Karaoke Time!

This afternoon I caught the train with Andrew into the city to join a few others for some karaoke! It's been a while since I last caught a train and probably one of the first times I've used the new AT Hop Card!

The platform was actually a bit busy because school had finished, but fortunately there were seats for Andrew and me!

We got to the karaoke bar early and so we went in and got started before Tsun Hei and Stephanie arrived, and later Laura and John.

We all took turns singing songs. Most of them were Chinese songs.

There were actually some nice Chinese songs! I had to Sound Hound them so I could try find them when I got home.

I did try sing some Chinese songs, but I had to search up the pinyin for them!

John and I were the only two who couldn't read the Chinese, so we managed to get a few English songs in there too!

Indian for Dinner

After church my mum wanted to return to Spotlight AGAIN with some other mothers at church, and so Hamish and I went to the nearby McDonalds with Winston to pass the time away. It was also hot, so we thought it'd be a good idea to get something cool to drink. I have to say the frozen Sprite with a choice of different syrups was actually quite good!

An hour had passed and Spotlight closed, forcing our parents out. That's when we decided to all go out to dinner together. Nadine and Winston had seen a voucher on Groupon for Indian buffet at a restaurant nearby, so they rang to book a table and bought the voucher on the spot.

The rules of the voucher were that it included appetizers which we had to finish, and each of us could choose a main. If we wanted another one, we would have to finish everything before we could get the next one.

We all thought, oh yep that's cool we can do that! Let me tell you though it was a lot more difficult than it seemed!

The appetizers came on platters. Each were for two people, so we got four platters. There were kebabs, sausages and samosas which tasted really good.

We then had to choose which main we wanted to start off with. I originally chose lamb mince balls, but was asked if I could choose something else, so I chose one called the Special Curry. I can't quite remember what was in it, except lamb and chicken.

It was quite good. We got a basket of naan bread, and bowls of rice to add the curry to. While others at their meet first and were left with bowls of sauce, I added my sauce to the rice and ate that first so that I was left with the meat last.

Our mums didn't manage to finish their curry sauce, and so we thought we wouldn't be allowed seconds...even though we did feel quite full by then!

We asked the waiter who had been really nice all night if we could order seconds, and while initially pointing at our mums' curry bowls, told us not to worry and so we ordered two more mains.

We had run out of rice and so we ordered some more, and I had too much rice put on my bowl! I was so full! I managed to finish it all in the end though!

Overall it was a pretty good deal and a good meal, and we really enjoyed the service there! We usually go to Chinese places for dinner, so it was good to try something different. If you're looking for good service and good curry, check out Simply Spice Restaurant!

(http://youtu.be/1xtUlJFpQEE)

Happy Belated Birthday Hamish!

Yesterday was actually Hamish's birthday, but because I was working all day and Aonghas had to work in the evening, we didn't get a chance to celebrate it. Usually our family goes out for dinner to celebrate.

We decided to go out for dinner tonight, since Aonghas has finished his uni job for the year which means he didn't have to work tonight. We were originally going to pick Hamish up from work, then go our favourite Chinese restaurant in Mt Albert, but we were having trouble getting in touch with Hamish. He's been having problems with his phone lately with the battery dying prematurely.

We only just managed to spot him waiting outside his work and picked him up, but by then it was quite late, so we changed our plans and went back to Carls Jr out west for dinner.

This would be the first time our dad had gone to Carls Jr! The burger I ordered was MASSIVE! I was definitely full afterwards!

Anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAMISH!

(http://youtu.be/7PUK2SObfzI)

Let's Get Quizzical!!

Our friend Chen is quite into trivia and during his travels has attended some pub quizzes. He invited us to come along to one tonight with a few of his med school friends.

I've only ever attended one pub quiz before, and it was quite interesting.

For those of you who don't know what a pub quiz is, you form a team, and there is a quiz master who asks the questions. There are several rounds, with each consisting of general knowledge questions of a certain topic.

We got to 'The Dominion' first (a pub down...Dominion Road!), where we ordered some food and waited for Chen's friends.



With half the team consisting of med students, a pharmacist and a commerce student, it was decided the team name was Gram Positive (science people will know what that is!)



There were eight rounds in the pub quiz, with topics on music, movies, arts and literature, geography, pot luck, believe it or not, scandals and Great Scott! (about anything related to Scott!). Each round was worth ten points, and we could choose two rounds in which our points would be worth double.



There were some interesting questions, and we didn't do badly for our first time. We came around 14th or 15th...out of about 20 teams. We were up against teams with older people, as well as a few teams with many more people.

 

We'll have to see if this becomes a regular occurrence!

Happy (Early) Birthday Steven!

Tonight after uni my brothers joined some of the older guys from our church youth group for dinner at Hak Ka Hut Restaurant in Albany to celebrate Stephen's upcoming birthday!

