The 5-hour Steamboat

I was woken up to the sounds of my mum’s hollering at my door at 8am, signifying an important event. It was Sin Chew Daily’s Scholarship Award presentation, so they’re making it official and stuff.

We reached at the daily’s building 30 minutes before the designated time, 10.30am. I was number 50, and already have a reserved seat with the rest of my fellow scholarship recipients. Two other dudes from Metropolitan (one from RMIT, the other from Curtin) were sitting on my right, chatting animatedly in Mandarin. >_>

After a very brief introduction, I sat around reading newspapers since I couldn’t understand anything they were saying completely. After the organiser announced something completely long in Mandarin, related to our ceremony, my dad had to tell me wtf he was talking and the two fellow Metro dudes must’ve overheard me, because Mr RMIT (I couldn’t catch his name; I naturally don’t remember names introduced >_>) started talking to me in perfectly fluent English which made me go ;_; in envy of his command of both languages.

Mr Curtin, I think his name was Alfred (both of them are in their first year), also had reasonably good English too. They asked if I’m English-educated, and to defend my banana-ness I told them I can speak a bit of Cantonese, before they overwhelm me with superb Canto. x___X

It’s like a banana in a sea of oranges.

Then, there were two very long speeches, one by some old dude of Sin Chew Daily, and the other a YB, a Deputy Minister of Higher Education if I’m not mistaken. Both speeches were in perfect Mandarin, followed by a brief coherent English summary for those who don’t understand Mandarin (yay >_>).

The only thing I could understand from their Mandarin texts were: xue sheng, Sin Chew Ri Bao, tong xue, hua ren, you get the drift. The YB was complimenting Sin Chew’s efforts for this particular scholarship to help hua ren, because the Malays had lots of help from the Government, like JPA, matriculation, etc, and we hua ren had nothing. Something like that lah. So this scholarship is to help poor and needy hua ren. Haha.

Anyhow, skipping all the award presentations and a group photo session where I don’t feel flattered at all squatting in front of the VIPs, we were treated to a simple lunch and we went back. I’ve a feeling I’d be meeting Mr Curtin soon, in July, after his term break.

At 5pm, Shawn picked Heng, me, Jess and Sarah to go to Yaw Fatt Steamboat (not sure of spelling) near Sunway, to celebrate Sarah’s birthday 2 days early. We had to be there at freaking 5pm (I found out much later) as torrents of people would be flooding the restaurant and you’ll have a hard time to find a place.

(Sorry, no pictures, wish I could post ‘em but it has been explained here, and they’re all in Sarah’s and RB’s camera.)

Bloody hell, can you imagine sitting on your arse there eating for FIVE freaking hours?? We first thought of waiting for the rest to arrive (which I found out, they were supposed to come after 7), but Jess was getting hungry, so we started off with light stuffs: fishballs, etcetc.

After about 6pm, especially even when a huge (and I do mean extremely huge) thunderstorm blasted Subang Jaya, there will be TONS of families queueing up wtf. We happily indulged in our food while laughing at them and taunted, “Nyahahahahaha no food for you nub” while we were happily in our own world.

Shawn was lecturing us on the Art of Buffet Steamboat: take only the expensive stuffs (no fishballs, no vegetables) like the mantis prawns.

The chicken wings the restaurant prepare were insanely popular that each time they finished cooking them and put it out on the buffet table, diners literally ran for it. Me included. >_> Jess and Sarah would shout in unison, “CHICKEN WINGS!!!” and I’d fly pass the tables obstructing my way and grab a ton of them.

Andy, RB, a girl I can’t remember her name from F6 Seafield, and Jon arrived at about 7.40pm, and Esther much later. We continued eating and talking (since it takes some time for the steamboat to boil, we used that interval for digesting) until.. 11pm plus, rofl.

I haven’t done such a feat of eating for 5 hours. I love how ice-cream was part of the buffet as well. :D And to think it’s only RM20 per head, if you’re willing to spend that long of a time eating to your heart’s content.

The guys went to the RM1.50 cybercafe after fetching the girls back in two separate cars, and Ding came to join us via Andy’s. Played CZ as usual till 1am plus. Not bad. :)