I love to find every available reasons to celebrate this beautiful life, and what is the better excuse than my own birthday??
This year, I started early.
On the 31st October, instead of celebrating crazy Halloween, I invited 3 friends who share the same "birthweek" with me to my house for a self-celebration-birthday-breakfast-party in my garden. It's bliss to have my mum's fresh-from-the-oven-scones and cheesecake for breakfast, followed by "loh mee" for lunch.
We had great chat, laughter and tears. We shared secrets in the nice cool breeze.....
On the first day of my birthday month, En En and I persuaded mum to have early dinner. Why?? Because both of us want to make good use of my
Haagen-Dazs Birthday Month 20% Discount Voucher. We can never resist ice-cream! We drove straight to Auto-City right after dinner. Despite heavy rain, taking home 4 pints of ice-cream is pure satisfying :-)
To make full use of Deepavali holiday, my colleagues had planned for birthday BBQ party for November "birthdayers", and of course, we invited Sasi too, since his birthday fall on Halloween. Thanks to James and his mum, we had great variety of extremely delicious food, and of course, great fun too! To our surprise, we can have the panoramic view of Kulim at Jame's house. When the clock strike 12am, Deepavali is officially announced with unstoppable fireworks!
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| Birthday present from Wah Chan |
Wei Wei, En, Ah Chi, Ah Yuan and Ah Yao accompanied me to watch Megamind for my birthday-eve-celebration. As usual, we bombarded the cinema with our uncontrollable-unstoppable-laugh. After the movie, I collected my birthday present from Wah Chan.
(OK, I think I really owe them an free advertisement: I bought a platinum necklace for Wei Wei as her graduation present a few years back. Ever since then, every year, I'll receive an absolutely free birthday present from them. Really, no purchase required! From time to time, I'll receive cards/sms regarding the members' day special. Of course, if you plan to buy some gold or real jewelries, they will give members some 50%~70% discount. However, for non-jewellery lovers like me, you can always go for free gifts, free Starbucks coffee and free sandwiches. I've had a lot of free stuffs at Gurney Plaza Wah Chan for these few years.)
I went for meeting / training as usual, and had another round of birthday cake cutting and birthday song singing session on my birthday-eve. It's a simple celebration but it's sweet to have a group of highly-motivated-positive-thinking-enthusiasts around, singing super high pitch "恭祝你福寿与天齐......"
After the meeting, after our usual post-meeting drinking session, finally, we headed to
Uncle Zack by the beach at Parkroyal Hotel.
Wei promised that I can "thong" her on my birthday (and I'm kind enough to remind her to set a budget for me before I decide where to go). With her budget, there are lots and lots of choices in Penang. However, with my new Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G (oh, yes, I do buy birthday present for myself every year), I am dying to test the lens. Uncle Zack definitely is the best choice -- good food at beachfront of Batu Ferringgi. Unfortunately, it changed from drizzling to raining by the time we reached Uncle Zack's. We have no choice but to move to Cool Banana. There's no sunset or romantic candle-light dinner photos to share here but at least I still have the food shots to show off :)
On the actual day of my birthday (finally!), we had breakfast in the garden (yes, AGAIN!). Wei made me a cup of latte to go with the mango cheese cake that mum made a day earlier. Not only that, mum also made "Chai Tou Kuih" (raddish cake) and "Gu Chai Deh" (leek pancake). I can't resist so I end up had breakfast and lunch in one meal.
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| Latte |
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| My favorite - Gu Chai Deh |
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| Mango Cheesecake |
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| Chai Tou Kuih |
After the unplanned brunch, Wei started to get bored. She insisted that she MUST go to hair saloon, almost IMMEDIATELY. Not that I dislike going to hair saloon, just that I didn't see the point to be rush. I am still enjoying the lazy Sunday morning.....
En En is kind enough, willing to be her driver. He dropped her at the hair saloon first while I took my time to shower, chit chat at FB, continue eating, reading newspaper etc.
When I finally joined Wei at the hair saloon, I requested to have my hair style change, again. The hairdresser probably already run out of ideas on what to do with my head. I guessed that's why he asked his assistant to dye my hair first, and he will come back to me later (take some time to think??). However, I think he likes my adventurous. It must be fun for him to have one or two customers that always challenge him to create something different, or always willing to try something new. When he's cutting my hair, he kept on explaining the style "I made here more bob, here more layered, here longer etc etc etc". He must have thought that I love to change hairstyle because I love fashion. Sigh..... pity him. "Playing guitar to the cow". I love changing hairstyle simply because I love changes :p I hardly understand 80% of his hairstyle-talk actually.
Anyway, I love my new hairstyle. It made me feel fresh. It made me wanted to shout "It's a new me! It's a new me!" as Donald did.
For finale, mum introduced a new recipe -- "酿鸡翅"(Chicken wings with glutinous rice stuffing).
This is a snapshot of how I celebrated my birthday - never ending eating and never ending fun. I am never a real fan of my own birthday celebration actually. I enjoy more on planning birthday celebrations for others. However, I love the feeling that I know I'm loved. I love the fact that life is always full of surprises. I love the self-reminder that I'm a new me every single day.
比如说，那天我们就去了一家网上相当有名气的泰国餐厅。对我个人而言，这餐厅的地点决对是一流的。你想想，餐厅就在其中一条姓氏桥的尽头。我们到达的时候，老旧木桥配上蓝天白云，我们仿如浮在水面上，感觉特别有味道。
On the first day of my birthday month, En En and I persuaded mum to have early dinner. Why?? Because both of us want to make good use of my Haagen-Dazs Birthday Month 20% Discount Voucher. We can never resist ice-cream! We drove straight to Auto-City right after dinner. Despite heavy rain, taking home 4 pints of ice-cream is pure satisfying :-)
After the meeting, after our usual post-meeting drinking session, finally, we headed to Uncle Zack by the beach at Parkroyal Hotel. 
When I finally joined Wei at the hair saloon, I requested to have my hair style change, again. The hairdresser probably already run out of ideas on what to do with my head. I guessed that's why he asked his assistant to dye my hair first, and he will come back to me later (take some time to think??). However, I think he likes my adventurous. It must be fun for him to have one or two customers that always challenge him to create something different, or always willing to try something new. When he's cutting my hair, he kept on explaining the style "I made here more bob, here more layered, here longer etc etc etc". He must have thought that I love to change hairstyle because I love fashion. Sigh..... pity him. "Playing guitar to the cow". I love changing hairstyle simply because I love changes :p I hardly understand 80% of his hairstyle-talk actually.
我们对茶都外行，到了茶馆，也不知该点些什么。最后我决定要了最普遍的茉莉花茶。茶端上，倒了半杯的热水供我们观茶、品香。之后才让各人各自把盖碗茶的水装满。一行人懒洋洋地坐在竹椅上，有一句没一句地闲聊着，看着身边成都人悠然摇扇、引吭高论、啃瓜子、吃西瓜，甚至是‘瘫’在竹椅上睡觉的……在成都喝一杯盖碗茶究竟有多“巴闭”呢？基本上无论你在哪一家茶馆，你都可以坐上一整天。要是你肚子饿了，你甚至把盖碗茶好好盖上，然后离开茶馆到外头找吃的。服务员会给你保留位子，回来后你可以继续加热水继续喝茶！（真的很不可思议哦！）
