砂漠のJeffire

Jeffirean Stories

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

this year's birthday celebrations were much simpler affairs which i felt pretty satisfied with. first up, my colleagues at red sand and i had steamboat together after work. the steamboat sucked but the company was fantastic. the second celebration was at chijmes harry's bar where i got to try some alcoholic drinks. woo, to think the whole thing wasn't that expensive after all, but i don't think i will go drinking often with this body of mine. the last celebration was more of a usual gathering but the manner of its procession was pretty enjoyable as well. let's get into more detail now then...

the steamboat was nearby our store at bugis village. the price was very cheap $12 per pax and we had one pax free with 9pax. the soup base was sucky, so was the accompanying dishes. i find that i have very different preferences from other people as in i tend to eat more fish stuff (fishball, fishcake, crabstick) while they eat more seafood. the steamboat didn't have any bbq plate on it, so the marinated meat didnt fit in well with the soup at all. the startling thing is that my staff rachel and the guys have a mad obsession with the golden needle mushrooms. they probably ate at least a kg of it in all. the fun part was the jokes we shared, particularly a rather crude one about usb cables and screen protectors... which i suppose can only be understood by gamesellers. hahaha. the presents i got included a watch, a set of pens, a cardholder and a belated ipod shuffle. i m very thankful for the ipod shuffle as it hits my wishlist.. the rest were just bonus stuff i guess. nonetheless i guess it will be difficult to gather everyone again for a meal... dun feel like having a meal with so many people actually. we eventually went home after 12mn and i took bus 80 and went home walking from sengkang.

the second celebration was quite dramatic as i originally set the venue at the LOOF but the guys who reached first felt it was inappropriate. when i got to chijmes harry's bar, i was pretty disappointed with its lack of air-conditioning because i was in a blazer and sweating profusely. but it was quite worthwhile because i think it was like once in a blue moon i wore something nice and presentable. we took alot of photos that night. they will probably post them on facebook when they have time. i didn't get any presents that night, but i tried a sip on different cocktails and even ordered a shooter and a cocktail for myself. it was fun and enjoyable to see my friends all happy and dressed up. in my email i actually stated there was a prize for the best dressed but in the end they wore more casual than i would have thought. no issues with that because still the girls were well dressed. i was quite surprised to see eileen in a short skirt... she is such a conservative dresser you know! lol. we went home about 11+pm and i bunked at pika's place because there wasn't anymore transport home.

the last gathering began quite late because i was quite busy. bro jinki wanted to go shopping in orchard in "smart casual" and "stylo milo" clothes. that made me spend an extra 20mins trying to find something that fitted the bill. to my horror, he actually only had intention to wear casual. while i was drenched in sweat, he was light and dry. we went to ION first, looking at what the shops are offering, starting from the top. the lift door opened despite the signage saying the lift was under maintenance, so we just took it as per normal. luckily nothing happened. saw many expensive shops that i will never step in, but jinki decided to walk into the designer furniture gallery XZQT (i think so) to try out their 5k sofas. since it was totally out of my range, so i had absolutely no interest in it at all. after that he told me he wanted to buy a book (or rather a set of books, TWILIGHT) so we went borders via the new underground pass. the pass lacked aircon and was crowded so that meant more sweat for me. we spent about 10mins in Borders and went off in disappointment as they didn't have the whole set. I suggested going to Kino instead and off we went. we passed by Pedro on the way and i could go in to see his recommendation on "comfy slippers". since he had already got me a present, i didn't want him to spend more money so i refused to pick one on the spot (even though he brought along his Pedro membership card deliberately, sorry bro) As for the book, it wasn't easy to find the book at all but i found the whole set on offer lying on the walls. it even came with a 20% discount so it was value for money, $59.xx for 4 Twilight books! after that it turns out he was buying it for a colleague whom he wanted to start some "fire" with. there's some story behind it but i m not going to tell you. thereafter he mentioned about buying some cream for that colleague again so i recommended going kiehls which has a long history and some good products. again he spent alot of $ again, so hopefully that girl likes the stuff he bought. after that we didn't have much time to shop anymore because the dinner was slated to be 630pm at old town cafe in toa payoh. we got there first earlier than everyone else. as i was very hungry we ordered drinks (white coffee) and toast. the toast was okie, while the coffee was quite good. after the guys came we ordered main courses and all of us had noodles. mine was ipoh hor fun which isn't anything like the usual one. nonetheless it was quite tasty compared to jinki and ah kai's curry noodles (too hot) and kevin's assam laksa (too sour for me). rebecca (ah kai's gf) had prawn noodles which grace recommended but she had some teeth removed for her braces insertion so she couldn't enjoy it much. after that we went to hunt for tiramisu ingredients as rebecca wanted to give her sis the ingredients as a present. didn't have any luck at phoon huat nor the fairprice in tpy so i suggested going to PS carrefour instead. got the stuff there and then we had another supper idea again which i was quite aghasted, though in the end i was the one suggesting the location. my idea was to have satay at jalan besar, but it turned out that the coffeeshop wasn't opened. even the scissors curry wasn't open so we had to settle for the ultra crowded swee choon. i wasn't very keen on it because the next day i had a date for dim sum with my brother so i only ordered a lotus leaf rice and a drink. they had too much again and we had to encourage one another to finish up. the chatting part was hilarious again (when's a day with ah kai not hilarious?) so overall it was quite a nice nightout with the guys. fortunately ah kai was willing to send us back so i got to go home at 1am.. phew. owe him a meal for that man. oh, about the presents, ah kai will get a pair of goggles for me and kevin will buy the "comfy slippers" so my wishlist is pretty covered well this year.

cheers to all~

Acknowledged my existence at
12:29 AM