my recent Saturday ( which was yesterday) was a special one for me as I spend almost half a day outside my apartment with my university acquaintances and friends. This was the most active Saturday for me ever since I came to Canada.

Yesterday, in the middle of my Maths practice, I was visited by my Pakistani university acquaintant, Umar. He invited me to hang out with the rest of his friends as they planned to take some photos around Kamloops. Initially, I was so tempted to reject his invitation seeing that I was in the middle of my Maths practice and I don't like to hang out with guys but when I was told that two of my female friends were going, I considered Umar's offer. In addition to that, considering the nice warm weather compliments of the up coming summer season, I thought it would be nice to go out and breath the fresh air; therefore, I accepted his invitation. After taking my shower, I went over to one of my acquaintant's room who was also going for the outing. Some of them were already waiting in his room while the others were at their own place getting ready. As everyone was ready, we left the apartment and started walking.

In the middle of our walk, Sidhu's roommate, John thought about playing Frisbee. He went to his car and grab his Frisbee before playing it. We started playing off in the car park of our apartment. Frisbee was a bit challenging to me as I find it difficult to catch and throw the flying saucer. Nevertheless, after few attempts I got used to the game. Frisbee really got me sweating since I had to run up and down to catch the flying Frisbee before it hits the ground. Although Frisbee looks like a simple game of throw and catch, enduring the challenge to catch the saucer before it touches the ground can be difficult but fun. As we walked further on, we continued to throw and catch the Frisbee until we reached the busy Saturday streets of Kamloops. We strolled further on until we reached a small nice garden.

Over there, we took a couple of snapshots of the scenery in Kamloops. We also took a group photo and one of my acquaintant , John who was a Filipino illustrated his great photography skills through the group photos and scenery pictures he took. We stayed in the garden for a while before moving on as we were wanted to enjoy the great scenery of Kamloops from the mountain. After half an hour over there, we continued our walk to downtown.

The walk to down town from the garden was around an hour. Despite the long walk to downtown, we didn't feel tired as our conversation with one another on the way there removed the fatigue equation from our mind. The moment we reached downtown, my friends, Summer and Akane wanted to grab a coffee ; therefore, our first stop at downtown was the Starbucks coffee house. We sat down there taking a short rest before we started taking photos around downtown. During our short rest, we decided where was our next stop and what to do later on in the evening. As everyone felt energized again, we began strolling around downtown snapping more photos. Half an hour later, John felt hungry so we began looking for a restaurant to dine in. Fortunately for him McDonald's was just around the corner so our second food stop was McDonald's.

John and Umar were the only one eating where else the rest of us decided to save our stomach for dinner which was in 3 hours time. While waiting for John and Umar to finish eating, the rest of us were practically fooling around trading jokes and nonsense. Akane challenged me to a hand wrestling match and the whole match was recorded by my camera. We challenged each other for three rounds and I was on a winning streak for the first two rounds. I lost the third one to Akane as I was distracted by one of my acquaintants before she use both hands to smash my wrestling arm to the table. Ever since we started arm wrestling, the rest of the guys decided to go around challenging each other. I had a right arm wrestle with John and during the match I had a bad start as John was fast enough to press my arm down to the table. I managed to push up my arm but as I struggled further to balance the competition,I felt more tired; consequently I submitted and I lost the round. On the other hand, I managed to win John in our left arm wrestling competition which made the match equal. As Umar and John finished their meal, we left McDonald's and head for a huge park just a few blocks down.

The park was very spacious and next to it there was a nice lake. We took the advantage of the spacious size park by playing Frisbee again. The girls (Summer and Akane) on the other hand, decided to snap more photos of the park and lake. The lake was simply gorgeous as the evening sun that shines behind the hills of Kamloops illuminated the shadows of the hills on the surface of the waters which made the scenery looked like a masterpiece painting. We took another group photo at the lake before we went back playing Frisbee. In the middle of our throw and catch game, Akane and I started to feel bored of the repetitive process of Frisbee; therefore, both of us did something different while the rest continued their game.

I taught Akane some Muay Thai basics. Teaching her was difficult but at the same time it was fun and hilarious to see her perform some of the basics. I thought her the proper Muay Thai fight stance together with some hand striking methods like jab, cross, hook and uppercut. I even thought her some basic self defense and the fact that she learned very fast impressed me. She managed to throw me over after a giving me an arm bar simply scared the rest of our friends. Overall, she did great for a beginner learning Muay Thai and self defense.

As the day was getting late, we decided to have dinner. We took a five minute walk from the park down to a Mexican restaurant to have our dinner. At first I was reluctant to have Mexican food for dinner seeing that I never tried Mexican food before and the restaurant looked a bit expensive. Nevertheless after persuading myself to be adventurous and generous on my spending budget, I decided to go for it. To my surprise, the price of the food was affordable and the meal was simply great. Some of my friends couldn't finish up their food so knowing that I had a bottomless pit for a stomach, they gave me the honor of finishing up their food. Practically, I was eating more than what I was supposed to pay that night which was a good thing. After dinner, Umar, Akane and Sidhu decided to go for a movie; the rest of us on the other hand decided we should just go back home. We departed from the guys who wanted to watch a movie after paying the bill.

John, Summer and me decided to go back home by bus. On our way home, we traded cameras to view the photos and we started sharing our experience for the day. Summer and I were happily talking to one another where else John was awfully quiet as he was dead tired. The moment reached home, all of us went on our own ways. Thinking that it was too early to end my Saturday, I asked Summer and my Hong Kee friend, Robin out for Tim Horton's later on. Lucky for me, they all agreed to go out and we told each other to meet up at my room at 12 in the morning. Since I had 2 more hours before 12, I thought of giving myself a rest before going out for Tim Horton's.

In my room, I continued practicing my Maths. Time really passes fast when I was occupied with my Maths and the next thing I know it was 30 minutes before 12. Robin called me asking me if he could come over to my room earlier. Being a nice person, I told him he was more than welcomed to come over. When he came over, I told him to occupy himself with the Counter-Strike game on my computer while I finish up the remaining Maths questions. 20 minutes later, I was done with my Maths for the day and I played a bit of Counter-Strike before going out. Summer came over to my room at 12 but all of us didn't leave then as I was caught up with the game while Summer and Robin were cheering me on encouraging me to kill more. After winning the round, we went out and started our walk to Tim Horton's.

At Tim Horton's we had more than hot chocolate; we had our supper. I ordered a hot Raspberry smoothy and a couple of Tim Horton yogurts while both Summer and Robin had hot chocolate, brownies and muffins. During our early morning at Tim Horton's, we had our long conversation sharing what we did for the day and how were we doing in university. After everyone finished eating and drinking, we left Tim Horton's and call it a day.

This was the most active Saturday for me ever since my stay in Kamloops, Canada. That day was tiring but fun. That was the first time I got the opportunity to explore Kamloops in a deeper extent. I'm looking forward to this again after my finals.