A Little Reunion

Last Friday I joined a small gathering of my Standard 6 classmates. Jessie had created an event page and Jackie invited the whole class but only nine of us turned up. It was okay. Jackie was saying how every reunion we have, we always see the same faces. At our reunion, there was Jessie, Jackie, Sureen, Stephanie, Seng Keat, Hon Keat, Vincent, Josh and me. We had dinner at Kitchen Creatures at Centerpoint. During the dinner we talked about all kinds of things (as usual I did mostly listening). There was some discussion about Jackie's engagement, we talked about our studies and a bunch of stuff; Clearly I cannot remember everything, it was an amalgamation of talk. After dinner we moved to McDonald's to continue our talk because the table at Kitchen Creatures was long, we couldn't talk to each other efficiently. At McDonald's Jackie got three round tables together so that we can sit in a circle. We basically did some catching up and idle chat. It was a good change of pace for me. My Standard 6 class reunions are so far the best reunions I've had. We get to talk to each other so easily despite not seeing each other for up to ten years. Why yes, it's been ten years already. I hope to see them again soon. The next time will be Jessie's Chinese New Year open house. Jackie was making sure we go for the open house before we dismissed the reunion. Haha.

A New Year, An Update From Last Year & This Year

It's been a long time since I last updated this blog simply because nothing interesting happened. Oh wait, Comic Fiesta happened, and I totally forgot to blog about it. Reason? I was too engrossed with stuff that I forgot. So here it is.

Starting off:

Comic Fiesta 2013
What happened this year? A lot of people were complaining about CF Volunteer's attitudes, crowds, queues, people who cut queues, special tag abuse and so on. As for me, I was completely oblivious to all that because I was at my booth 90% of the time, both days.

At first I thought I wasn't going to have a booth because all booths were already booked 8 minutes after the booking list was opened. But a month before CF, Wee informed me that he got a booth and was looking for people, that was absolutely great news because I got used to being at a booth at CF that I got scared from the thought of waiting in line to go in, also I often AGC events so much I don't know what to do besides looking at booths, stage performances, meet friends and get bored (fast). The only stuff I got to sell are the Pokeball badges I printed months ago, which I first sold at AniManGaki before.

On Day1, I met up with Ang Yu at the Kelana Jaya LRT station with my goods and we went to KLCC together. Kin Yen would be joining us later after his exam at college. For this year, I decided not to cosplay because, I was too lazy and it would be a hassle as I decided to stay at the booth. Along the way, Laura called me to check if I was at the event halls already or not, which was a surprise to me because Wee couldn't confirm who was sharing the booth besides the two of us. This got complicated when I found out that Baddie and Misaki didn't inform Wee properly that they were bringing their goods to sell as well. But that problem was relieved soon after.

Laura got me into the halls with the pass upon my arrival at the halls and we quickly set up our booth. Our right side neighbor were two friendly adults, Shirley and [I am bad at remembering names], from Indonesia. Because I set up on the left side of the booth I didn't talk to them that much, Laura and Wee chatted with them mostly.

Now this is where the fun part begins. I had advertised my Pokeball badges on Facebook before so a lot of people came looking forward to purchasing my badges. Before we even finished setting up, a Pokemon Club member from my college's Pokemon (unofficial) club from the Penang campus came to our booth. We chatted a little in the Facebook Group page before so she was aware of my badges and immediately bought a badge from me. My very first customer of the day. Yay!

Besides putting up my badges, I also put up a sign asking for an Iron Key from Pokemon Black 2 version and an offer to exchange DS friend codes to expand our Friend Safari in Pokemon X and Y versions. Overall, it was a success. A lot of friendly people came to exchange friend codes and bought my badges. A lot of friends came to see me too. Baddie and Misaki started to call them "JY's friend No.34590" and such. I appreciate it a lot, to all my friends who came to my booth to see and bought our stuff, thank you very much. The default Pokeball badge got sold out before Day1 art booth section came to a close. I had sets packed before so they became kinda limited. Despite missing breakfast and lunch and also missing out a lot of badges that I wanted to buy (they sold out so fast!), it was a great day. A lessons I learned, when you get pushed to your limit, when you are so hungry and tired, you start calling people by the wrong name.

I stayed over at Kin Yen's house that night and he introduced me to Murni, the mamak fusion I've always been hearing about. It was great.

On Day2, I went prepared. I bought bread and took them into the booth with me. I also got Kin Yen to help me buy some sushi. I went over to Meis' booth and collected the Pokemon t-shirts I ordered and bought a few badges. Then rest of the day was the same. Meeting a lot of people, sitting around, looking at cosplays. Loverin Tamburin was live on stage that day but unfortunately she's not so popular so there were not that many people watching her performance. I felt disappointed that I could not leave the booth because my badges were too difficult for Wee and the others to handle.

My Master Balls got sold out on this day. Some people I met from Day1 came back. One guy tried to give me the Iron Key but some how it failed to transfer over to me. I was very grateful and thanked him so much. I was so close to getting my full PokeDex.

