Where the boys are…

I did my secondary school education in Sacred Heart Secondary Boys’ School here in Sibu up till Form 5 – many of my friends came from Sacred Heart English Primary or Sacred Heart Chinese but I was from St Mary’s, a co-ed primary school quite near my house then along Race Course Road (now Jalan Awang Ramli Amit). The girls would go to the sister-school, St Elizabeth’s Girls’ School after Primary 6 and many of the rest in that school would have come from St Rita’s Primary School, an all-girl school as well. In other words, there were/are no girls in my school until Form 6 when those who qualified/qualify would come over from St E and elsewhere. That explains why there were girls at our reunion in my previous two posts – those from Form 6, 1971.

Unfortunately, when we were organising the get-together, there was hardly any response from the ladies so we had to arrange a meeting with a few of them. They were not very happy with the date chosen as it was a public holiday/long weekend and it was also during the school holidays so most of them would be going away at the time. On the other hand, we were thinking that it was the weekend before Ching Ming so it would be a good opportunity for those living far away to come back to visit their ancestral tombs – thus killing two birds with one stone…or three, in fact, as they would also be able to attend the alumni’s annual reunion dinner that Saturday night.

Well, since that was how they felt, we just let it be and went ahead with our plans – with or without the girls…but we did manage to get together for breakfast a few mornings later after that very eventful and enjoyable weekend. Most of those from overseas and out of town had left by then and gone home – only two were still around but the girls came out in full force that morning or at least, there were more than the handful we had at our reunion gathering…

I do not know whose idea it was to meet at Chopsticks – normally I would go there for their very nice chicken rice and I had never tried any of the other things available from the stalls there.

I guess it did not matter much as they were quite happy, especially those home from abroad…

…as long as they could have a plate of kampua noodles to enjoy.

There was the kampua – pak (kampua…white)…

…the kampua pain nik (kampua with dumplings)…

…and the kampua pian nik puak lak (kampua with dumplings tossed in chili sauce)…

I also ordered the Sibu Foochow-style sio bee for everyone to try…

…but I would say that the ones there were not that great – I wouldn’t think I would want to order them again.

Somebody had the kueh chap…

…and it certainly looked pretty good and unfortunately, I did not manage to snap a good shot of the lor mee that somebody else had.

I ordered the bak kut teh noodles (RM5.50) for myself…

…and all I can say is that it was good enough, nothing to shout about and definitely not something that I would be rushing back for more – it was just all right. I think what I had here was a lot nicer despite the fact that there was very little meat in it and I had to wait a mighty long time for it to be served.

We were there that morning for a very very long time – some 2-3 hours. There was so much to catch up, so much to talk about…and soon it was time to call it a day and go our separate ways. All the best to everybody, thank you to all who came – it certainly was great and a whole lot of fun getting together again this way and we hope to meet again…sometime in 2015.