The day started with Blinkymummy and GF taking me to Holland Village for lunch. Holland Village reminded of Bangsar in KL with its eclectic mix of yuppie shops, antique and hip furniture shops, boutiques, nail and facial salons, and eateries. Except I would say that the parking at Holland V is way better organised than that of Bangsar’s.

Being the anti-yuppies that we are, we ate at the local hawker centre. We had Katong laksa (yum), Singapore fried kuay-teow (yum), and curry chicken with rice (yum).

After lunch, we went walking around an old-school shopping mall - the layout, the narrow corridors, the seemingly unsystematic mish-mash of shops, and even the smell of the air-conditioning, all of which brought back fond memories of my childhood.

When we left Holland Village, we also took a drive around more yuppiefied goodness - Dempsey Village with its “atas” restaurants, wine bars, antique furniture shops, and a super expensive looking salon.

Then we headed towards Novena Square to visit BM’s entrepreneurial friend, Daniel who opened a place called “Bread Bar” that sells unique variations of the traditional Chinese snack called “youtiao“. They are basically deep-fried dough sticks. We shared a couple of sticks and had some soy-milk drink.

As a fellow engineer who went into the F&B business briefly, I understand and admire Daniel’s entrepreneurial spirit.

Suitably stuffed from lunch and the youtiaos, I got dropped home to rest up a bit before the festivities that were to follow that night.

For dinner, Rob and I headed to the nearby hawker centre (can’t get enough of hawker centres) for some grub to charge up for our partying ahead. I had chicken rice (again) with teh-ping, an iced tea drink.

After heading back for a quick shower, it was on to Bellini Room at St James Power Station. Rob and I had to be there real early at 9:30pm to secure the table which we had reserved.

BM and GF arrived about an hour later. The four of us had a great time chatting about the different working cultures of Singapore and Australia, how the women and their attitudes compare, and our jobs (Rob works with one of BM’s exes, and is going to his wedding - freaking small world).

With alcohol being plied, and the place getting more crowded and noisy we started to get into the partying mode.

Later in the night, the other old school friend of mine from Perth, Vincent (left) turned up with some of his colleagues and friends. The three of us have known each other for almost 20 years. Here’s to our friendship ever lasting!

BM and GF left shortly before 1am, and Rob and I parted ways with Vincent sometime around 2pm. We then headed to this place near Keong Saik Road which sells porridge. By now you would realise that porridge or rice congee is a favourite supper food for the Chinese.

After supper we headed home and crashed. ‘Twas a good night, shared with friends old and new - relatively speaking anyway because I’ve now known BM for 2 years and a bit. Here’s her entry of the events on this same day.