We had a table at the back of the restaurant. Stephen's mum and sister were the only girls at the table. They did all the ordering, but that was fine because the food was quite nice!

We had some beans, fried to-fu, beef, fish...I'll let the photos do the talking!

Once we had finished eating, it was time to bring out the cake!

After all of us took heaps of photos of the cake, it was time to sing Happy Birthday to Stephen, and eat the cake! Let me tell you, it tasted good!

Stephen, Wei and Cham soon had to leave for a movie while the rest of us headed home. I have a presentation to prepare for tomorrow morning which I haven't...started....

Happy birthday once again, Stephen and thanks for inviting us to dinner!

Parents Dinner Together

Tonight our parents' church group had a potluck dinner

While the parents sat around talking, us younger people formed our own circle and had our conversation, getting to know our special friend Kathy a bit better!

Chinese New Year Get-Together

Tonight was the first official fellowship night for our Oddfellows youth group, and possibly the two other fellowships at our church. One is a Mandarin speaking high school/uni group, while the other is a Mandarin speaking group for working people.

Since Chinese New Year is coming, we had a combined pot luck dinner together before having a combined fellowship evening so we would be able to get to know people from other fellowships a bit better. Some people also brought some friends along which was cool too!

Our mum cooked chicken nuggets and some noodles for the dinner for us, but I accidentally dropped a few in the car park as I got out of the car! Woops...

There was quite a lot of food for dinner! As usual, we let the women eat first before us guys swarmed in.

I noticed that once again people were sitting with people from their own fellowship, instead of mixing with others! I guess it's just a habit, and you tend to stick to people you're most comfortable with. I admit I was guilty of that too. That's something we'll have to change!

After dinner we went into the auditorium for a bit of worship singing. Each fellowship was in charge of leading one song. Aonghas, Grace and I led 'Lord, I Lift Your Name on High' in between the two other fellowships' songs. We went over to Grace's house the night before to practise, just so we could get it right! We sung it once in Chinese, and then in English. Unfortunately the other fellowships only chose to sing in Chinese, so we had a little trouble singing along, but that's OK, we could hum!

After worship, each of our fellowships got into a line, numbered off into eight mixed groups and then went into the gym for the activity for the night. Each group was given a few random objects, a random setting, a couple random verbs and nouns and given about half an hour to plan a little skit incorporating all of those things.

Our group's setting was an earthquake, with our props being a badminton racquet, a hoola hoop, a teapot and a helmet, and our nouns and verbs being hat, blender, itch (is that a verb?) and punch.

We were quite stumped for a while! We were thinking of incorporating zombies, and then started thinking of doing a Twilight spoof, before settling on our final skit which was a bit random and didn't make much sense! All the other groups were practising hard out while we just sat there thinking!

It was eventually time for each group to present their skit in front of everyone. We had a skit on plane crash survivors stuck on a deserted island in search of toilet paper, a prince who wanted to buy chocolate for his princess, some girls who got chased by haunted trees, some school kids who were riding in a bus dying in a bus crash, and some queen having someone play a piano for her (I think that's what happened?).

As for our skit, it went something like this - we were all in a cooking class learning how to blend from our teacher (Dannie), when an earthquake hit. As we got up, checking that everyone else was OK, we started to get itchy. We all then started feeling like punching each other and we all died. Lemuel, the engineer (with his hat on) then came in to check on our house, found us all dead, and moved on.

And that was it for the night! We then had supper where I had some interesting discussions and a cup of water poured over my head. Good times.

Not a Goodbye, but a Cya Soon

Tonight we had a farewell dinner for John, our Sunday School teacher, as he returns to China later in the coming week. He has to return to China to work while his family remains in New Zealand. Hopefully he returns in a few months' time though!

We all went to Aunty Stephanie's (one of our former Sunday School teachers) house for a shared dinner. We usually have good get-togethers at her house! We were one of the last to arrive, as we had to drop Grace home, then take Cham and Andrew food shopping before the dinner, then pick our mum up from home.

We blessed the food before we all dug in. There was a lot of good food there, such as chicken wings, sushi, mini-spring rolls, dumplings and fried rice!

All us young people all ate together and caught up with one another. Aonghas tried drawing Leonie in some dress on his new phone.

After dinner, it was time for the speeches! We all gathered in the lounge, and us students were asked first to give speeches. Because I earlier complained to Jenny that she always sounded so smart and put us to shame (jokingly of course!), I was egged on to speak first! I thanked him for always teaching us new things, keeping on time, and being there for us. Others shared how John is a gentle giant, and incredibly patient, putting up with the long silences in our Sunday School class!

Angie and Jenny then presented John with a card and farewell present on behalf of us, which was a book and a little backpack for his kids!

