My Birthday celebrations :)

At around 12.15pm, I adjourned to Canara Place to meet Aili, who was going to bring me to a western restaurant, called Goldberg in Newcastle East for my birthday celebration. We took the bus service, 101 over there. I finally got to know the location of the nearest bus stop from Faulkner Crescent. It is actually a stone's throw away from Aili's place and near the University of Newcastle's stone logo. Melissa and Eva boarded the bus when it passed by International House, their on-campus hostel. Had an informative and interesting chat with Melissa on the bus, she has a wide knowledge about contact lenses, for she wears them almost all the time. Most importantly, she has a really friendly and cheery disposition that brightens up one's day. Felt really at ease talking to her, for like Rachel, we share a common 1st mother tongue.

The bus journey was around 20 minutes, but we had to walk a distance before reaching our destination. Coincidentally, Darby Raj is in the vicinity of Goldberg. The restaurant exudes a rustic charm but was rather crowded nevertheless. I particularly liked the chandelier that was hanging directly above our table. There is a free flow of plain water, but we had to get it ourselves. The water dispenser reminded me of the water cooler in school. Aili ordered a plate of calamari to be shared among us, and I ordered a blt ( bread, lettuce and tomato ) hamburger. The rest of my friends requested for different flavours of pasta instead. I am a die hard fan of seafood, so I ate several of the calamari rings. However, I nearly choked on a cuttlefish shred which was very long and I couldn't bite it into shorter pieces. During the entire lunch time, the mood was exuberant for the 3 girls kept cracking jokes and gossiping about any random issues that struck their minds. The contents of the conversations really deserve a good, hearty laugh from me. Snapped pictures with the 3 girls, using Aili's camera. Thankfully, I did not look too ugly in the photos, probably because of my natural smile and my cheek muscles did not go into uncontrollable spasms this time around. Received a hand made birthday card from Aili which was simple, yet lovely. Melissa and Eva penned their well wishes in it too. Was touched beyond words by the effort she took to make the card and fork out time to celebrate my birthday despite having only slept a few hours the night before.

After lunch, we headed to Asia Grocery by bus. We did not need to pay for the bus fare since the area which we were in is a free bus zone. Melissa had wanted to buy some pandan leaves to cook nasi lemak. She has a penchant for cooking and likes to experiment with novel combinations of various food. Asia Grocery has a wide range of frozen food, including mock meat which are suitable for vegetarians and vegans. It even sells crockery,seasonings and sauces However, the prices are exorbitant. The packet of frozen mock chicken which I purchased cost $8.80. Just hope that its taste is good enough to make my money worthwhile. After grocery shopping, all of us headed back home. At the later part of the day, I smsed Aili, Melissa and Eva to thank them for the lunch treat and the warm company.

At around 8 pm, the party of 4, Bowie, Jeannie, Oi Yin and Weifun knocked on my door. When I stepped out my room, they spontaneously sang me a birthday song. On Huifang's hand was a lovely chocolate cake with 2 candles in shape of the number "2'' on them. Made a wish and blew out the candles. Bowie handed me a birthday card and we proceeded on to the cake cutting session. Took a few photos with all my friends, and Hongjun was the cameraman again. Offered a piece of my birthday cake to Wilson too, who also wished me Happy Birthday. I really liked the rich chocolatey flavour of the cake, which was sprinkled with pink and red strawberry shaped bits of chocolate. Bowie and her friends had chosen this cake from Michelle's and it was a good alternative to my favourite cheese cake. I particularly liked the colourful balloons which were stuck onto the cake. Therefore, I have washed them and will keep it as a souvenir. Same goes for the candles. On top of the cake, they ordered 3 big pieces of Dominos pizza and bottles of soft drinks as well. I had a lion's share of the cake for it was my special day :P. Plus two slices of pizza which were bursting with meat flavour.

We watched a reality TV programme which showcases the atrociously poor hygiene standards of certain restaurants in USA. One chef returned a piece of food back to the fryer although it was dropped onto the grimy kitchen floor before. When the host questioned the chef about it, the latter said that it was all right, for the high temperatures of the sizzling oil will sterilize that piece of contaminated food. Theoretically, it might sound correct. But in actual fact, would anyone dare to eat food that has fallen onto that germ infested floor? After watching several of such scenes, one might possibly develop a phobia for outside food for at least a period of time. However, I will still choose to give the food and beverage industry the benefit of the doubt, unless I get food poisoning. *touchwood*

Introduced the game "99'' to my friends and we played it for one round. The losers had to drink a icky mixture of soft drink and salt water. Aaron was the ultimate winner of the game. "99'' is really fun, for you get to sabotage your friends into losing the game with the several power cards you may have in hand and watching the stunned expressions and looks of mock annoyance on their faces. Must really thank Kuan Huey for introducing such an exciting game to me. Played heart attack next. And poor Oiyin had to bear the "humiliation'' of losing the game terribly because of her relatively slow hand motions. Nevertheless, we all had great fun laughing and teasing one another. The final instalment for my birthday celebration was the Truth and Dare session. As usual, the guys were coy about answering private questions and awkward about having to pose questions. Jeannie asked me 2 questions which were really liberal and private, but I answered them truthfully nevertheless. Afterall, I trust that my 9 friends are nice and trustworthy people. Bowie and her friends went home at a few minutes past midnight. Aaron drove them back because it was raining outside.

My birthday this year was definitely the most unique one ever, celebrating it with not so familiar "people'' but yet I still managed to have fun overall. It is beyond my scope of vocabulary to describe my exact feelings during the celebrations yesterday. But in a nutshell, I felt really grateful to have lukewarm friends who invested in time and money to make a heartwarming difference in my life on this very special day :) Considering the fact that I am still a very new friend in their eyes.