It has suddenly occured to me that I look a lot like I'm wearing my pyjamas in this picture.  

Upon arriving at Leander's exclusive party, we were told that we had to wear those Santa hats and though they were pretty cute, they didn't come close to looking as good on me as they did on Lynn here.  

Christmas Eve party at my Fourth Aunty's place. It was very nice of her to let us use her place for the party.  

This was the first party I attended on the night of Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay long because of another party which I had promised a friend to attend. Here's introducing my mother's side of our family.

This was taken at Harbour City, Hong Kong. You may see us smiling in here but believe me, it was a very difficult time for everyone when the reality of the reason why we were there started to settle in... It was very nice to have the opportunity to see these wonderful people after so long.

This was taken during lunch at Yong Kei, this famous duck restaurant in Hong Kong. That's my lovely niece, Lauren, staring at me in the picture. My family and I wanted to go there to celebrate the life of a man whom we all hold great veneration and approbation for. This man, my dear second uncle, went to the Lord not too long ago after achieving in a lifetime what some more ordinary people would have taken two lifetimes to achieve. He was a compassionate and dynamic man who left a lasting impression on everyone he met with the boundless amount of energy he possessed. I already knew how accomplished he was but the eulogies that were presented at the well attended procession further solidified the admiration I had for him. His thirst for new knowledge, better solutions and excellence in everything he did was repeatedly mentioned throughout. I believe that he is in a better place now, in the good hands of the Lord.

Alas, I think Zoukout was a success every sense of the way. My friends had fun and the event couldn't have been any more enjoyable regardless of several hiccups. December...always a fantastic month.  

That's hottie Lynn looking so dazzling in that halter and hottie Nic trying to show everyone what he had for dinner before Zoukout.

Somehow I think Noel and my brother look more alike in this picture than we do.  

While waiting outside, I met a longlost pal who never seems to be there when I need her. haha *grin* 

With my buddies: This was taken outside Delifrance while we were waiting for our last two tickets to arrive.

We felt like we were going on a school excursion in here... 

And would you believe it if I told you that this is not a complete picture of the peeps... 

For some reason, we weren't allowed to walk to the venue so we decided to take a few pictures at this bus stop. 

This was taken just outside the beach carpark after everyone parked their cars. Good thing we found some lots. 

Glad to see all these happy faces after such a long time of absence.

And here are the hunks...flushed even before we got in. 

And here are the gogeous ladies...hey who's that ninja at the back?? 

ZoukOut turns out to be a total sell-out

So here’s a spread on the highlights and lowdown during that fateful night:

Nic, our resident Vet, stayed sober (or so I thought), was dancing with some friends from Australia and stayed much later than I did even though it started to rain after 4am.

Allan, Liwen and his gal, in a desperate effort to avoid the rain, took the wrong bus, nearly left Sentosa without their car and eventually called me to pick them from the entrance back to carpark coz’ they got stranded.

Alex, our dear friend who just came back from Australia, was probably the only person in the whole island that night to be wearing white socks and brown shoes on the beach.

Jeannie left so early that by the time I got in, she had already gone home. Largely coz' she had to work tomorrow. I kinda feel bad for buying the tickets for her in view of the fact that she may have gone only after feeling obligated to do so (although she claims she really wanted to go).

Noel was so sloshed, I didn’t have any opportunity to dance with him the whole night. He claims that it is because he drank “a lot” (He and Faye disappeared somewhere else because he needed to erm…lie down).

Apart from knocking my brother’s tooth off after slapping his face with the back of her hand in an effort to pull off the Zoukout entry strap, big and burly Brenda also spent a lot of time worrying about her younger cousin who was happily prancing around until she realised that it was past her curfew(with the music that good, who could blame her? :).

My brother was so high on the music that Liwen turned to me to complain that he had problems keeping up because my brother kept hopping to bass of the music like an energizer bunny. By the way, he's going to the dentist tomorrow to have his new tooth done.

