The last time we came together for a reunion, I was in my late 50’s…and this time around, I’m over 60 already…and I guess most, if not all of us, have “progressed” accordingly.
Previously, they used to have a gathering every four years but they said that we were all growing old and opportunities to meet like this would be getting fewer and fewer so it was unanimously agreed then that we would have one every two years. Well, at that previous gathering, I was “asked” to organise the next one – I was told that it would not be too difficult. I would just have to fix the date and venue and everything and announce to everyone in our yahoo group…and everyone would come running. Dream on! Only a few responded – the others did not make a sound.
I was waiting for the school’s old students’ association to fix the date for their annual dinner (usually around the Ching Ming Festival)and we could have ours the night before so that those coming home from afar – there were people home from Australia and New Zealand – would be able to attend both and at the same time, visit their ancestral tombs to pay their respects. So there we were – the 5th time since they started this thing – the reunion of the Class of 1969, Sacred Heart Secondary School, Sibu…and the Form 6 of 1971…
What I did not realise till much later was the fact that the date we had chosen happened to be Good Friday. That was why we arranged with the hotel people to have an almost meat-free menu as some/a few would be abstaining from meat.
There were these very nice salty-crusty prawns…
– so very fragrant with the garlic, Bombay onions, curry leaves and all. They were so nice that my daughter kept going back for more.
The sweet and sour fish fillet…
…was very good too – it could do with a little bit more tomato sauce, I thought but on the whole, it was fine. I am glad the fish fillet was not those frozen till bland and tasteless ones.
By special request, we had midin (wild jungle fern)…
– prepared in two different ways, one plain with garlic and the other with sambal belacan (dried fermented prawn paste). This disappeared in a matter of seconds, believe you me!
We also made sure that this was in the buffet spread – the cangkuk manis fried with egg…
…for the benefit of the deprived lot (from overseas, especially) who would not get to eat it unless they come back home to Sibu.
Other than the mixed vegetables…
…there was also the fried noodles…
…and of course, we insisted on there being no meat in it, and we asked for plain rice instead of fried rice for this same reason.
There was the Sarawak’s own daging masak hitam…
…for those who are not abstaining on this auspicious date in the Christian/Catholic calendar and for the chicken curry…
I asked that they put more potatoes in it.
All in all, everyone was delighted with the food and it was very reasonably -priced at RM20 per head for a minimum of 50 persons at the restaurant on the 1st Floor of this hotel here in Sibu…
Unfortunately, the response had not been very good and somebody proposed that other than the invited guests, family members coming along to the event wouldn’t have to pay as well so eventually, everyone had to fork out quite a bit – RM50 each to make up the minimum requirement.
I went to get a cake for the reunion that morning…
…but they would not accept last-minute orders for a large one so in the end, I bought two medium-sized ones instead and asked that they did the icing with the words that I wrote out nicely for them. Good grief! That looked horrendous and to think that I had to pay RM2 EACH for that! Tsk! Tsk! I could have designed something and printed it out on a colour printer to place on top of the cakes – I am sure that would look a whole lot nicer and more presentable.
Thankfully, the Japanese baked cotton cheese cake that I had picked was very nice…
…and everybody loved it and I guess that was what would matter most.
Well, it certainly was a delightful evening with all the nice food and cake and the company was great and everyone had fun singing…
…their hearts out…
…and there was dancing too…
It was just too bad that it being a long weekend plus it was during the school holidays, many had gone out of town so were not able to join the function. Hopefully, the next time around, in 2015, the response would be a lot better than this.
Well, a big thank you to all those who joined and came to make the evening a really successful and enjoyable one and thank you, Robert, for bringing one whole carton of wine – that certainly helped in no small measure to loosen everyone’s vocal chords so much so that they sang way past closing time. Luckily, the hotel people were nice enough to let us go on and on a while longer. LOL!!! See you all again in 2015 !
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 