Sue's Party

The English-speaking group (mostly) - Steve, Dickie, me, Jon, Donald, Perry

Perry's friend, Sue, helped organize a dinner party on Saturday. It was out in Mississauga at someone's condo. They rented out the party room on the top floor.

There were two distinct groups in attendance. Ours was the English-speaking CBCers (for the most part). Sue's group was mostly people from China who spoke Mandarin. So there was an interesting dynamic to say the least.

Most of the music was in Chinese (except for when they played Gangnam Style, then it was in Korean). And when the organizers spoke it was in Mandarin as well. One of Perry's friends, Linda, translated a bit. There was a Karaoke machine. But, the interface was in Chinese. And I believe almost all of the songs were Chinese too.

Perry drove me with his friend, Linda, and her daughter. Dickie drove Big Jon, Donald and Steve. They came a bit late. We all waited for them before starting dinner. They were waiting for their Little Caesars pizza to be made. It was potluck.

There was quite an assortment of food for dinner. Of course there was the typical Chinese fare of rice and noodle dishes. Someone brought pasta, and Dickie's group bought pizza like I mentioned. I went to Metro and got an apple pie. That's what I usually bring to potluck dinners - pie.

After dinner they did some games. One was musical chairs. The rest were in Chinese. So we just watched.

Afterwards they played some music. Some of it was regular, uptempo music that you could dance to. But, it was in Chinese. Other times the fellow in charge of the music would play waltz or other ballroom dancing music. I guess some of them know how to dance to that sort of music. The sound system was awful I must say. It wasn't very clear and there was no treble (only bass for some reason).

Still, it was a good opportunity to meet some new people. I think that was the main objective for both groups.

Wedding Show

My friend Yonni was involved with The Ultimate Wedding Show last weekend. It was held at Living Arts Centre in Mississauga. It's close to Square One (which is where I parked for free).

I got there not long after 1:00. The fashion show that Yonni was in was supposed to start at 2:00. She was going to model some dresses along with a few other girls.

There weren't very many booths at the Living Arts Centre. I didn't actually look through them while I was waiting for the fashion show part to start.

Coincidentally one of my other friends, Cathy, was there too. Her mother does flower arrangements. She was helping at her booth. I was sitting on some stairs waiting for the fashion show to start when I looked over and saw her off in the distance.

When I went over Cathy mentioned she saw me sitting there and had waved her arms trying to catch my attention. She thought I was looking in her direction at one point, but when I didn't react she thought it wasn't me.

The fashion show was held in what I believed was a strange location–on the staircase leading up to the upper levels of the building. I thought to myself, this is a disaster waiting to happen. With all the young ladies in long dresses walking up and down the stairs... I just hoped there was an ambulance waiting nearby. Thankfully, for everyone, things went smoothly.

My job was to try to take a few pictures for Yonni. The organizer asked me if I could take shots for him as well when he saw me. So I did that too.

It was my first time shooting a "fashion show". I suppose some of the models weren't very experienced either. Quite a few of them zipped down and up the stairs barely stopping to let any of the photographers get any shots.

A couple of us went upstairs to take some posed shots afterward. That's what you see above–five of the 10 to 15 models who wanted some extra shots taken. That was a bit better for getting some decent pics. Good for me, good for them.