As for the rest, I’m sure that they had fun, that they had not had enough to drink and that they did not do anything they would regret afterwards. For those I owe a favor to, I will most willingly pay back when I get some invites for MOS’s grand opening come this Friday as promised by some friends. Meantime, we’ll see how it goes…

We tried our best to stay together as a group but our efforts fell into the depths of futility largely due to the droves of people who flooded the tiny island of Sentosa as if we were welcoming in another new millennium. Although a lot of people were unsure about whether they were going about a month ago, all the hemming and hawing finally came to a close only a week before the event. Fortunately, with both Destiny’s and Crystal’s help through someone working inside Zouk, we managed to get the 16 tickets we initially needed. The other two required help from Lynn and another from Sheena (who were both so nice to have asked around for us). Nic, Lynn and I had to wait till 1am to finally get into action because of a delay in getting one of the tickets. Even so, I think the relentless waiting, the ruthless pushing and the incessant shoving also made the experience a one to be remembered. By the time we got in, my friends who went in first had inconsiderately finished the food as well as the drinks that Brenda so thoughtfully bought for us in advance at 12am. Needless to say, everyone chided us when we finally entered the Trance/ House Arena at 1am.

I have to point out also that the event was unexpectedly quite well-organized. Though the map inside did not offer any insight whatsoever on which Arena played what music or where the various places we wanted to go to were, I personally felt that the management at Zouk had done a good job learning from its past mistakes and made improvements on the crowd control, area restrictions, quality of music and standards of the food, amenities and other forms of entertainment. The variety was there but I feel that there is still much to be desired in terms of the drinks queue at the drinks bar. I felt like a log of wood when I was waiting for my turn to order my drinks even after Lynn had devised an ingenious plan of having both of us start off at different queues; one for the coupon and one for the drinks. Unfortunately, I chose the wrong queue which was the drinks queue because I ended up queuing for almost 45 minutes while Lynn stood behind waiting patiently until she finally gave up and decided to sit when Charmaine came to join her. I felt like a fool when all I ordered was a beer and a sprite while everyone else around me were ordering at least 10 drinks at once.

It was nice meeting some old and some new friends that night. Although a lot of us were pretty apprehensive about the turnout and the validity of the event, it didn’t fail to impress everyone throughout the whole frenzy. Almost 20 of us went all the way down to the lofty island of Sentosa to have a good time and it was time and money well-spent. The last time we had a beach party like this was probably when we were still teenagers welcoming in the new millennium.

Not directed at anyone but I'm posting this quote coz' I liked it when I read it.

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."

Oscar Wilde

Not all my relatives were able to make it to the party. But I appreciate the efforts of these to attend the party punctually that night.  

I think I look more like the birthday boy than my brother in here... 

Only Jean and Linda bothered to look at the camera while the rest were deeply engrossed in the Star Awards. 

I think the only person who worked the hardest besides the maids that night was my mother. She was toiling tireless in the kitchen and trying her best to selflessly cater to everyone's needs that night. This is is a candid shot of my amazing and most dynamic mother.  

Still looking as good as ever, Destiny turned up late but it was nice to see her once again after such a long time.  

The recent Star Awards that was showing on the night of my brother's birthday gave my friends and family a good reason to mingle and hang out. 

Surprise or not to surprise...that is the question.

So finally, our surprise party really did turn out to be a surprise party. Before this, we really thought our group was incapable of jumping birthday surprises on each other. And yes, it did take a bit of hard work, a bit of experience gained from past failures and a bit of common sense. The party was over in less than a night but the memories of the joy that had been fashioned as a result of my beloved family and friends amalgamating in this merriment of the day my younger brother was born would nevertheless last an entire lifetime. You see, there is something sentimentally indescribable about the blissful faces of your family and friends that brightens up your heart, give your soul that extra lift and recharges that anthropoid battery with boundless energy you need to boost that remarkable entity you call life. I think I got back much more than what I contributed that night and it was all worth it.

A week ago when I was still trying to painstakingly arrange this party, I had some of my friends jokingly say that this won’t work because of two consecutive surprise parties my friends tried to pull off but miserably failed to surprise. Some even said, “What again? Surprise parties the trend nowadays, huh? Our group is jinxed when it comes to surprise parties man…Hurhur.” I took them all in good humor coz’ I knew how we, as a group, messed up during the organisation phase the past few times. So I knew that we had to make it work this time if we were to ever dream about organizing special parties for friends in future. Besides, it is inevitable that one will pass failure on one's way to success. In my mind, I was telling myself that God forbid if this one fails, at least Hann Sern's party at Little Bali was a success. I knew that even if we don’t manage to spring the surprise on my brother, at least we will have a party going on.