On both days, I frequent my friends' booths, especially Snow and Loli and Meis. On Day1, Loli was cosplaying as Pearl Fey and she said she was disappointed that I was not cosplaying. Because last year I cosplayed as Phoenix Wright. I decided that I'll cosplay Hobo Wright this year, too many friends are asking me to do it and it sparked my interest.

Having a booth is the new thing I look forward to at ACG events. It's what keeps the experience fresh. I can't wait for the next event.

Steam, they make your wallets empty.
Christmas was around the corner and Steam started it's Holiday Sale and Dota2 introduced it's Frostivus 2013, Wraith Night. Now, the reason I forgot to post about Comic Fiesta is Wraith Night. In Wraith Night, you earn fragments after each successful round and you can redeem items with those fragments. Thing is, after winning a whole game, you only get 900 plus fragments, and the cheapest box you can redeem is 2250 fragments (uncommon), the other being 8000 fragments for a rare box. Together with usually Mal, Emma and Yati, we farmed and farmed fragments. Everyday was Wraith Night. I think the only time I didn't play was during Comic Fiesta and that one day when I was out.

While I'm at it, I spent a couple bucks buying games on Steam, since there's a sale, and my wallet had been crying. Throughout the whole sale, I got Skullgirls, Draw a Stickman: EPIC, Surgeon Simulator 2013, Viscera Cleanup Detail: Santa's Rampage, Audiosurf, Terraria, Super Hexagon, RUSH, EDGE, Mirror's Edge and the best of all, PAYDAY 2. I spent about 60+ bucks on these games. The most frustrating thing about the Steam Holiday Sale is the Flash Sales and Daily Deals they offer, those things suck. That day when I bought Surgeon Simulator 2013 at 50% off, it was on the Daily Deals, at 75% off, 5 hours after I bought it. Absolute bullshit.

It's Penang, again.
My family went back to Penang after Christmas to visit my grandparents like usual. It's the usual sit around at home passing the time, or going out to malls with grandparents and (I love this part) lots of food. This time round, we went sightseeing, the main target were the wall paintings. My mom wanted to see them all but because she always wastes time at one painting (two photos is not enough), my dad and I got impatient and we made a lot of noise about wanting to go back. My dad met one of his old school friends, his class monitor from secondary school, who is running a batik museum at the UNESCO World Heritage site. Along the rows of houses (empty or made into shops) at the site, my parents would point out the previous homes of their childhood friends. My dad knew the place better, he remembers the stationary shops his friends' parents ran, the places they would play at together and the food they'd go to eat after that. Now the place is bustling with tourists.

H---- New Year
We came back on the 31st early in the morning because my sister and I made plans to celebrate new year's with our friends. I was going to sleepover at Kar Loke's place. The plan was to go to his house at 6pm and spend time until the countdown. We had no plans to go to malls or something because I don't wanna get caught in the middle of a massive crowd. But my mom dragged me along to spend time before I go off with my friends, I was okay with that. I had lunch with my parents and my youngest sister (my younger sister went to see her friends already). We went to Daiso to took around and then disaster struck.

When my mom went to Tesco to get me Maxis top-ups. My youngest sister brought up that she wants to go out with her friends. She's been doing that pretty much the whole day but my mom is not letting her go because she's got no transport back home and also, my mom won't let her sleepover because school reopens the day after. My youngest sister got into a fit and started blabbing her mouth away, crying and being her annoying self. Our car was parked in Ikea so my mom had to go buy something for the free parking fee. I was very late already and we kept getting held back because of my youngest sister's ramblings. My parents were already on her bad side but she still kept whining and sobbing. As we left Ikea, my dad exploded and shouted at her in the car. This was the first time in my life I've seen my dad so angry before. I've done a lot of stupid things that got my dad angry at me but I've never made him this angry. But my oh my, my sister sure does not know the meaning of death. My sister continues to talk back at my parents and make bad remakes as my dad gets more and more furious. I transformed from being happy that my parents are finally scolding my youngest sister to fear of my dad's raging temper. When my dad dropped me off at Murni where my friends were already at, I was relieved that I got to get away from the amount of anger going on in the car. I could not imagine what happened after that. I didn't even dare to ask about what happened.

Quiet New Year, Barbecue Dinner
And so, I had dinner at Murni together with Yati, Josh, Kar Loke and Melvin. I told them about what happened, why I was late and stuff. We then left that topic out and had our dinner. To my surprise, Laura was at the restaurant too. I chatted with her a little, and she reminded me about a dinner she had arranged as a little gathering for our classmates. After dinner, together with the others we walked to Kar Loke's house. There we played games to pass the time. I couldn't join in Dota2 because my Mac does not have the specs to play it. We lazed around until we heard fireworks. We went out to try and see any fireworks but all we could see were the lights from the fireworks. Within the housing area, trees were blocking the sky so we went out, the fireworks were too far away so the short buildings were blocking the fireworks, much to our disappointment. We went back to the house and continued. After that Melvin and Josh went back home. I remembered a news report about some people planning to hold a riot to protest against the new tax policy and the increase in price of many items. I also heard that some malls did not have any firework display or lack of crowds. I guess it was quite the quiet New Year celebration this year.

