As my Macroeconomics class ended at 1:20pm, I was relieved to know that I was done for the day and ready for a week of holidays. However, I did not retire to my apartment immediately after class as I promised my Hong Kong friend, Shelley that I would have lunch with her over at Tim Horton's at the campus's Old Main. The both of us shared a huge portion of chicken wrap for lunch and we chat about our plans for the break and what recently happened in university. Although we were both immersed into our friendly conversation, the both of us were still watchful for the time as Shelley had another class at 2:30pm and Yoshi was coming to my place later at 3pm. In the middle of our conversation, Yoshi bumped into us so he decided to say hi. After trading greetings to one another, Yoshi reminded me about our meeting at my place at 3pm and he asked us whether were we going for the Chinese New Year party that night. Yoshi was delighted as we told him that we would be attending the party as he knew that he will have some company for the party. Like him, we were also delighted the moment we knew he was going for the party that night as we always thought the more the merrier. Yoshi was in a hurry for something, so he decided to depart from our conversation. After wishing him good bye, we checked our watch and we knew it was time for the both of us to finish up as Shelley was about to have her class soon. Shortly after my lunch, I wished Shelley good bye and headed back for home.
Back at home, I decided to listen to some music while waiting for Yoshi as I recently purchased a set of Logitech speakers that came with a subwoofer. Knowing that my roommate was not around and most of the occupants in my apartment were away for the holidays, I decided to turn the music up to enjoy the maximum capabilities of my speakers. In the middle of my enjoyment, my phone rang; apparently it was already 3pm and Yoshi was waiting for me downstairs at my apartment's lobby. I ushered him to my room after signing him in at the front desk and we began our time together by watching the movies I brought back from Malaysia. Before we started, I gave Yoshi the liberty to choose which movies he wanted to view from the file of DVDs I brought. Knowing that it would be difficult for him to pick because he has never heard of most of the titles I have with me (...I guess my taste for movies are unpopular), I gave him a brief tour of every movies I had through the movie trailers on YouTube. It seemed Yoshi was mesmerized by the action in the trailer from one of the movies I have entitled Flashpoint. Since he was very interested in the movie, we began watching Flashpoint. After an hour and a half of mixed martial arts and gun fighting from the movie, we then decided to choose what will be our next movie for our following Friday (Yoshi and I always hang out together every Friday). We spent approximately an hour going through a bunch of movie trailers again on YouTube trying to decide which movie to watch for the following Friday. This time it was more difficult for Yoshi as he like every movie trailers he saw on YouTube thus making it difficult for him to decide. Knowing that it was difficult for him, I told him that it was okay for me to watch more than a movie for our following Friday; therefore, Yoshi's burden of deciding was gradually removed.
At 5:30pm sharp, Maaya, another Japanese friend of mine who was going for the Chinese New Year party reminded Yoshi and I to meet up at the lobby in a few minutes time. Consequently, we halted what we were doing and got ourselves ready for the party. Down at the lobby, we rendezvous with Maaya; she was slightly shocked to see the both of us in our casual outfit. Yoshi and I were completely clueless about the party's dress code as we weren't informed the moment we bought the tickets for the party. Seeing it was Maaya who was the only one who dressed slightly formal than the both of us, we somehow sensed that she was the one who misunderstood the party's dress code; consequently, we questioned her about her dress code which then made her nervous. She defended her claim saying that the party required a formal dress code when she managed to point out several students whom were smartly dressed and were going to the party; Yoshi and I both knew we were in deep trouble seeing that we were going to look awkward at the party with our casual outfit. It wasn't long before Shelley joined us; like us, she also wore casually which then confused the 3 of us even further regarding the party's dress code. Since the party was going to start in a few minutes time, we were too late to change into our formal wear, so we decided to just go with our formal outfit.