Back in September was the month when I celebrated my 25th birthday. This was when I was unexpectedly called upon to be part of the “organizing committee” for my own surprise party. For those of you more intelligent species out there, you must be asking yourself how I can be part of this organizing committee especially when the surprise party for me. Well, that is exactly the reason why it failed in the first place because I was inadvertently included in the list of people who were being sent the SMS with all the party details. Knowing that I had mistakenly received vital information about the clandestine party, the sender almost immediately resent an SMS apologizing profusely and went on a self-disparaging spree. I knew she had been busy with work and all so I felt sorry for her since all she meant was goodwill and care for a friend. First, I told her to stop calling herself stupid (even though there was a momentary instance when she was). Then I told her that I will try my best to pretend surprised when I walk through the door. However, as much as the surprise party was a failure, I was at the very least a failure at acting surprised because everyone saw through my feeble attempt to act when I walked through the door of my home. But a true friend is one you can laugh at your faults together with and that was exactly what we all did.

About a month later, we put that letdown behind us and decided to start afresh with Noel’s birthday. This time, we thought we were more organized and the whole family was involved in the surprise as well. We knew that this would be a bad time to mess up. But amazingly, we managed to do so. Ill-discipline and failure to follow proper instructions was the main cause. People who were supposed to arrive at 7 came at 9, our sole and most important informant did not, of all things, inform us correctly of the objective’s time of arrival (her excuse was that she did not check her handphone....), the nice and wonderful mother spent all day cooking so much food that even the three dogs at home would know that there was going to be a party and lastly those who couldn’t make it actually MESSAGED the birthday boy that they were sorry they couldn’t make it three hours before execution of the party. It was a disaster waiting to happen right from the beginning. Miscommunication here and there, everywhere but we had a good time laughing over it over dinner and drinks that night.

Thank God it worked this time. Third time lucky, to be exact. Important things to note:

1. You must tell the the people involved that it is a surprise party. Not once, not twice but at least three times. Sometimes, people just don’t read messages properly.

2. If they do not reply, do not assume that they are going to do so. In fact, give them a wake up call to wake up their idea. Reprimand them for not replying and tell them that their punishment would be to buy a bigger present.

3. When the birthday person is arriving at 8, make sure that you get the people to arrive MORE than 1 hour in advance. Do calling if you still don’t see them at 7.

4. The mother will always insist on cooking regardless of how hard you try to explain to her that it will arouse suspicion. A mother will always be a mother. And because of her genetic makeup, a mother loves to cook. I know mine does. So if you can’t beat her, freaking join her. Let her cook and tell your brother that she’s preparing food for a BBQ and therefore say that we won’t be able to celebrate his birthday on that night.

5. Make sure you get someone reliable to lure him out. His actions must be unsuspecting and he must be good at acting. Preferably, try to talk through the things he’s going to do to make sure that he gets the birthday boy home after the stipulated time and not any earlier. Don't try to tell him too much about the party yet because it might distract him from doing his job properly. Give him some problems that may occur to test his intelligence and see if he can handle them. If he passes, give him the green light. Remember to tell him to report to you regularly.

Last but not least, I would like to thank all my family and friends for making this happen. I could see that my brother was very happy and seeing him happy made us all happy. Unlike previous times, this was a win-win situation right from the beginning.

"Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold."
Andre Maurois

From left: Noel, Liwen, Me, Mitchell. Mitchell actually got "bulkier" since I last saw him. So much so that my brother even thought that he was wearing a turtleneck top.  

Paul and Shar's wedding. Venue: Fullerton. If it weren't for Liwen, Mitchell and Noel, I would have been sitting with complete strangers that night. Saw some good old friends that night but had little chance to catch up with them coz' the whole lot was sitting one ballroom length away (i.e. we were at different ends). It was nice to see the two of them finally getting married. I remember the phrase of the night for the newly weds being, "May all your Ups and Downs come only from the bed." Busy busy busy....