#ILOVEMYCELL reunion
Tuesday, July 2
I had a reunion dinner of sorts with my COOS cell group on Saturday. It was amazing how everything fell into place so quickly and so nicely, with Leanne jio-ing us on whatsapp on Thursday, and everyone pretty much confirming their availability within the hour! And so just like that, it was settled - dinner on Saturday night at Holland Village. And it was so so so enjoyable and natural, really just like old times!
So I arrived at the Holland Village Hawker Centre five minutes late, but still second to arrive, hohoho! Just a day prior, I had been totally adverse to the appointed meeting location and assumed dinner location (quote Leanne, "Hahaha I hear the horror in Clement's voice!"), but after my many meetups over dinners of late, I was more than glad for a chance to save some money.
So anyway, I sat there talking to the ever on-time Val, and the others came in quick succession - Joel with his recruit haircut (which is also his normal hairstyle anyway...), Andrea with her ever stoic expression, Jeremy with his new ridiculously overgrown hippy hair, Cephas shamelessly texting his cell leader to say he was ponning youth service, and finally Leanne who got lost in Holland V because she's an eastie, pffft! Somehow or another though, we ended up seated across two tables such that one was full of those still in COOS, and the other table with those who had left, hahaha! But after an unacclimatised Leanne (who had recently returned from London) insisted on an air-conditioned environment, we moved over to nydc, where Keith, Shums and Anna joined us after youth service, and Sarah after Baybeats.
We chatted and all exchanged stories of how we were doing in our various cell groups and churches and such. After all, we were now spread out across about 10 cell groups in 4 different churches now, so there was definitely lots to catch up on. Heh, I didn't even realise how dispersed we now are till I just counted it! It felt really good, you know, just having conversations with a nice mix of our usual humour among all the questions of genuine care and interest in our church and spiritual lives. Entertaining yet meaningful (: Leanne, who had recently fallen prey to the evil that is Instagram, also honoured #ILOVEMYCELL with her first ever picture on Instagram too! And while doing that, made her Instagram noob status very clear to the waitress... heh.
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| #ILOVEMYCELL giving our best 11B faces. |
We sat there for talking for a good three hours before deciding to take our leave. But as we reluctantly stepped outside, we all dawdled around, not really wanting to go off just yet. It was Shumei who spoke our minds and exclaimed, "I cannot go home now!!! The night is still young, we must do
something!" And just like that, we were having dessert! How ironic that we ate everything
except dessert in a restaurant called 'new york dessert cafe'... hahaha :P
We made the short walk over to Daily Scoop at Chip Bee Garden, but alas, just as we reached there, the workers turned off the lights to the shop! Disappointed, we turned back to find refuge in the Häagen-Dazs, but that was full! Finally, we went to our last resort: Xin Wang Cafe. But even that too was full! So after leaving our number with them in case a table was vacated, we went back out onto the streets like homeless hobos ):
But just as all hope was lost, a large group stepped out of Starbucks as we passed by. Like vultures swooping in for the scraps, we rushed in and conquered their table - inclusive of the empty cups to fake our right to stay there as paying customers, hohoho! Nobody wanted to buy anything though, because who on earth would drink coffee past 11pm at night??? Just as well though, because we were soon called and given a free table in Xin Wang Cafe. By this time, our strength had dwindled down to just 6 survivors.
Apparently, Xin Wang is more popular than I thought. Either that, or they're just incredibly inefficient with their service. Regardless, the waiters and waitresses were so busy scuttling around that it took us forever just to place our orders, and waiting for our desserts of shaved ice took so long that they must've been shaving the ice with a toothpick or something. We soon realized that the time for the last trains and buses were upon us, and had to frantically check our dying smartphones for those timings.
When finally the desserts came, a few seconds were spared for the obligatory Asian photo of the food, before everyone plunged their spoons into the huge towers of ice. I don't think I've ever gotten so many brain freezes in such a short span of time before, hahaha. Then Jeremy pestered the China woman for the bill as we downed our final scoops, and hurriedly dashed to our various bus stops in the nick of time. Hahaha, a super intense and memorable experience, really.
What an amazing group of friends (:
AMEN;
11:28 pm
