School Reunion

I still keep in touch with several of my schoolmates from primary school. Amazing, non? Anyway, I'd only told two of them - Yi Wen and Ya Fang - that I was coming back, so they managed to organize a getogether of almost everyone who was in our core group. They hadn't told anyone else that I was back, keeping my appearance a surprise. Yi Wen came by to see me first; Shi Hua came by to pick us up. She was so surprised to see me that she was struck speechless. I sat in the back so that when we went by to pick up Ling Jun, she wouldn't see me in the front seat. When she scrambled into the backseat, it took her several seconds to recognize me; then she screamed her head off when she realised it was me. Haha.

About 15 or so people showed up at the restaurant and it was awesome seeing everyone again. I haven't seen most of them for over 7 years and a couple I hadn't seen in about 13 years. We haven't changed much, just hairstyles really, haha (most of us have longer hair now). A few of us have married - all guys - and two have kids. Only two of the couples were able to make it; one even brought their little girl to the teahouse later.


We sat upstairs in the restaurant, with me facing the stairs. When Ya Lan and Ya Ting (twin sisters) came up the stairs and saw me, they instantly recognized me and squealed. Hugs were all around when the girls arrived; the guys weren't as physical. They all nodded to me, saying things like, 'Hey, long time no see' and 'How you doin'?'. Typical of them. A couple of people left in the middle of dinner and a couple others came by to our numbers stayed pretty much the same.

After dinner, we headed to Mao Kong for tea. (Literally translated, Mao Kong says 'cat empty/space'. Weird, huh?) There are tons of teahouses up there. We got tea and just chatted. Someone went and got two decks of cards so we started two games of Big2. It's what we always play when someone busts out the cards. No one even had to ask what we were going to play (I didn't either!); we just automatically shuffed the cards, dealt them in fours and started playing. Some things really never change.

We stayed till about 1:30am. The restaurant (2 pages) and teahouse pictures I have were taken by my mates; I've somehow misplaced my camera *sob* and so am camera-less. It will be rectified as soon as possible. (You will notice a lot of 'peace' signs - or 'yay' signs as they call them here - which is very typical Asian. Don't ask because I don't know either.)

If ya want to read the captions in Chinese, my friend's got hers here. She named the album 'Jessie returns to Taiwan'.