Never mind. Sunday School chairing & teaching went reasonably well. It was the first time I took the class (all kindergarden/pre-schoolers) since before Val’s wedding. The kids are so adorable. Ben in particular took to me – he kept hugging my leg just before I took the class trough the “musical chairs – didn’t know I could be a father figure ;) We got the SS kids to prepare some “arts & crafts” for Mothers Day next Sunday. Actually, my helpful assistant Man Lok took the class through the “arts & crafts”. The whole thing confirmed how hopeless I am with “arts & crafts” – I’m simply not an “artsy & craftsy” sort of person.
A few of us Clayers lunched together after church (as usual every Sunday), this time at Singapura in Milton. Food was nice – I ordered the char kway teow. Quite nice, although the portion is slightly smaller than what Malaya Corner serves. I wished I ordered the curry & rice with roti, but I overlooked this on the menu – a friend (Steve) did order this & he “rubbed me in” a bit (not sure accidental or deliberate?) for missing out by exclaiming how delicious the roti was. Hmmph, bah humbug. I did see the funny side, regardless. Oh well, at least I got a reason to come back to Singapura next time! For dessert, I ordered the ice kacang, as I almost always do when I dine at Singapura. Obviously, it’s more expensive compared to ice kacang in Malaysia. But me & my sweet tooth just couldn’t resist.
The ice kacang I ordered looked a bit like this - except that it had more evaporated milk & less brown sugar than this pic.
Then some of us headed off to CCCB Coopers Plains, where a ping pong workshop was held. I went there thinking there would be 1 or 2 tables available for “free-for-all” rallies so that I could play Winston, Ivan or Yuan. It turned out that there was a real workshop or clinic, held by Peng (my cousin-in-law). So ping pong was not what I expected, although it wasn’t bad. Towards the end, all 4 tables were open to all participants to have some rallies, whereby the winning participant advances to the next table & the losing participant remains at the same table. All participants had to make way after 3 mini-sets (win or lose), in order to give everyone a chance to take part.Ivan was funny – he was impressed by the ability of some of the kids & tried to get me to play against them, confident that I would lose, so that he can capture me losing to the kids on his camera & post the pictures on his blog. He wanted the headline “Dan loses ping pong to kids”. I responded by laughing him off & pretending to be cocky, saying there’s no need for me to play the kids as I won’t get any competition & I don’t want to scar them for life by thrashing them. And, I also reminded Ivan that I beat him the last time we played ping pong ;) Hehehehe…..
And then, some of us left Coopers Plains to head back to St Lucia, for the Missions Encouragement Meeting. This was MEM #3 – I missed #1 in Sep 06, but managed to attend #2 in Feb 07 where a few people shared on their overseas missions experiences (which I posted on). I thing MEM #3 was so good that it’s worth a separate post on its own! Refer next post. Anyway, MEM #3 completed a long Sunday for me.
Then, Monday after lunch (it was Labour Day public holiday), I went with Ivan & Maria to Winston’s place for poker (carpooled – left my car at New Farm). Steven & later Sean also came for the poker, so it’s 6 of us. We played 2 exciting games, even though my performances overall left a lot to be desired, & Winston seemed more gung-ho than usual with his betting. First game, I think, was won by Ivan, although Steve managed to push him really hard. Steve seems to have the gift of pulling himself from the brink of extinction, as he managed to win pots when betting his few remaining chips all-in. I fared little better in the second game, which was won by Maria from Sean. I did get myself into a reasonable position in that second game, where at one stage I had a full house & therefore was so confident of winning the pot that I bet a lot. Ivan pulled out 4 of a kind, so I lost that pot big time - & Ivan’s “I gotcha” smirk rubbed more salt into my wounds. From that point on, it was all downhill. What contributed to my demise was Steve baiting me to match his chips when he bet all-in, & I fell for it instead of folding. He won that pot, but had to leave so Winston took his place. Not too long after, I was eliminated. Surprisingly, Ivan ended up being eliminated at the same time as myself, despite winning that big pot with his 4 of a kind. Sean was a tad unsatisfied with Maria winning the second game. Hahaha. Ahhh, when is poker ever dull?? Even when I didn’t win. Sandra turned up just as we were finishing up with the poker, & unfortunately she & Sean could not join us for dinner.So it was Ivan, Maria, Winston & myself at Sunnybank Oriental to continue the good fellowship over dinner. I had the duck rice, which was tasty although, much to Ivan’s amusement, I indicated that I wished they served more duck meat. Then, we headed to Sean’s place where the others played chor dai di, while I simply watched them. I got home quite late (back to work tomorrow - ai yah), but it was all fun.
PS: Ivan, thanks for the "Clubbin' in the Millenium" CD.
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