Today is the 15th and final day of Chinese New Year, and I thought it would be appropriate to share a soppy love song at church this morning, so two weeks ago I recruited Jono and phonetically taught him some Mandarin and today, with all our friends watching eagerly and the church congregation not knowing what to expect, the two of us sang Tong Hua.

So nervewracking. I actually stuffed up in the middle of the song but thank goodness I managed to hit the right note to keep going.

Anyway, last night we were at Arashi celebrating the "end of Chinese New Year" ¬_¬ and it was just great for everyone to get together and catch up over a nice meal and an awesome dessert.

Strawberry Fare has three new desserts on their menu! I wanted to try the Chocolate Bleeding Heart which was chocolate pudding with Baileys in the centre, but unfortunately they had run out so I tried the Lime Tart which was absolutely delicious. Beth tried the Flourless Cake, which was a gluten free chocolate cake with some berries, much like the Raspberry Drenched Cake.

We were approached by a lady from a nearby Hen's Night table who was seeking a random guy for the bride-to-be to kiss and Dave volunteered, with hilarious results. We continued to analyse Dave's love life using the wine bottles, wine glasses and salt and pepper shakers to illustrate various people.

Last weekend I was up in Auckland for Hsin-Yao's wedding, so it was really good catching up with all my school mates at the same time. I figured I would leave the people photos for someone else to handle (I'm looking at you, Mat) so all you will see on my blog are food photos. You'll also notice we went to Sylvia Park to kill time between the church service and the reception, and I stumbled upon EB's shelf of Rugby League 3 games! \o/

On Sunday, I randomly turned up at KCC and attended the young adults bible study, before having Chinese New Year dinner with family and friends, before an 11 hour bus back to Wellington...

It appears that overtime is slowly phasing out, so tentantive rejoicing. The game hasn't shipped yet because we're still waiting for some issues to be resolved on the publisher's side, so in the meantime, most of us are just sitting at work, testing and playing the game and fixing bugs as they come through.

Boooorrrrrrring.

Derek's last day at work was last Thursday, so we farewelled him with lunch at Viva Mexico, and then Friday Starcraft, Friday drinks (2 for 1 at Blend lol) and Karaoke at New Kor. While it was all really fun, I prefer my karaoke to be a bit more "structured" per say - I can sing, but I can't yell and it pretty much turned into an alcohol-fuelled yelling match. Which was not optimal, but hey, we had some good group singalongs with Eye of the Tiger, Bohemian Rhapsody and A Whole New World.

I was involved with the Youth Band at church last Sunday, where we led the service. They sound really good and just need some polish for perfection. I switched music teams, so this coming Sunday I'm on the piano again (for the third Sunday in a row). Not that I mind, I just lose that extra hour of sleep on Sunday mornings!

Oh yes, I'm also looking to go back to Malaysia over Christmas/New Year's because my grandparents are celebrating their 90th and 80th birthdays in January. It's going to be great, I haven't been back to Malaysia since the beginning of 2003, and I'm eagerly awaiting the chance to taste all the delicious food back home.

Speaking of food, thanks to no overtime, I've been able to cook for the first time in what seems like a month. On Saturday night I had steamed tofu, stir fried bak choy and carrots, and apricot chicken! And because I could, I bought some bacon and had that for lunch on Sunday. By bacon, I mean the deliciously crunchy kind, not the soggy types you get on burgers or whatever. Soooo good.

Mel organised lunch at Great India today, so Jono, Rosie and myself bundled into the car that Andrew had so kindly left for us and headed to Courtenay Place. As we were walking, we stumbled across something rather peculiar on the ground.

It was a small piece of purplish paper.

It was just sitting there invitingly.

I picked it up quickly. It was a $50 note. That pretty much paid for lunch for the 6 of us at Great India. And a delicious lunch it was too \o/

And then again, at Central this evening, we had a "light meal" to welcome our new pastor.

In other words, I had two very good meals, and didn't pay a cent for them.

That constitutes an awesome day in my books!

As I said earlier, I was on music again at Central Baptist yesterday. I arrived at 9am, as usual, and practiced the songs. All good, all well, seems the dynamics and the timing were all in shape.

We were stuck for an offering song, so I decided to play a song I'd never played at Central before.

It was quite possibly the most inappropriate song to play during an offertory.

It was certainly a song that smashed the boundaries of Central's realm of hymns and contemplative music.

Just as the offering was announced, I broke out the hugest grin ever. This is the most mischief you can have during a church service. When all was quiet, I took a quick breath... and started off with a piano slide into the jazzy Em7 and Amaj7 chords of My Redeemer Lives.

It was awesome. I had so much fun.

Anyway, after the service, we had lunch at Nando's, dessert at Kaffee Eis, and then I met Ray who had just arrived in Wellington for a three week work spell. We met Peter at Butlers on Willis for a quick drink, and made some dinner plans.

Raymond hadn't eaten anything all day, so he got a curry from Reading Cinemas, and I wasn't feeling that hungry so I got a banana-kiwifruit-orange-apple thing from the juice bar. But of course I felt hungry afterwards, so we skipped straight to dessert.



So good.

I'd been speaking to my parents on Tuesday night (as I always do) and one of the topics I brought up was the music at Central Baptist. I mentioned that the music was very conservative and not as lively or modern as Kelston, and that's something I lament. Songs like Be Unto Your Name, Majesty (Here I Am), Amazing Love, Complete, All the Earth, Who Am I... they're awesome songs and incredibly rich in both their message and their musical structure.

I felt a bit empty after playing on Sunday, because I wasn't enjoying myself as much as I did at Kelston. I was off beat and not enthusiastic. I miss being able to jam with Reuben, Matt, Cinta, Mary Ann, Sam, Ben (when he used to play), Steven and Andrew. Now that I think about it, I think it's because I felt restricted in what I can do because the lead singing isn't as strong as it could be, and as a result, I have to lead with precision in the melody.

Well, today was different.

I got a call on Tuesday night from one of the ladies at Central, asking if I could be the pianist for this Sunday as well. I said sure, why not. Practice was today at 6pm.

And what a practice it was. It was a joy being able to play some familiar songs like Jesus God's Righteousness Revealed, I Will Give Thanks to Thee, Great is Thy Faithfulness and Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart. It was awesome being able to play how I wanted to play...to wander with the notes and play different beats. The two lead singers have fantastic, powerful voices and they harmonise so well. It was really uplifting.

Church music for the win.

Well, not photos strictly from the weekend, but whatever.









So yeah, I had my first music practice at Central Baptist. It's quite different from KCC - we start at 9am on Sunday morning and finish just before 10am O_o which really puts on the pressure. I knew some of the songs and picked up others, and I was accompanied by a saxophone, an organ and a flute, so there was plenty to mask my mistakes. But it's a really nice piano, as you can see, and it's really great to be playing for church again.

Yum Char was pretty average. Yeah, what can I say? It was a bit more expensive, not very good variety (too much fried food), and the mango pudding tasted very artificial. We'll be sticking with Majestic...although Peter wants to go to Grand Century some time.