Thanksgiving in Kamloops

Thanksgiving posters were glued on the walls of my Residence apartment a couple of days ago. Initially I couldn't be bothered less about them as I never thought about celebrating it; however, the posters which featured a picture of Sesame Streets characters feasting on poor Big Bird who has been grilled caught my attention. I didn't even know it was a poster to promote Thanksgiving at first as I thought it was some mischievous work of a punk living in the Residence. After carefully reading the contents of the poster, I then realized that the apartment staffs were trying to organize a Thanksgiving dinner for the residents. The dinner was held a day after Thanksgiving and the fee to experience a nice Thanksgiving dinner was amazingly only $2. Skeptical about the price, I considered the dinner carefully before signing up seeing that for all I know, they could be just serving a couple of miserable turkey skins with one or two tea spoons of coleslaw and mashed potatoes for the price of $2. However, after being convinced by my Japanese friend Maaya that the Thanksgiving dinner was not some gimmick since her previous Thanksgiving dinner at the Residence last year had both her thumbs up, I eventually agreed to join the dinner. Delighted to find out that I'll be going for the dinner as well, Maaya suggested that I followed her and my two other Hong Kee friends, Shelly and Cindy to the dinner. Seeing that the more people joined, the merrier the dinner will be, I thought of inviting my roommates and his friend, Kelvin (both from Hong Kong as well) to the dinner as well. On the day of the dinner itself (which was yesterday), the six of us marched to the multipurpose hall of the apartment armed with our big appetite, our own plates, eating utensils and of course our two dollars only to be told that dinner ran out. We were all astonished and angry to the point of using our fork and knives on the bugger that told us that dinner ran out. Although we didn't have the opportunity to experience a real Thanksgiving dinner, our alternate plans yesterday turned out to be surprisingly fun.

After being informed that dinner ran out, all of us initially decided to retire to our rooms and call it a day. Kelvin, my roommate's friend who wasn't living in the Residence decided to accompany my roommate and I; consequently, we brought him to our room. In the middle of our "boy talk", I came up with an idea to celebrate our own Thanksgiving in a Chinese restaurant. Instead of having turkey, I thought about having Peking duck. My roommate and Kelvin eventually agreed to my plan despite finding it weird. I then called up Maaya's room and proposed my alternative for our Thanksgiving dinner; like the rest, she felt awkward. Nevertheless, she thought it was better than nothing so, she informed Cindy and Shelly about my plans. Lucky for me, everyone agreed to my proposal and we all eventually celebrated our Thanksgiving in a Chinese restaurant.

The restaurant was not far away from our apartment. It was only a 5 minutes bus ride from our place. Despite the short bus ride, we waited for more than half an hour in the cold for the bus to come. While waiting for the bus, we were trading conversations among one another. As usual, the Hong Kees were speaking in Cantonese which often leave Maaya and me confused about what were they talking. Shelly and Kelvin were as usual, arguing with one another and cursing each other in Chinese which nobody bothered to stop them as their comical and humorous display never fail to make us laugh ourselves silly. As the bus arrived, a great sense of relief struck us as we didn't have to freeze our ass any further in the cold. We immediately boarded the bus and headed straight for the Chinese restaurant which was a stone's throw from our place.

After a short nice and warm bus ride to the bus stop not far away from the restaurant, we were let out into the cold again before we begin our 4 minutes walk to the restaurant. As we reached the restaurant, we were welcomed by the smiley Chinese waitresses with food menus in their arms. The restaurant was completely packed with people which forced me to assume that the food here is good. The waitresses then ushered us to a nice warm cozy spot of the restaurant as they noticed we were shivering in cold before they handed each of us a menu. I was the first one to take my seat and I began to wonder who was going to sit next to me; Kelvin occupied the seat on my left and the seat on my right was yet to be taken. A couple of seconds later, Shelly took the seat on my right which pits me in between the arguing couples (Kelvin and Shelly). Fearful that I would be in the middle of their war of words if they so happen to argue, I began to worry. It was not too long that their war broke out and my nightmare then turned into reality; like earlier on, the both of them were arguing and cursing at each other. They even argued about what to order and what not to order; the rest of us didn't bother deciding what to order as we were busy watching Kelvin and Shelly's war.

Since I was in between the both of them, Kelvin and Shelly were all over me persuading me to join their sides; which clearly reminded me of the Cold War. Having realized that I don't know any Cantonese, Kelvin told me to say some Cantonese words to Shelly. Like Kelvin, Shelly told me to do the same thing to him. Despite not knowing the meanings behind those words which they wanted me to say, common sense told me they were bad words. Although the rest of us were attentively listening and watching both Shelly and Kelvin's comical arguments, it was a miracle that we even managed to remember our purpose of coming to this restaurant. Finally, we managed to order some food for dinner before resuming our attention on the war between Shelly and Kelvin.

For dinner, we had Ma Po tofu, shredded pork with chili, chicken meat with bamboo shoot, fried chicken and fried rice. The dinner was simply superb not because only of the great taste but also the entertainment that accompanied our dinner compliments of Kelvin and Shelly. I was just amazed to see how the both of them could continue arguing and talking non stop when the rest of us were completely silenced by the good food we were busy stuffing ourselves with. Shelly and Kelvin managed to teach me some Cantonese words; most of them were foul words of course. The rest of them were laughing themselves silly as they heard me use the bad words which both Shelly and Kelvin taught me. Cindy, one of my buddies asked me to recite 1 to 10 in Cantonese which she taught me a couple of days ago; initially, I was reluctant to recite them as I was so embarrassed but as everyone were dying to hear, I eventually recited the numbers in Cantonese. Of course, they all laughed their guts out as I reached 10; nevertheless, they clapped showing their support for me. Maaya had everyone's attention on her when she started educating all of us on Japanese; like usual, they weren't the words which people would use in their daily conversation unless they want to get their ass beaten. We enjoyed ourselves learning Japanese bad words from Maaya and it was not long before we practiced it on each other.

After dinner, Kelvin decided to take us to his place. Unlike all of us, Kelvin is living in a rented house not far away from the university. The road to his house was so dark that night and the boys of course decided to take the advantage of the complete darkness by scaring the girls. As we reached his house, Kelvin began his tour around his place. His place was nice and cozy and it has eight bedrooms. The rent is shared by 8 other students from Hong Kong and China and apparently, their paying half of what the rest of us are paying for our apartment fee. We didn't stay for long as the day was getting late and most of us had early classes on the following day. We headed back to our Residence by cab before thanking Kelvin for showing us around his place. On our way up to our respective floors by lift, we told each other how we enjoyed our unusual Thanksgiving. As I was living on the second floor, my roommate and I was the first one to exit the lift. After wishing them goodnight, I quickly pressed all the floor buttons before making a quick escape. The girls started screaming in anger but it was not long before the closing doors of the lift silenced them. My roommate complimented me with my fast move as we retire into our room.

Although we didn't have the opportunity to experience a real Thanksgiving dinner, our alternate plans yesterday turned out to be surprisingly fun. I really enjoyed myself that night with my Japanese and Hong Kee friends as they were so active and energetic which never made any second with them boring. Basically, that was one of my best nights in Kamloops for me