Tuesday 16 June 2009

The Motley crew

I joined CH and his friends for Christaine's birthday celebration last night. I call them the Motley crew because they're such a merry bunch of people with diverse backgrounds, and conflicting personalities to boot. We come in different shapes, sizes and colours. We've a writer cum kilt wearer, designer, lecturers, executives and business owners amongst us.

Last night's dinner, attended by 2 German, a French, a Brit and 4 Singaporean Chinese, was held in the most unlikely vicinity - Little Thailand (Golden Mile Complex). When we get together, whether it's for a meal, picnic or beach party, beer and conversation will never be in short supply. As you can imagine, we always have a jolly good time.

Our German friend Pat, who had just returned from a vacation in Macau with her Bangladeshi hubby, spent the night griping about communication problems there.

"Incredible!" she exclaimed, "Nobody spoke any English! We couldn't order any food. To think that it was once a Portuguese settlement."

You see, Pat's a vegetarian and her husband doesn't eat pork. Mealtimes became very challenging in a place where the cuisine centres around pork and meat dishes. Thank goodness they finally found a Lebanese restaurant.

Yet last night, she rattled off our order in fluent Thai language to the petite lady in the little restaurant. Thanks to Pat, we feasted on a spread of authentic Thai food washed down with bottles of Singha and Tiger beer. Her previous working stint in Thailand still comes in handy every now and then.

Gifts of a pendant, bracelet, t-shirt and momentos were lavished on the beaming birthday girl. Conversation flowed freely in German, English, Mandarin and Hokkien against a backdrop of Thai music. The mall was teeming with attractive women heading to the disco upstairs, delightful eye candy to the people watchers.

That must have inspired our guy pals to start flaunting the tattoos on their chest while the women discussed about the surprise jacuzzi pool party for the birthday girl. Well, the surprise is, the birthday girl will be out of town this weekend, but we're going ahead with the party anyway.

The bohemian spirit is evident here. They're not called the Motley crew for nothing!

6 comments:

The World According To Me said...

Very multi cultural! It sounded like fun.

By the way, what's happened to Jyankees blog? I can't access it? Has she moved?

ev.B said...

Wow... Didn't know we are the Motley crew. Hee hee. Who's the Brit?

Patricia - bai rui xia said...

oi, i am PATRICIA, sorry have to insist on my full name, hate to have my tail end cut off, must be the lionesque feline in me :P

but i am honoured to be called the motley crew, and yeah the brit is a kiwi, not kiwi ans in kee whee, but new zealander, and that would be graeme i presume :D

Blur Ting said...

World - Indeed. A very fun bunch!!
JY is missing in action!

Blur Ting said...

Hi Bev - You're lost here? Well, it's my fault actually. I had assumed Graeme's a Brit. :-P

Blur Ting said...

Hi Pat - Geez, what A pleasant surprise to see you here. Always a pleasure to hang out with the motley crew :-) And yah, thanks for the clarification!

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