At the party's entrance, the 4 of us were waiting for Randy, our Taiwanese friend who was also going to join us. As he arrived at the party looking formal and smart like Maaya, we handed in our ticket to the party's doormen and looked for a table for ourselves. The 5 of us managed to find a table for ourselves only to be joined by a couple of husband and wife. The couples weren't exactly strangers, in fact I knew them at my recent Curling expedition. It was interesting to note that the husband is a Canadian while his wife is a Korean; consequently, I invited them to join us before I introduced them to my friends. The host of the party started off the Chinese New Year festival with a warm welcome and a brief information about the festival as there were also several non Chinese guests at the party. Dinner was shortly served in a buffet manner and it was surprisingly great considering the fact that some of my friends mentioned that the dinner at the previous Chinese New Year festival was horrible. Of course Chinese food was served given the theme of the festival and there were a variety of dishes featured on the metallic buffet trays. As the food was simply delicious, I could not help but to go for 2nd serving. Dinner did not end with just a main course but also a variety of mouth watering desserts ranging from creamy and sweet black forest cakes to lip smacking fruit tarts and ice creams. The awesome dinner wasn't the only feature of the Chinese New Year festival as there were several performances and games from the fellow Chinese students. Unlike the food, the performances weren't great and hardly got the attention of the guests; most of the guests especially the students (whom my friends and I were one of them) couldn't help but to laugh at the silliness and the dull performances. The magic performance weren't that spectacular as it only revolved around card tricks and the stand up comedy by one Chinese students weren't funny at all. Nevertheless, the performers should be credited as they tried their very best to entertained the guests at the festival. The climax of the party was the lucky draw that determined who would be the very lucky owner of the 80GB Play Station 3. The 5 of us vowed to each other that we would split the money after we sell the PS3...that is if any of us win the PS3; however, we weren't lucky as none of us were the winner. Seeing that we were only here for the PS3, we immediately left the party after realizing we didn't win the video game console.
As the night was still young and we were still feeling energetic, we forbid ourselves to call it a day. Instead, we all agreed to do something, yet we were clueless about what to do. It wouldn't be any surprise if we didn't know what to do next as there were nothing much to do over here in Kamloops. Maaya suggested that we go for a night of crazy dancing at Thirsty Dog (one of the few clubs in downtown), conversely I decided to pass that on as I never really like clubs. Randy then proposed the idea of visiting the karaoke for a little singing. Knowing that I hardly sang, I was a bit skeptical about visiting the karaoke lounge. On the other hand, seeing that there were no other place to have fun and visiting the karaoke was way better than visiting the dance club, I finally decided to follow the rest of them to the karaoke lounge. The 5 of us then took a cab to the Executive's Billiard, a snooker house which also facilitated karaoke services. Over there at the karaoke lounge, Randy started off with some songs from Jay Chou;he had a difficult time catching up with the words which amused everyone. After a couple of Jay Chou songs, Randy wanted to test our singing abilities, so he passed on the microphone to us. Yoshi and Maaya did a duet on a couple of Japanese songs which got our applause. Shelley and Maaya later on sang a couple of songs from Avril Lavigne and it forced the rest of us to laugh as they did not get the tune right most of the time. Knowing that I didn't sing yet, Yoshi passed me the microphone and cheered me to sing. I was reluctant to sing initially as I was afraid of making a fool out of myself; on the other hand, after realizing that everyone had already made a fool out of themselves, I decided to be sporting and join in the circle of fools. Besides, I wanted to know how horrible I was at singing, so I decided to give it a go. I sang a slow song from Eric Clapton and I tried Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word from Blue and Elton John. Like others, I sucked horribly at singing but I wasn't really embarrassed, instead I felt great as everyone cheered for me. As I spent more time singing, I finally realized that karaoke was so enjoyable. A hilarious moment during our visit from the karaoke lounge was the time when we boys (Randy, Yoshi and I) sang Don't cha from the Pussycat Dolls. The 3 of us managed to forced the girls to laugh their guts out with our out-of-tune singing and our erratic physical movement that accompanied our singing. What made them laugh the most was the 3 of us sang a song that were not meant to be sang by men. We even went to the extreme of singing Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out Of My Head which made us guys looked like a bunch of faggots; however, we really enjoyed ourselves at the karaoke lounge. We spent 3 hours over there at the lounge and by the time we were done, our throats were bloody sore due to the singing (...and also screaming) we did for the past 3 hours. As we ended our day at the lounge, it was already 2 in the morning, therefore we decided to call it a day and retire to our respective rooms.
The Chinese New Year dinner followed by our visit to the karaoke lounge was a great way to end our weekdays here and welcome the long awaited reading break here in Kamloops, Canada. Having the opportunity to attend the Chinese New Year dinner at my university really helped me to relieve the pain of missing Chinese New Year in my country. Moreover, the my visit to the karaoke lounge taught me a new way of enjoying myself over here in the dull and boring town of Kamloops. It was a shame that my roommate and Cindy did not joined us for both the fun and exciting occasion. Nevertheless, I am sure if all of us were to hang out and have fun together, it would be indeed more enjoyable.
(Top left to right): Yoshi and Randy. (Bottom left to right): Me, Shelley and Maaya. We were enjoying ourselves at the Chinese New Year festival.
Having fun at the karaoke lounge
That's me making a fool out of myself behind the microphone.
No comments:
Post a Comment