Sunday, June 07, 2009

Belated Chang Festival Reunion Dinner

Our belated Chang Festival Reunion Dinner at Po-po's house last night turned out to be a 2-generation affair. This time around, we didn't have members of the 3rd generation around the dining table. Of course, many are overseas. Those in KK were either too busy in their work or caught up in the Church for the regular music practice or get-together or what have you.
Dumplings made by my wife in May 2024 for Dumpling Festival 2024 (Photos added on 01.07.2024)

Time is both our friend as well our enemy. The month of May can be remembered as a fairly sad month in that I attended two funerals and one wedding banquet in a period of three days. In one of the funerals, the eulogy was both a reflection of happy moments spent together and words of regrets. He wished he could have taken more time off to spend more time together with his loved ones than caught up with the ever unending cycle of work and routine. Of course as he said, that would not be possible now.

I always felt that attending funerals worth far more than listening to week-in and week-out of sermons. Funerals are moments of real people reflecting on impacts on lives, sacrifices made and inspirations of so called little and insignificant things by ordinary people.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Lock Out

I was locked out of my room last night. I only discovered I left my bunch of keys in my office after I came back from my usual badminton session.I called one of my staff and see whether he could go back to open the door for me to collect my keys. Somehow, he was too busy then and apologized for not being able to comply. That started me thinking of how to spend the night without access to my room to complete my routine.
Fortunately, I had numerous rooms to go to. I managed to find a bit of soap in Serene's room to have my bath. Fortunate to locate my underwear in the maid room's freshly dried laundry. A pair of short from Paul's room. For my teeth, I managed to find an old tooth brush in the study's pencil box (I could not figure out how it found its way there !). I had it washed and boiled. Tooth paste, not to worry. I discovered tea is good substitute. Spent the night in Paul's bed.

For my work attire this morning, I managed to find a long sleeve white shirt in Paul wardrobe. No hair spray, not to worry. I found moisturiser cream ( somehow a bottle was found outside my room) a good substitute for it. Tooth brush turned out to be a good "comb" substitute.

When I met up with a friend for morning tea break later in the morning. His observation was: " You look smart today!". " Well, that's with complement of my son!" Then I related my unusual experience to him. "No wonder you are unshaved this morning". That's is something I could not find as substitute to do the job!

Good survival experience!