CNY Ball; Paintballing!!!
The Chinese New Year Ball went by with much fanfare. It wasn't the fanfare I was expecting though. Turns out (I found out later) the handling of the set-up and performance left much to be desired. I was supposed to be helping out in the organisation on the day, but the stupid Embedded assignment was taking so much time that I only went after I submitted it, 5 minutes late. I should have gone earlier. I made a promise to help, but in the end didn't have to do much. Well anyway I went home, bathed, changed, ate mi goreng, and then came back just after 7. The Malaysian dancers were there already and they asked me to help sort out the music for them to practise, which I thankfully did rather quickly. They had been waiting for a very long time (not something I knew at then though)..
They sold out on the occasion! All the tables were full, but the food didn't seem to be really enough. As the guests went to their seats, the person playing the piano (to create the mood for the dinner) suddeny disappeared, so we sent Ho Fung to plug the gap while we got hnim back. Haha I was so proud of him being able to just walk up, sit down, and start playing some pieces. Just a little hindsight here: maybe I should have gone further with my organ-learning before stopping all those years ago. Next up was the concert, which was preceded by a super-long lion dance performance, fully manned by caucasians. I think there's only one lion dance troupe in Leicester, and it's them. There was singing, dancing and musical performances. One of the highlights was the solo Indian dance titled "Laila Laila"... haha sounds like "Come, come"* in Chinese. How appropriate. Reaching out to the chinese. Next noteworthy was supposed to be the Tang brothers' performance. Ho Fung would accompany his elder brother, who sang Eason Chan's 黑夜不再来. But there was a microphone glitch and HF somehow misplayed the piece... He didn't look very happy right after concluding the performance. The next memorable item would be by one of my own people: Malaysian soc! They had 2 dances to present, but I hadn't seen their first dance before. And Joanne was turning the wrong way! Haha it is very rare not to find anything funny happening to her every so often! Pom was clicking my camera like mad (I was recording using HF's Nikon Coolpix) and soon there weren't many negatives left.
After the intermission, there would be a second chance for HF and his brother to perform their piece. Hence, HF went off to practise on the piano at Charles Wilson, and I reminded him to leave his handphone on ringing mode so I could call him back. However, as I half-expected, he did not and I had to go over to CW to get him. He wasn't on the 10th floor but on the 4th floor (I don't remember a music room there!) and we went straight to backstage, where the item preceding his was starting. Bang on time! So I missed the singing and the dumpling-wrapping (by caucasians!) games. The night was concluded by around half an hour of social dances, where the guests and performers etc!) would take the floor. I got Abigail to refresh my memory for the cha-cha too.. Which reminds me of ballroom dancing. Want to learn it, but I don't quite have time for proper learning, and it's quite expensive too. We sat around to chat and eat, while waiting for our dinner from Far East**, and finally cleared everything up around half two. By the time I slept, it was already around 3.30am, and I had to get up at 8.45 in the morning. For the whole week I'd only slept less than 6 hrs every day. Like last Sunday, I slept for 3.5 hours.
Saturday was meant to be a day of physical exertion. We met up at 8.30 and off we went for paintballing. It's a real-life shooting game, where little paintballs (manufactured in Canada) are used as bullets to shoot against your enemy team. Everyone had full overalls and a face mask. The ground was rather muddy, and I really rue not lying down since I wouldn't dirty my clothes anyway! The 1st 100 balls were free, but over the cours of the day I did purchase another 200 more. I found the games rather short, lie not much value for our money, and the paintball hits are painful. They leave a mark too on your skin hahaha. I didn't fully enjoy it, since it was rather new to me and it took some getting used to. But I'd definitely go for it again. At night, the whole gang of Malaysians were going for Nando's, but it clashed directly with badminton. I contemplated going for the makan-makan, but decided the club might need me as it was the first session of badminton at CW this semester. So in the end I went for badminton, and there were disappointingly few people. I should have joined them and get a good dinner. Anyhow, I had some chicken myself... oven-roasted wings with wantan mee and vegetables. But at 10pm.
*"来啦,来啦!"
** Chinese takeaway
They sold out on the occasion! All the tables were full, but the food didn't seem to be really enough. As the guests went to their seats, the person playing the piano (to create the mood for the dinner) suddeny disappeared, so we sent Ho Fung to plug the gap while we got hnim back. Haha I was so proud of him being able to just walk up, sit down, and start playing some pieces. Just a little hindsight here: maybe I should have gone further with my organ-learning before stopping all those years ago. Next up was the concert, which was preceded by a super-long lion dance performance, fully manned by caucasians. I think there's only one lion dance troupe in Leicester, and it's them. There was singing, dancing and musical performances. One of the highlights was the solo Indian dance titled "Laila Laila"... haha sounds like "Come, come"* in Chinese. How appropriate. Reaching out to the chinese. Next noteworthy was supposed to be the Tang brothers' performance. Ho Fung would accompany his elder brother, who sang Eason Chan's 黑夜不再来. But there was a microphone glitch and HF somehow misplayed the piece... He didn't look very happy right after concluding the performance. The next memorable item would be by one of my own people: Malaysian soc! They had 2 dances to present, but I hadn't seen their first dance before. And Joanne was turning the wrong way! Haha it is very rare not to find anything funny happening to her every so often! Pom was clicking my camera like mad (I was recording using HF's Nikon Coolpix) and soon there weren't many negatives left.
After the intermission, there would be a second chance for HF and his brother to perform their piece. Hence, HF went off to practise on the piano at Charles Wilson, and I reminded him to leave his handphone on ringing mode so I could call him back. However, as I half-expected, he did not and I had to go over to CW to get him. He wasn't on the 10th floor but on the 4th floor (I don't remember a music room there!) and we went straight to backstage, where the item preceding his was starting. Bang on time! So I missed the singing and the dumpling-wrapping (by caucasians!) games. The night was concluded by around half an hour of social dances, where the guests and performers etc!) would take the floor. I got Abigail to refresh my memory for the cha-cha too.. Which reminds me of ballroom dancing. Want to learn it, but I don't quite have time for proper learning, and it's quite expensive too. We sat around to chat and eat, while waiting for our dinner from Far East**, and finally cleared everything up around half two. By the time I slept, it was already around 3.30am, and I had to get up at 8.45 in the morning. For the whole week I'd only slept less than 6 hrs every day. Like last Sunday, I slept for 3.5 hours.
Saturday was meant to be a day of physical exertion. We met up at 8.30 and off we went for paintballing. It's a real-life shooting game, where little paintballs (manufactured in Canada) are used as bullets to shoot against your enemy team. Everyone had full overalls and a face mask. The ground was rather muddy, and I really rue not lying down since I wouldn't dirty my clothes anyway! The 1st 100 balls were free, but over the cours of the day I did purchase another 200 more. I found the games rather short, lie not much value for our money, and the paintball hits are painful. They leave a mark too on your skin hahaha. I didn't fully enjoy it, since it was rather new to me and it took some getting used to. But I'd definitely go for it again. At night, the whole gang of Malaysians were going for Nando's, but it clashed directly with badminton. I contemplated going for the makan-makan, but decided the club might need me as it was the first session of badminton at CW this semester. So in the end I went for badminton, and there were disappointingly few people. I should have joined them and get a good dinner. Anyhow, I had some chicken myself... oven-roasted wings with wantan mee and vegetables. But at 10pm.
*"来啦,来啦!"
** Chinese takeaway
posted by cheez~ at
1:57 pm
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