Seeing that I "missed" my birthday last year, this year's festivities seem to more than make up for it. Well.. not strictly true. I had a great birthday present last year. 21 day cruise and Chesterfield Island hopping. But I digress...

I'm not big on planning, and didn't exactly have plans fixed ahead. On the day itself, I was completely shattered from a day full from teaching. And which birthday girl buys her own cake anyway!??!?! Pfffft. Alright... I do. We had a very nice Pear flan. I burst into Applecow's lab and shouted "A... phlegm!!!!" A and LG couldn't come to the lab on time and I had to deliver their flans to them.

I contemplated having a quiet night in, but decided against it. Asked A out and he told me, "well.. you better make sure you'll be having fun cos if its just going to be you being miserable and me having to listen to you, then no thanks.. I'll be busy."

It turned out all right after all. I didn't blub. A, B, M and I had dinner at the cze char place in Holland Road. R couldn't make it cos he had to go play football. Harrrumph! It was funny cos M and I were discussing possible dinner venues on the bus back from practical and we made several mentions alluding to 'the corner coffeeshop at Holland'. As it turned out.. there are at least four corner coffeeshops! We've got to come up with a better system! We had dinner at 'the coffeeshop with the duck stall". Dinner was great. Food was good and the beer was flowing. After dinner, we adjourned to Haagen Daz for dessert. The boys were doing a great job at being silly, asking for free ice cream samples and at one point I thought we were going to get thrown out. When it was my turn to have my order taken, I opted for melon on cone, and I beseeched the ice cream girl to please, please ca she give me the biggest single scoop of ice cream she can stuff into the cone without losing her job. I didn't think she'd take me seriously, but she did! Woah! In the end I had the biggest 'single scoop' cone. I think my cone was even taller than A's who asked for a double scoop! Yay... free ice-cream!

We then went next door to Wala's where the Unpredictable (or are they the Untouchables?) had a gig that night. As usual, tables were thin on the ground but we managed to get one by the side. R joined us at this point and the evening passed with nary an unhappy moment, except for the last song the band played for their set which made me put my hands up in the air thinking "Ok. i don't need this.. I'm getting out of here." I think I spotted RUOK sitting right in front of the band.. but I wasn't sure then. Now I know it probably was, cos the monkey informed me that he had indeed been at Wala's that night. Well.. I'll say hi next time. I'm just very bad at recognising people when I'm out and about.


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I had dinner with a motley crue of friends on Friday. A menagerie! There were a duck, a monkey and a ham. He wasn't lonely yesterday!

We checked out Magma, a new German bistro/coffeeshouse place along Bukit Pasoh Road. Again, Friday was a bad day for me. Sucked in by the Vortex of Teaching, and I didn't come back from Changi Beach till 6ish. A quick check through my inbox and I was off home. I did contemplate bursting in on them at 7.30, with salt sprayed hair and field T shirt and bermudas, but good sense prevailed and I told MrBudak that I had to go home and scrub up before. Magma is but a 5 minute stroll away from my place anyway! I'm glad I did. Being bloggers, they were all camera happy and snappy. Looking presentable is alot better than showing up looking like a castaway.

The wonders of soft ambient lighting and photoshop

Food at Magma was decent. I'm not familiar with hearty German food, but MrB is, and according to him, the food dished out by the Chef (who incidentally bears an uncanny semblence to Rene from 'Allo 'Allo) was pretty good. Alot more is left to be desired for service though. The waitresses were altogether inexperienced and clueless. We requested for a carving knife and one of them did not know what a carving knife was (*gasp*). Ditto the same response when we asked her if we could doggie bag the rest of our Pork knuckle. But it was fun, and I had this fab beer touted as anti-aging beer.

Kickstarting my career as a Beer Auntie. Coming to a coffeeshop near you.

I'm not sure if it works.. but it was tasty; much tastier than the green and red beer the rest ordered!

After our satisfying dinner, We hoofed it to Tea Chapter hoping to round up the evening with soothing chinese tea and cheesy chinese board games. Alas. They were just about to shut for the day when we arrived. More beer? Naaaaah. I wanted a nice tea to wash dinner down with. Some dessert would be nice too. In a flash of inspiration, we made our way to Smith street and ate Ah Balling! The sweetness of the rice balls and ginger/peanut soup was the perfect foil to our hearty dinner. And we washed it down with good ol diao yu, teh peng and teh-o. Monkey even latched on to a stray wifi signal so she could blog on the spot!!! (hahaha... lame sial!)

Thanks to Mr B and the leaf monkey and lonelyham for taking me out hor! I had loads of fun. Tea Chapter next time! Or Prince of Wales? They do a great pint for very little $$$! My kind of place. hahahaha.

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And that's not the end... the birthday treats continue.. I'm taking a rest today. There's still more to come tomorrow! yay.!