Birthday Highlights

It was the best birthday party ever because my guests gave of their time, talent and treasure to make it a fun and entertaining celebration. I emailed the night's programme to all my guests so they know they cannot be late 'cos it's an action-packed night and it worked! Everyone came on time, except for Darwin whose bus broke down on his way back from KL and Shida who was supposed to pick him.

Gifts for all my guests. China powder for the ladies
and a choice of either Popinjay or Sandalwood soap for the gentlemen

A lovely bouquet of roses from James Bond
and a box of chocolate-coated macadamia nuts.
Just perfect for someone who's nuts over nuts!

The opening act, before the dinner was served, was a spectacular number "For Your Eyes Only" – A Romantic Red Rhumba for Restricted Audience by Ruby and Rambo! RRRrrrrR!

"For Your Eyes Only" actually features James Bond
and his gorgeous Bond girl

Then it's makan time! E&O Hotel prepared a lavish buffet spread for us to feast on. I made a number of changes to feature more nyonya style dishes in keeping with the theme for the night. For example, instead of coleslaw I requested for pasembur and it was a really good exchange. We had huge prawns and soft shell crabs among the ingredients of the pasembur!

And the cream of mushroom soup which replaced the cream of pumpkin soup was a hit with all the guests. Some of them went for 3 or more servings of the soup which is made of real blended mushrooms. Yummy Assam Prawns replaced the grilled lamb chops and the beef rendang was simply superb. So tender. And I indulged on the best sago with gula melaka and santan ever.

Everything was delicious and the food was more than enough. Unfortunately we did not take photos of the buffet spread. However, here's one showing some of our girls making off with the many types of tea available at the end of the evening.

Caught red handed!

After dinner it was show time. I was MC for the night 'cos I planned the programme and I'm the only one who knew what was going on!

To encourage the performers that none of them could do any worse I embarrassed myself by singing "Enjoy Yourself" which is meant to be the theme song for the night. As usual I did not have time to practise, I sang a capella, I don't know the lyrics and and I'm not sure of the tune so it was kinda disastrous. But everyone still clapped and I think I managed to get across the message of the song. That was all that mattered.

Then the real show began when DANJER took the stage. Now we know that we've staff moonlighting as magicians and that their sifu is Master You a.k.a. Youtube. Anyway these two guys tried to set fire to my kebaya but I foiled their nefarious attempt at arson 'cos I was wearing a fire-proof kebaya that night!

DANJER with their card tricks

Trying to burn a hole in my kebaya with a cigarette!

Jewel and Jason performed a special special for me. I am so touched. I loved the dance which is made up of a medley of tunes from Lady Marmalade to Greased Lightning and the dancing was so fun! Even they had fun performing it.

Go, Greased Lighting go!

Then Mel sang a special number "Someone to Watch Over Me." Her singing was superb but the mp3 got cut off and so she had to complete the song a capella. No problem for her.

Following that we had Laksa Lemak to perform a rhumba to Laura Fygi's Historia Amour.

Rhumba by Laksa Lemak

After that we had an intermission to cut the cake.

My tong chiang cake doesn't look all that bad
after being transformed by Lillian

All the ladies in kebayas

The gentlemen. Hubby donned a batik shirt. A special honour!

The second half of the programme kicked off with Peter singing "Think of Me" from Phantom of the Opera. Then he taught us a Scottish jigg. Most of my guests joined in and worked off some of the calories accumulated over dinner.

We had such fun trying out the jigg

The Ding and the Dong then brought us the Beh-Sing Opera. They sang a Chinese number even though one half of the duo doesn't understand mandarin!

Beautiful expressions from the Ding, or is it the Dong?

I booked the original Wonder Girls. Unfortunately they had a prior engagement to perform in KL on the same night so I ended up with our very own Ken Ray-produced Wonder Girls wannabes instead. They decided to call themselves Babi Pongteh. Don't ask me why.

Nobody, nobody but you!

We all decided to learn the steps

Shida and Darwin arrived just as we were going to say good night. Despite being so tired, after the long trip for darwin and long wait for Shida, they performed the zouk for us.

Zouk

I am so blessed to have friends and loved ones who took the trouble to dress up, to practise and to perform in order to make me a happy birthday girl. Thank you everyone from the bottom of my heart!

My wonderful colleagues who dressed the theme
and sacrificed many lunch hours to practice their performances