Happy Easter!

Nope, Ping don't officially celebrate Easter but being brought up in a multiracial country, we tend to participate in any celebration, curious to know the significance of a certain celebration, and of course, we enjoy the holiday along with it. Easter always falls on the first Sunday after full moon after March 21st - the Lunar calendar is not only a guide to the Chinese occasions - which is March 23rd this year since full moon is on March 22nd.

Ping's Easter weekend started out to be a pretty white weekend. Just as Lin Pei and Ping were already enjoying the Spring weather walking along Grand River Avenue drinking bubble tea on Wednesday evening, the weather decides that it is not done snowing yet. We got 3 inches of snow on Friday!! Yup!! It certainly is pretty but it did not last through the entire Saturday as most of it were gone by the time we went out for lunch. Went to Fazoli's for lunch - Italian fast food. That is one of Ping's favorite place too. Reasonable and portions are big enough that you can bring it home for another meal. Ping got the Chicken Parmesan oven-baked pasta this trip but another one of Ping's favorite is their Alfredo Fettucini..yummy!!

After lunch, Ping went home to bake chocolate cupcakes for the early dinner potluck at Jim and Karen's place (they are Gylin and Boon Keat's mentor from church). A bunch of us M'sians met up at their place and spent some time there 'socializing' before heading to Trinity church. That was where Ping learned about the significance of Easter day - to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ after his death on Good Friday. Right after the Easter service, we 'joined' the kids in egg hunting! Okay, so the egg is to symbolize rebirth but Easter bunnies - those are just Hallmark's attempt at making money. *bleh* At Jim and Karen's place, they gave out little ziplock bags of different colored Jelly Bellies and a little note that says:

The Jelly Bean Prayer
Red for the blood He gave,
Green for the grass He made,
Yellow is for the sun so bright,
Orange for the edge of night.

Black for the sins we made
White for the grace He gave,
Purple for the hour of sorrow,
Pink is for the new tomorrow.

Give a bag full of jelly beans,
Colorful and sweet,
Tell them it's a Prayer...
It's a promise...an Easter Treat!!

Isn't it sweet?

As 9pm approaches, we were all geared up to start cheering for Spartans in the NCAA games! Wait, Ping have to go start some cultures first. So Ping went back to lab but made it to Lin Pei's place for the 2nd half, which was the better part of the game and guess what! We're going for Sweet Sixteen!!!! Yippeeee!!! Go Neitzel!! He was totally high and confident in the last 10 minutes or so!!! Awesome game!!

Ping's day ended with a movie with TT, Jo, Fred and Tim at NCG watching The Shutter.
It is a ghost movie based on a Thai movie also with the name Shutter, with just a little different story-line. It was an okay movie, Ping was expecting it to be a little more 'geli' or 'mo kui chang' but there was only 2 main scene that got Ping almost jumping out the chair. Surprisingly, the main actor is Joshua Jackson from Dawson's Creek...just couldn't picture him in such movie. Haha...