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!

Thai'ing Things Up

Tonight my high school friends and I (the ones who are still left in Auckland!) had a bit of a reunion/dinner together for the first time in a little while since Shen is back in Auckland to visit. He moved to Singapore last year to work.

We went to a Thai restaurant in Ponsonby, creatively named 'Thai Me Up'. I was last to arrive, since I only just finished work at 6pm and my mum wanted to drive me home from Albany first before taking me there! She doesn't trust me driving!

I ended up ordering a mixed entrée which had a spring roll, won-ton and this thing on a stick. It was quite yum, although I wish there was more! 

I also ordered this dish called the...something Jack (I can't quite remember now!). It had some chicken, vegetables and sauce, and my rice came in a nice heart shape! Some of the other guys got star-shaped rice, and Sarena got her rice in the shape or a person! 

We did a lot of catching up, and Claire's fiance Daniel joined us a little later on. I had a chat with him and got to know him a bit better! I admit it didn't get off to a good start when I wrongly asked him if he was in the police force! (I think I was thinking of someone else!)

 To end the dinner, Shen asked one of the ladies working at the restaurant to take a big group photo of us, but she didn't do such a great job, so he just had to do it himself!

Tonight was actually possibly the last time we were going to see Evan...for a while as he is leaving for Thailand in a few weeks time! Hopefully he won't be gone for good though!

We all said our goodbyes outside the restaurant when some of us guys decided to head over to Momo Tea. Shrikkanth joined us and we had a drink and talked about all those good old times Rutherford. I can't believe I had forgotten a lot of those funny moments! It was good reliving them with the guys!

Hopefully we all catch up again sometime!

Toni Turning Chinese

Tonight after work I met up with my high school friend Toni and a few others to farewell her, as she is leaving New Zealand for China next Monday to teach English over there!

I had some Burger King before I was going to meet them all at Shadows, the uni bar. As I was walking back up to uni though, I saw them walking down the road, and it turned out that Shadows was closed!

We all walked to some bar in Metro. When we got in and sat down, a staff member came over to tell us that they would be closing in 25 minutes! We would have to find somewhere else to go! There was only enough time for Evan, Toni's boyfriend and classmate, to have a game of pool!

Our third attempt to have a catch-up was at Father Ted's, an Irish pub. It was quite packed, probably because it was pub quiz night. We thought we might just enter a team! Our group was split into two, so all the high school friends of Toni's formed one group, along with a few others.

There were several sections to the pub quiz format. There was a section on movies/TV shows, sections 1 and 2 of Pot Luck, a page of logos we had to identify, and a section on music.

I have to admit I felt quite out of shape when hearing the questions and not being able to answer them! I was able to answer to a National Lampoon movie question, but for the rest of them we relied on Evan!

We got to the end of the questions, and handed them all in. We waited outside in the fresh air till an announcement was made on the winner of the pub quiz. We were expecting to come near the bottom, but as it turns out, we came second, only losing by ONE point! Maybe we should do this a bit more often!

Karaoke was just about to start, but it was getting late and I have work the next day, so I had to depart, but it was a good long-overdue catch-up with Toni and high school friends!

Hopefully Toni has a safe and life-changing experience in China! I'm sure she will gain so much out of it.

There goes another high school friend! Bye Toni!

Pizza!

Tonight we caught up with our old neighbour Phillip. It's the first time we've caught up with him since he got married. Instead of getting him to come over to our house, we asked if we could meet up with him, so we picked him up from his parents' house instead and we went off to fill the petrol.

From there, we didn't really know where we would go for dinner. La Porchetta just happened to be across the road, so we decided to go there! It's the first time I've been to the one in Henderson. I still remember when the building used to be occupied by Pizza Hut! Our family would go there once in a while when we were little kids! When we went in, I could remember where things used to be!

We didn't realise there would be a 15% surcharge because it's the Day-After-New-Year's-Day, and were considering leaving, but because none of us had been there before except for Aonghas, we decided we'd just try it.

It was quite busy tonight, something I didn't expect. Originally I was just going to order a medium-size pizza, but after Hamish chose a large size, I thought I might as well choose large as well! I got this pizza that has four different toppings.

The pizzas were quite good. Aonghas saw the waitress that he knows, and introduced her to us. She saw us and asked if we were the brothers people think are triplets! She reckoned Aonghas and I look similar, but not Hamish!

After dinner we went for a drive around the side streets before dropping Phillip off home and catching up with his brother Kenneth who decided not to join us!

Rugby Reunion

Tonight all of us that participated in the Rugby World Cup Opening Ceremony choir got back together for one last time to have a feed, perform and watch other groups perform, as well as just catch up with each other.

We arrived slightly late and so some performances had already started. Lucky we didn't miss the food though! We were all asked to bring some finger food initially, but then that got changed to bringing some 'food'!

The food though was quite good though, and there was plenty of it! The people sure are generous! There was deep-fried chicken, pizza, snack food, plenty of cake and other dessert!

