I went to Houston the past weekend. The reason for going was to go to the SPC swim meet, but an equally important purpose of being there, and actually, the only purpose of staying an extra night, was to see everyone (except Weikei?! and the people off at UT, of course) from Ascension Chinese Church there. And going to their English mass is a vital part of it. (I actually got the kneelers to work without any problem this time. I think the last ones I used were just messed up or something…)

Here’s a picture of me with Ivan.

I played pool (quite a bit, actually). Grace and I usually ended up falling behind by a lot, but in a couple cases we managed to pull a huge lead…

This is a group picture taken in their new storage attic thing. Unfortunately Perry always misses being in pictures, and this one was no exception. I look weird, but one thing I did do successfully was make myself look a little shorter than usual…

I got all these photos from Ivan’s flickr. Thanks!

I most certainly had a very, very good time. As proof, I’ve gotten a little sick; it’s something that happens when I have lots of fun.

Happy Chinese new year, xin nian kuai le, sun nin fai lok, gong xi fa cai, and gong hay fat choi to everyone! Hope everyone has some great food and happy-happy feelings.

Notes: I took the photo above at the imperial summer palace when I was in Beijing in the summer of 2004.

I visited Houston this past weekend.

I visited my cousin, had dim sum with Masaru (from TIP! whoo, more TIP reunions– maybe I’ll discuss this in greater detail at a later time), and had dinner with my mom’s friend.

Other than those things, I got to go to the Houston (Chinese Catholic) church! Mass was really cool, but… I couldn’t get the kneeler down when we were supposed to kneel, so I ended up kneeling on the floor, looking shorter than everyone. Anyway, the selection of music for their English mass was interesting, since the only songs I knew were the few instances of music from the Mass of Creation and the common chant melody for the Our Father. Great to see that they have a good amount of participation in their own music band/choir/orchestra thing.

Seeing them again (except for the people I hadn’t met before) has reinforced my idea that they’re all really nice, cool people (that’s right, Weikei). I mean, after mass, I was conscripted into their egg-smelling activities, although I ended up avoiding doing the smelling and just held the trash bag for smelly eggs. Haha, it was actually very funny. After messing around for some time in the cafeteria, the choir room, and the room with the ping pong and pool tables, I ended up going to eat lunch with everyone who hadn’t left yet. For example, Perry had to leave early (and so the badger-badger-badgering was shortlived). I don’t know where Janice went, but Cecilia did go to lunch with us. Good thing I showed up Labor Day weekend, too, or else I wouldn’t have seen either of them. =o Livia and Ariel were actually going to eat lunch with us, but they had to leave the restaurant (yes, after we were already seated) before they could order their food… Too bad some people had to leave before I did, and too bad I had to leave so early, but it was great seeing (almost?) all of them nonetheless.

Here are a couple of photos from lunch. Sorry to everyone who’s excluded from a picture in this post… These are just the two most comprehensive pictures I have. You may be asking “Where’s Weikei?” or “Where’s Cecil?” or “Where’s Joshua?” I have Weikei and Cecil in pictures, so don’t worry, and as for Joshua, he didn’t want to be in a picture (although I did blurrily get him with the camera!). The rest weren’t there– Livia and Ariel had already gone by the time I got my camera, and I don’t know where Ivan went.

Hope to see all of you soon, including the Houston Stephen who will hopefully be better by the next time!

(ps: needs more ccx)