Happy Birthday Myrna!

Myrna, Kathryn and Sophia - off to the party.

S&M at the restaurant.

Myrna and Amy posing for the Manila tabloids.

Jeremy and Myrna.

Making a wish and blowing out the candles.

Thai desserts - strange, but good tasting stuff.

My shirt, the drink and the balloon all match!

Happy Happy! 6 Princesses and a Toad.

Can't have enough shirts.


Yesterday was Myrna's birthday. She has been with us for almost a year and we are lucky to have her around. She is kind, warm and fun and is also becoming quite a good chef. We are also happy to know a bunch of her friends here in Singapore. Her birthday was a great opportunity to take all the ladies out to dinner. It's not often I get to dine with 6 pretty women!

While I won't reveal her age, suffice it to say she is much younger then Sophia and me. Myrna is a native of Cebu, Philippines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cebu) while the guests are from all over the islands. They all speak Tagalog (and English) and Myrna also speaks the Cebulean dialect of her home province. We were graced by the presence of the lovely Jeremy, Amy, Kathryn and Feng.

We went to Coca - a Thai Steamboat Restaurant. http://www.coca.com/ The Steamboat, like Shabu Shabu in Japan, is a restaurant where you cook up your food on the table. In our little private room we had three cauldrons going. Two with spicy Tom Yum stock and one with milder chicken broth. The food ranged from fish balls, to sliced beef, greens, oysters, crab, carrots, fish glue, pork, green noodles and much, much more. It all tasted good and was fun to cook and eat.

It was all you can eat and we sure ate a lot. I got the award for messiest table cloth. Had some interesting deserts, mostly Thai including icy drinks with little colored jelly balls inside. We all put on lovely pink "Princess" party hats. While we were in a private room I noticed several people looking in at us and smiling. We were a little rambunctious for the conservative Singapore crowd. Sophia brought some tiny fruit tarts and candles and Myrna made her wish and blew them out. She opened her presents and looked over her loot. Body spray from Victoria's Secret, a Guess handbag, penguin pj's, a lotus shirt and more....

We gathered up the gifts, party hats and balloons and headed out onto crowded Orchard road for the short walk home.