Eventful start

Hogmanay at Ming's new flat.

Finished work at 3pm on Hogmanay, went home to rest and change before going out to meet Oswald for dinner at Rumours and movie at Cineworld. I had Lemongrass pork chops with rice for the first time. Was quite nice. Oz tried some and liked it too. Was good to catch up a bit but time was kinda short as we had to catch 'Australia' at 1900hrs. The film was a bit long really. I knew it would be more Pearl Harbour (love story) than Moulin Rouge (musical), but although the story was made interesting with history on the life of the aborigines in Australia during war times, it was just a bit too long. A big shout out to Yeun Wah (元華) for his comedic lines as Nicole Kidman's butler. He spoke Cantonese as well! Haha!

Dropped Oz off home, picked up Mel and Nicholas and a tv and went over to Ming's flat for the birthday surprise for Vic. There was no tv at the flat, so we looked at our mobile phones for the time to countdown. The fireworks we saw outside the window confirmed we had entered into 2009!! Yay!! After a moment of sharing our hopes and dreams for the year and praying for each other we headed home. In my car I took Mel, Nic, Vic, Roxane and Snoopy.





New Year's at Chung household.

James' family invited my family over for dinner at Kilmarnock. I met James' cousin Stephen who is a qualified and working driving instructor. Spoke to him about my career plans etc. He reckoned I should work as an independent driving school instead of taking a franchise. This would depend on the capital of course. We exchanged numbers and I will contact him to discuss more once I get this upcoming test out of the way. Dinner at pretty early at 4pm. There was sooo much food on the table I didn't know where to start and I definitely could not finish. There was entertainment in the forms of Nintendo DS, PS2 Singstar, playing cards, the internet, Chinese karaoke (adults only! lol!) and continous supply for food and drink: juice, pepsi, chocolates, Chinese cakes, noodles and not to forget Jessica's birthday cake which was huuuuge and very yummy! =9 I don't think I have continuously eaten so much in one day before. Haha! After eating noodles at 2300hrs I really had to call it a night and drove back to Glasgow as I had an early start the next day.

[p.s. mum sang karaoke for the first time EVER!! tonight. Teresa Teng's Moonlight Represents My Heart]


Friday 2nd Jan with Ming (annual leave)

Woke up at 8am and met up with Ming to hire a van from Enterprise at 9am. Would usually have been given a Ford Transit, but they didn't have any available at the time so they gave me a Vauxhall Vivaro, which was an automatic. Have never driven an automatic before. The thought of not really being in control of the car's speed and gears was a little daunting and exciting at the same time. However, a prayer before we set off was all that was needed to help me see the 'shift stick' had an A/M option, which I assumed allowed me to switch it to semi-manual. So instead of just using brake and gas all day I got to control the six gears (yes, SIX gears!!) by pushing the shift stick to + to go up a gear and - to go down a gear. Even tried out the full automatic function as well before handing the van back in the afternoon. So we covered quite a lot of Kilmarnock in our day out: Ming's house, Morrison's Comet, Curry's. Then over to IKEA, then Ming's flat to offload, then Comet in Parkhead area, pick up Nic, back to Ming's and then back to Enterprise by 2:30pm!

Headed straight to worship practice with Dilane and Kerry at 3pm. Felt quite tired by the end of the night. Went to bed hoping I would get Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 for my PS3 the next morning, as Royal Mail in Scotland were still on New Year's holiday...