The Garden Party

The Yacht Club was so nice to organize a big Garden Party for Nathan on his last evening in Brunei. Well, maybe it wasn't just for Nathan, but we took it that way - nearly all our friends joined us there to say goodbye.
They had made the Yacht Club look really nice, and really different to normal. We started out by mingling to some live music:

Everybody looked really nice! Lots of bright, colourful, flowery dresses:

The lamb on the spit had been slow cooking all day, nom nom nom!

The food was so different to the "normal" Yacht Club party food, super delicious, especially the lamb and the seafood. Mmm! We had the best table in the corner:

 What a lovely night it was, and how nice to get to spend it with our friends.

Au bal masqué

Last night we were invited to celebrate another 40th birthday - our friend Cécile had a 'Bal Masqué'  party for her big day.

We only had one mask at home, so I had to ask Lucas if I could borrow his that he had made in school earlier this year. Luckily he said yes, if I promised to be careful with it.

Such a cool idea for party theme, easy for everyone to do, not demanding too much effort. Still people looked so different and it was actually a bit tricky to see who was who! This was the party host, Manu, DJing away:

Birthday girl and I:

We had so much fun, dancing the night away! 

Merry Movember!

At the beginning of the month we were invited to a 'Movember' party this weekend. It had to come with a lot of notice, because the whole purpose of the party was for the men to grow "mos" in preparation for it. The growing of mustaches during the month of November is to raise awareness of men's health issues, such as prostate cancer and other male cancers; and associated charities.

Nathan certainly has no problem growing facial hair, and by this week he had an impressive mustache and beard going on. Before the party, he trimmed it down to a handlebar/horseshoe looking thing. I on the other hand, was quite content with my mustache t-shirt!

Our hosts had gone through great lengths to decorate the party venue! There were mustaches everywhere!

The 'Mistresses of the Mos'!

Yes, the guy on the left does have a mo... kind of... He did grow it for the whole month of November, you just can't see it! Bless!

Here's some hairy boys!

Of course they had a judging - of who had the best style, and who had the best growth.

 

Part of the judging panel:

Will's mo getting checked out, and look - "Goose" was there too!

In the end it was down to these four gentlemen - sadly Nathan didn't win, although his mo certainly was impressive! He felt robbed!

Best part of the party for many - two barbers were hired to take care of their mos after the judging, so everybody could go home all baby faced again from the party! Ha ha!

You know it'll be a good week

It must be a good week, when it starts with a smashing Monday night at the Yacht Club - with good food, great friends and dancing the night away to the U.S 7th Fleet Band, the Orient Express!

We've seen these guys before, when we went to the impressive Brunei Tattoo a couple of years back, and they were great then so I knew I wanted to go and see them last night. They've apparently been coming to Brunei ever since the 1980s.
The U.S. 7th Fleet Band was created in 1943 with the establishment of the United States 7th Fleet. Comprised of professional Navy Musicians, 7th Fleet Band is forward deployed to Yokosuka, Japan, and embarked on board the United States 7th Fleet flagship, USS Blue Ridge.
You can see some more photos from this Brunei visit, on their Facebook page, here.

The ensemble that performed for us this time (they had also been giving a lunchtime concert at school earlier yesterday, which the kids had enjoyed!) was a six-piece group that played very funky music that made us all dance all night!
In the middle of it all it hit me how lucky we are - get to dance to a live band, enjoy yummy food, in a club next to the beach and the sea in a tropical country, on a Monday, in November! People pay big money to travel far away to enjoy just this, and it's our life!

Now recharge for the next big celebration this week - tonight's Founders Day!

SIN nightlife

Just after we got back from Singapore last time, Beenal told me she was about to go over there in November. To make a long story short, her parents-in-law were supposed to come out, but had to cancel their trip due to illness, and could cancel every part of their big trip - apart from this hotel in Singapore this weekend.
Beenal's husband thought she should go over and enjoy it on her own, as taking the whole family would be really expensive, so... I kindly offered to come along and accompany her (even though I'd just been, I know)! Well, opportunities like this don't present themselves that often!

Since she was working Friday, she could only catch the evening flight whereas I went over in the morning and spent the day with Misuzu. Firstly at 'Fika', as you've seen, and then at Raffles City for a little bit of shopping.
In the evening Misuzu invited me back for dinner at her place, while I waited for Beenal's flight to arrive. We had some minestrone soup and nice NZ wine.

When Beenal arrived, she picked me up and we went straight to the hotel, and checked into our Executive suite... Even though it was rather late, we managed to enjoy a couple of glasses of wine at the Executive lounge as well, before actually going up to explore our... suite..! :)

Then we got changed and went out to explore the nightlife. The Scotts were in Singapore as well, and they had asked us to join them at Ku De Ta, a night club on top of the posh Marina Bay Sands.
Fueled by all that wine - we danced all night long!

 

We had such a fun night!