After we got to the front of the line we decided to get two bowls of food, one with dinner and one with dessert just in case it took too long for us to get back to the front of the line again!

Once we got our food, the performances from different groups continued. Most of the different groups were from the various churches.

One of the church groups were really good, as they all sang quite passionately and in harmony. I can't quite remember which church they were from though!

There were a few speeches from our casting co-ordinator Desiree and Drew, one of the guys in charge of the whole opening ceremony. He made a few jokes about us not having to hear his voice in our ears again (we had to wear ear-pieces when we were out in the stadium on the night!).

For each of the choir leaders they would put on some music with the leader coming up to dance, and anyone else who wanted to could come up and dance with him. I'm not too sure if it's a traditional/cultural thing or not?

To finish off the night we all regrouped and sang our version of 'World in Union' for one last time, sounding as good as always!

It was a good way to end, and I'm sure going to miss our involvement in the Rugby World Cup!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b3CptNePB8)

Primary School Memories at a 21st

What a busy day it was for us! First it was the zoo, then we had a 21st birthday party in the evening! It was Danielle's 21st birthday. She was in Aonghas's year at primary school, so we've known her since waaaay back!

When we got there we didn't know too many people, but recognised a few such as our old deputy primary school Mr Wh...I mean Warren (by the end of the night he wanted us to call him by his first name!). We talked to him quite a bit tonight and he was quite open with us about his views on how the school ran!

We also caught up with a few old primary school friends we hadn't seen in a long time!

As we went up the stairs, we could hear classical music and initially thought it was a CD recording, but when we reached the venue, we discovered it was a string quartet featuring Danielle! They played some very lovely music!

There was plenty of food so we helped ourselves, before the speeches started.

Danielle's dad first gave a speech, reading out a poem he had read to her. This was followed by a speech given by her best primary school friend Katrina and a speech and song written and sung by her older sister Juanita.

They then played a little video they had put together for her, featuring various friends leaving messages for her. It was quite amusing!

They all shared stories and talked about how caring and friendly Danielle is, and I'd have to agree with them!

After the speeches, we returned to mixing and mingling before the birthday cake was brought out and we all sang Happy Birthday to her!

(http://youtu.be/9aC9rlNdEgI)

Supper was brought out, which included a lot of sweet and yummy food!

All the ex-Henderson Primary School gradually got together and we managed to get a group photo!

The night was soon over and while the weather wasn't great outside, the night inside was great!

Happy 21st Birthday Danielle!

What Reunion?

Today after music classes my brothers and I decided to visit our old high school Rutherford College to check out the 50th Reunion. While we couldn't afford to attend the Mix n' Mingle Evening last night or the Formal Dinner at Sky City later tonight, we thought maybe we could at least check out the school's open day. Or so we thought...

We were led to believe the school would be open during the day for visitors, but when we got there, the weather was bad. There were several empty tents in the carpark, and so we thought we'd check inside the hall. There was no one there!

The car park was full of cars, but we thought maybe that's due to Saturday sport. We had no idea if anything was meant to be taking place so we left not too long after arriving!

Later on we found out there was a football game taking place down in the gym to celebrate the 50th reunion...

Catching Up Like the Old Times

Today I caught up with one of my best friends Chen and his cousin Diane, who's also one of my best friends too! While I've seen Chen many times around campus this year, it's one of the few times I've caught up with Diane this year since she studies vet down in Palmerston North.

We first had lunch at Nando's. The chicken was quite nice! We ended up getting some fries along with it and Chen got some sort of orange powder stuff to sprinkle on them and they actually tasted quite nice! I can't remember what it's called so I'll have to ask Chen sometime!

After lunch, we went down the road to the bowling alley, where Aonghas (who just had a job interview at uni) and Hamish joined us. Now Diane is quite competitive and always likes to beat me, so I made a bet with her, that if I got a higher score than her she would have to change her Facebook status to whatever I wanted for three days, and vice versa if she won.

Before we started, we had to wait for one of the technicians to unclog the system as there were heaps of bowling balls stuck under the floor! I'm pretty sure he took out more then ten balls from under the floor!

I was doing pretty well in the first game, having knocked the most pins down for most of the game, before a few of the others crept up and overtook me towards the end of the game! I managed to beat Diane though which made it 1-0 to me!

In the second game I was doing poorly! That's how I usually am like. I either start off well and end up playing or poorly, or the other way around - play poorly and slowly improve! Diane was beating me for most of the game before I got a spare in the final couple bowls and overtook her!

This is the outcome:

It was a good catch-up and hopefully I see Diane again sometime!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlVz7G1BOrA)

Pre-Christmas/Post-Exam Dinner

My group of high school friends and I have sort of realised that catching up over dinner might be a good thing to do a bit more regularly, and so that's what we did again tonight! We decided to catch up over dinner at Da Vinci's Restaurant in the city.

I managed to convince my mum to let me drive to the city on my own, and you can tell by this blog post that I made it there and back safe and sound! I originally thought there would be parking right by the restaurant, but when I got there I couldn't find any so I had to drive around the place several times before I found a car park a few streets down!