So the next day, Kar Loke woke Yati and me up at 10.30am. Which is a bummer because we went to sleep at 4am. And I usually wake up at 12pm (2pm after I decide to sleep some more). We went out to Ikea to have breakfast and shop for our barbecue. Because Yati and I dilly-dallied, we were late for the Ikea breakfast so we ate at the cafe downstairs instead. After that we went to Tesco and then Centerpoint to get all the things we needed. Then we headed back to Kar Loke's house and spend time again. I lent Yati my 3DS to play Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies. I just passed the time playing Super Hexagon because that's the only game on Steam my Mac has space for to download.

Later in the afternoon, Josh and Melvin came. We then headed out to the barbecue pits and started to start the fire. The sky was dark and it drizzled a little (very little) but luckily it didn't rain. Yu Beng later came and we got a fire going. Chia Kuui later came with his plus-one and Luke came later. We had cocktails, bacon, button mushrooms, marshmallows, chicken patties (not a good idea) and popcorn. After the meal we went to Kar Loke's room and played Dota2 but hosting nine people with one internet connection failed to keep us in game. Luke, Kuui, Yu Beng, Josh and Melvin soon left. My parents couldn't get me home so I had to put another night at Kar Loke's place. Yati joined in now that he had a reason to stay longer, Ace Attorney.

After New Year Breakfast
The next morning, Kar Loke woke Yati and I up at 9.30am. We were gonna have breakfast with Yu Beng and Melvin. I wasn't sure where we were going so I just tagged along. But it turns out we were going to the SS15's famous pork noodle shop. I didn't really want to eat there but we were there already and I was hungry. I have to admit, the pork noodles there is good but the price just went up. If I knew we were gonna eat pork noodles I would have guided Yu Beng to the one at Kepong where I usually eat with my family. It's cheaper and the meat proportions are bigger there. Oh well. After breakfast Yu Beng dropped us back at Kar Loke's place. My dad later picked me up in the afternoon and we dropped Yati back home.

Hey Dinner!
I went for that dinner Laura invited me to. It was a small gathering for our classmates back in college. A small number of us turned up but it was good. There was Laura, Chia, Wee, Kai, KW, Ann Nee, Wilson, Sim Yen and me (duh). I went there early and had to pass the time. Where is a good place besides Popular? I didn't want to spend money at Starbucks or Chatime to use the internet so I went back to my roots. I looked around at the mystery, new arrivals, classics and thriller sections, at first trying to find any of Agatha Christie's works but to no avail. I then settled for the World War Z novel and read it away. After some time, Wee found me and he picked out a self-help book. After a bit some time, Laura contacted Wee and we went off to meet with her.

Everyone got together pretty fast (except Kai, he was stuck in a jam) and Laura urged us to decide on a place to eat, she asked, "Japanese (Sushi Zanmai) or Italian (Capricciosa)?" and we were to vote. It was a difficult decision for me, both sounded equally good so I was okay with either but Laura won't let me go with the flow, if I said anything, it would be Pasta Zanmai, which also a great choice to me. Still, Laura wanted me to pick one so I went with Italian. The final decision was Capricciosa. We took our time eating and chatting with each other. Like usual, I don't talk a lot so Kai blabbed his way at me. We stayed until closing time and we moved to some benches and chatted some more, a lot of random things. I like gatherings like this.

The Multiple of Eleven
So I turned 22. I initially had no plans whatsoever, I was gonna not celebrate my birthday but that felt too sad. I was also indecisive to whether celebrate with my school friends or my college friends. In the end I went with my school friends because most of my college buddies are already working. I got Yati, Josh, Kar Loke, Yu Beng, Kuui and Melvin, the usual, to have lunch. At first I wanted to eat at Chili's but the others had suggestions. After a visit to the ATM machine, I decided on Yati's suggestion, the new Shabu Ten restaurant and boy it was a good choice. Kuui was running late with his plus-one so we went ahead.

There was a grand opening discount and also because it's still new, there's no time limit. Yati's brother and father were there too. We sat at different tables obviously. The moment we sat down and our soup boiling, were dishing in plate after plate after plate of various meat, seafood and vegetables. After about two hours of continuous eating (Was it two hours? It felt like two hours.), Melvin was making a fuss about leaving already. I was a little disappointed because I wanted to eat some more. I didn't even get to take more than three cups of ice-cream! I forgot about the cake I planned to get from Secret Recipe because of the buffet.

With no idea what to do next, Melvin suggested we play Dota2. Honestly I was against the idea but I had nothing to do until my mom can fetch me. I would have sat at some place and quietly enjoy a drink but with so many people, I don't think everyone can sit still and just idle chat over a drink. After the discussion, Kar Loke dropped Kuui and me at Orange, a cybercafe Melvin said was good. The both of us ended up wasting our time and money (Kuui's money, he paid for me since it's my birthday) when Melvin can't join the game.

Putting the Dota Disaster out of the picture, I had a great birthday because buffet and birthday sounds really good together, and they rhyme!

So that's all. END