Waterloo Festival July 16th 2005

This is long due but here we go:

Kiwanis Waterloo Dragonboat festival went down on July 16th 2005 and my team Swordfish, were preparing for it since it was deemed our last festival of the season. However, the the day rained out but that didn't stop us Swordfish from partying and celebrating the 'fake' end of the season. To summarize, here is my bullet point form summary:

• Friday night, had a quick practice drill at Waterloo Laurel Creek with the entire team. Most Toronto peeps came up to sleep over at our co-captain Ron's place that night.

• Post practice dinner at Ben Thanhs' prior to head-shaving ritual

• Went over to Ron's place and grabbed clippers to shave off heads of several male team members. Some wussssed out or avoided the ordeal weeks earlier... I had the most dramatic change with a long hair reverse mohawk. It was the funniest experience I've had for a while.

• Slept late : Race day happened the next day. Early morning stares and laugther from people at the festival and bystanders due to our strange looks. The day was great pitched a nice tarp thanks to James to avoid the down pour that day ( which was supposedly due to the tornado weather down south ). We got in at most one qualifying race and a 250m Iron Swordfish ( combined with Iron Dragons / Swordfish ) and pulled in decent time of 2:19 for the 500m qualifier. As for the 250m, we took 3rd place beating Who's your Daddy and PA Men in this Waterloo regatta.

• Day ended with the cancellation of the festival at around 3 ish. We all went back to shower and prepare for that night's after party. First headed out to East side Marios. Was very nice. Other people shaved off their hair already by then!!! EXCEPT FOR ME! I wore my reverse mohawk ( as you will see ) to East sides. It was great ... Comments, Glances, Props were given :)

• Went to LCBO to pick up loads of booze, got shakers and shot glasses. Went to Ron's place for the afterparty. A good bunch of people along with friends and roommates. Drinking, drinking games, mixing shots with Prae serving multiple rounds to people was definately fun. Getting drunk and doing 'PILE-ON' definately got people hyped up for Bomber. Before heading to bomber, our captains Dan and Ron gave us all small little gifts with significant meanings as a token of their appreciation for our efforts this season. We also chipped in money to buy our captain's gifts! :) I got some Foot powder WHICH I am using to match my B*Porn slippers
  

• Headed to bomber that night after the party at Ron's. Some people stayed back and slept but most went out to bomber to dance away the night while still buzzed. I wore my hair once again and got stares and laughter. Bumped into my roomate Ed and his first surprising shocking expression was priceless :). It was a long night of dancing and drinking till we left for Ron's place again.

• Somehow, Asian people in general would not be as extreme to get mohawks or something of that sort but people of other background (caucasian) are more use to it. Definately that day, I got lots of attention because of the hairdo. But more so, it was fun to do it for the team and to just do something wild and extreme from time to time for myself.

• Went back to Ron's, was so tired and drunk but stayed up to play MAFIA with those who were still up!

• After that night, it was the end of the season. But afterwards, the team built up even more fire to do more festivals including London ( August 20th ) and Stratford ( September 24th ). Somehow, the awesome fun we had thru Waterloo and the fact that we weren't able to show off our potential from hardwork we made in the period between Toronto and Waterloo, caused the team to want to do more to end the season off in a full regatta.

• I missed the last two practices however due to previously planned trips including guest paddling with PA to Montreal ( next post ) and camping with Team China ( the post after next ) !! But i'm excited to reunite this coming Saturday and will be hitting Wasaga with my fishies and doing a Cottage overnight stay 'Cottage Remix'.

Well that was one of the memorable weekends I've had this Summer. Spending time with Wakeen ( he lived at my house for the entire week working for clients up until race day ) as well as chilling with Swordfish crew, has made my Summer that much better. The next day some of us got together to have some Pho and said some parting goodbyes.

*Yawn* I need to use a blogging Client, this is too much hassle!!

Links :

Wakeen's Post