I entered this restaurant that had a different name. I thought maybe this restaurant went by another name, so I asked if the restaurant was Da Vinci's, but it turned out that Da Vinci's was downstairs! 

I wandered down the driveway and spotted my friends through the window! 

There were only about eight of us, but that was all good! It was pretty cool catching up with a few of them who I hadn't talked to in quite a while!

As it was an Italian restaurant, I thought I'd try something different, and so I chose the Gnocchi Primavera, which tasted quite nice! It had some potato, salmon and some peas! I wish there was a lot more though, but then again these sorts of restaurants focus on quality rather than quantity right?

For dessert most of us decided to forgo the ice-cream and instead just have a drink. I tried a mochaccino which didn't have a heart in it :( but that's OK, it tasted good!

(Thanks Jane for this photo!)

I had to leave soon as my driving curfew (since I'm on a restricted license) was at 10pm. I can say I got home just after 10pm but didn't come across any police so that's a relief!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWHzz-jnTZ0)

Reunion with Japanese Food

Tonight I met up with some of my high school friends for dinner at Moto Japanese Restaurant, which was probably the first time I had seen some of them since Jane's 21st or my 21st birthday!

I drove myself there, but missed the turn-off when I drove past the first time so I went around the second time. I almost missed it the second time as well but did a U-turn!

I was one of the last to arrive but that was OK! It was really good to see everyone again! We all ordered our food. Some of us ordered an entrée's and a main, while some ordered the large Japanese meal box. I ordered some mini won tons as my entrée and Teriyaki chicken. It was funny when Evan told the lady from the restaurant that he didn't want the sashimi. She first asked if there was something wrong before taking back and if he wanted it cooked. Later on she asked him if he preferred a different type of fish. I think she might've been a little hurt!

We updated each other on what was going on with our lives, and talked about what was happening with some others in our year - who was getting married, who was getting pregnant, who came out of the closet...It's amazing how much we've all grown up!

We left just in time for me to drive home (I'm still on a restricted license!), but I can't wait for our next catch-up!

See all in the City

After enduring two really boring lectures in the morning, I wandered back to the city to today to have lunch with my friend Angie when she had her break.
 
After spending some time sleeping/studying at the public library, I went to the Quad at city campus to find bright lights, television cameras and some people sitting in front of a background preparing to film some TV show! I also saw some well-known television journalists like TVNZ's Cameron Bennett sitting nearby with some of his colleagues! I finally figured out that the show was for Maori Television.

Now to try get my five seconds of fame! There was a gap between some of the background panels, so I walked by behind them and stood there between the gap for a few seconds before carrying on!

I met up with Angie outside the library and we went to the cafeteria where I bought these potato wedges that she had told me about earlier in the year. I thought maybe I should try them out! They weren't cooked yet so we had to wait for a while, but once they were done we went upstairs to have our lunch (behind the panels for another shot on TV!).

What was amazing was on the way there, I bumped into three of my high school friends, Shen, Larry and Amy! That is why I wish I spent more time at the city campus! You don't have to walk far to catch up with your friends!

We just talked and ate for a while before I walked her down to her locker and parted ways as she went off to class. I still had some of my wedges that I hadn't finished, so I just sat outside the library finishing them when I caught up with Sarena and John, two other high school friends! What a great day for catching up with old high school friends!

I really had nothing else to do, as I had only stayed at uni to catch up with Angie, so I went to the bus stop to try catch the next bus. That's when I saw that guy...Matt Gibb I think (??) from Studio 2 filming some segment where he dresses up with a giant mustache and interviews people on the street! I overheard him talking about embarrassing moments, so I started to wonder...what would I say if he asked me what my most embarrassing moment was? Could this be my five seconds of fame?

Sadly....no. My bus came, he hadn't interviewed anyone yet and I couldn't be bothered trying to look vulnerable in order to lure him to me!

Now I just have to try find out which Maori TV show was being filmed on campus today, and look for myself in the background!

Muir Family Reunion

After the Chinese New Year Festival yesterday we quickly rushed home to prepare for the Muir Family Reunion. The Muirs are from my nana's side of the family. Most of the Muirs who attended yesterday had travelled from Australia, Tauranga, Waihi, and various other places. I couldn't recognise anyone, but a few commented on how the last time they saw us, we were this tiny!

Photos of the reunion will be made available on the Andersons website once it has been put up (still working on it but it will be finished soon!).

We all had dinner and dessert together and shared stories and had conversations with each other. John Muir's (my dad's cousin) wife told us that she loved our curly hair which was quite fascinating! We've always hated our curly hair and Aonghas has even wished he had a hair straightener, but now that most people have said that they love the curls, he's most likely going to stick with them. My hair isn't as curly as his and so I look more of a mess.

Just before everyone left, we all got together for a group photo and Hamish, Aonghas and I performed as a trio on the accordion for them.

At the end of the day it was a great experience catching up with long lost (well not really lost) relatives whom I honestly knew little about!