Some of the others gave some speeches and Tim presented a present on behalf of the church (he is in charge of English Sunday School at our church!)

before we concluded by singing a song based on Psalms. Aunty Stephanie then asked if I wanted to sing a song! She mistakenly thought I wanted to sing a song! I was a little caught off-guard, and all I could think of was that we sing Amazing Grace, so that ended up being the last song we sung!

It was time for supper! Jenny had baked some muffins which were quite nice! She did spoil it a little by telling us she used a muffin mix! That's OK, it took nothing away from how good it tasted! There was also some nice mango ice-cream that Time had brought too.

People were soon leaving as it got later. We had church the next day after all! As we were about to leave, we discovered Angie had left her phone behind! I guess it was up to me to return it to her again!

It'll be sad seeing John leave. He was a great teacher, and always had something insightful to share with us. I really do hope he comes back sometime in the not too distant future! All the best, John, no matter where the future leads you!

A Dinner Catch-Up

Tonight Chen, Gwen and I caught up over dinner. It's the first time I've caught up with them in quite a while! 

We started off at this Japanese restaurant, which was quite nice. We just updated each other on what we were up to, as well as reminisce over past memories.

Soon it seemed as though the restaurant was about to close! We didn't feel full though, so we ended up finding ourselves at another restaurant, Carls Jr for our second dinner!

It was a good catch-up!

Flowers are Blossoming!

Church was quite busy today! I had to lead children's worship in the morning, and then after Sunday School and lunch, I had baptism class. I was meant to join the choir as well but it clashed with baptism class, so I guess I'll have to start next week!

After church today we went to Cornwall Park to check out the cherry blossoms.

The cherry blossoms turned out to be quite a popular tourist attraction! There were quite a few people taking photos, even a newly-wed couple having wedding photos taken there as well!

We also saw a few cows as well!

We decided to have dinner at a nearby restaurant. The last time we were here was after preparing for the church music conference. This time I decided to try a chicken cutlet with white sauce on spaghetti.

It was pretty good! I was starving at that moment, since I didn't have much to eat at church!

Another Night, Another Night Market

It was only a couple weeks ago we went to the Papakura Night Markets. This time, we went to the Glenfield Night Markets!

Originally it was looking like we wouldn't end up going, as Emily one of the women we were going to go with, just remembered she had a meeting till 7pm, but we then decided we'd just go after. It is a NIGHT market after all!

Next thing we knew, the sky opened up, and the thunder and lightning came along! We called the others and they were still going!

I decided to drive, as I thought I'd be able to get some wet weather driving experience. I ended up taking the wrong turn several times, but eventually we got there...even earlier than everyone else!

We had a little wander around, checking out the food stalls till the others showed up. I was starving by now!

One of the criticisms of our last Facebook Check-In at the Papakura Night Markets was that the photo did not match the status:

so we decided to go all out this time and actually PIG OUT!

We really wanted to try different food. Winston bought some Japanese balls (well they were ball shaped anyway!), while I went for these sticks that look like Chinese churro's! 

Nadine and Leonie bought actual churro's. I think Leonie's addicted to them now since going to the Papakura Night Markets! 

My mum also bought some squid.

Meanwhile, Joylynn really wanted candy floss. For $2, she got a great deal! She didn't actually manage to finish it all either!

After all the eating, we finally decided to have a look at the stalls. The girls bought some cellphone decorations, and then we bought some fruit drinks before it was time to leave as we had to get Joylynn home early!

I can proudly say I drove the family home without getting lost this time!

October Baby

Tonight a group of us from church met up to watch October Baby:

"A college freshman's world is rocked when she learns she is the adopted survivor of an attempted abortion."

This was the only screening in Auckland, and I think it was organised by Mana, a Christian book store. There were limited tickets and we got the last eight! Apparently there were only seven left, but the man at the store kindly gave up his ticket!

Winston and I quickly bought some popcorn at Countdown while waiting for the others. Wei hadn't arrived, so I gave him a call. He was still at home and thought the movie was next week!

While we were at Countdown looking for There were those Coke bottles with the custom names on them. There was a whole shelf of bottles with 'Raj' on it, with a few with 'Feng' and 'Sione'! Very multicultural!

When we got into the theatre, it was quite full, and we had to sit in third row from the front! It wasn't too bad though. I just slouched in my seat so I wouldn't get a sore neck! I admit it was a little hard to eat! Winston and I ended up being some of the messiest people in the theatre!

There were a few laugh-out-loud scenes, with some guy laughing randomly at some things!

At the end of the movie there was a round of applause before everyone started leaving. It did leave me rethinking my ambivalence towards the whole issue. I've never really thought much about the issue, but I think it's really time I formed a viewpoint on issues such as this!

We went across the carpark to Burger King afterwards for dinner. Wei and I split a dinner meal, which meant I got two burgers! I sure was full afterwards! I think I'll need to do extra exercise this week to burn all that fat off!