May 15, 2008

MAY 15 2008

This is my first time celebrating my birthday without close friends and families and this is my first time celebrating my birthday outside of the country. My 25th birthday will be one of the historical events in my life. Have you guys celebrated your birthday outside of Malaysia?

Woke up that day feeling auspicious with messages pouring since the eve of May 15, the first message of my celebration of life in this planet earth was 3 days before, through Facebook, yeah, this guy really wanted to be the first one to wish me, its nice of him, thanks FR. FR girlfriend was the second person to wish me, she was 2 days early and thanks ENAR.

Thanks for all those who wish me on that fine day, it really helps brighten up my day. Woke up early that day, 6.00am and all pump up to go to work and I am doing something out of the ordinary which got ready to go to the office 2 hours early that is something good right? Gone down to breakfast at 7.00am, my birthday breakfast is the same as everyday breakfast which consist of 2 sunny side up and a bowl of mix cocoa crunch and corn flakes added with brown sugar and milk.

7.30am I am done with my breakfast and goes back up in my room to watch FRIENDS till 8.00am, then go down to the lobby and wait for my driver. When I reached the lobby, the diver was already there and greeted with a smile and wishes me. It was starting to get from good to great, yes it was.

Reach the office, although my colleagues didn’t know it was my birthday but then again when I went online, there are still messages of happiness I received till lunch break. I didn’t count of how many birthday wishes I get that day, but thanks again for all the wonderful wishes and greets it is touching.

I didn’t have any birthday lunches, and I was thinking of getting myself a birthday cake, but I think again, first where can I get one? Then who is going to eat it? So in the end I didn’t get any, no matter because that night I am going to have a big dinner instead. The plan was before to go to Dampak (a seafood place in Pasay City, Manila, Philippines) with 6 people, plus myself, but after lunch the other 2 has work to be done that night and the other 1, I don’t know what his reason of not going along was.

After lunch there is still nothing to do, no work, no tasks, and no activities, but not until at 3.00pm where Petrus gave me a few tasks which he required to make me finished before Monday. It is not a simple task when you are dealing with Month End Close. Oh my God, it was torturing when you are on a deadline, I am trying my best trying to finish up half of the task.

I was planning to go home a little bit early that day, around 5.00pm, but since I have received the tasks a little late, that day I have to stay back until 8.00pm. I am getting used to it of getting home late, the latest I have stayed at the office are till 10.00pm, and it was very exhausting.

I got home around 8.30pm that day, I told my driver Romer to wait because we are going to had our dinner at Dampak. It is truly a good place to dine seafood when it’s your birthday and this will be my first time to go there. When upstairs, freshen up myself, get ready to go out again, I was very tired, body and mind, and let’s not forget even my soul, but what better way to heal myself with a wonderful dinner. That night I wore a black t-shirt that I bought in Greenhills before which bear a writing saying, “Asthma is Sexy”. It’s a nice t-shirt, and in Greenhills, there is much more to choose from, and the prices are cheap.
I was so very hungry when I have reached the lobby floors, the driver is waiting to took me to journey of an unforgettable meal, yes, really unforgettable. 9.15pm and I am on my way to Dampak, it is situated in Pasay City (pronounce as Pa-Sai), near to Makati City which took us around half an hour and also very near to Manila, which is about 10 minutes. Dampak is also close to the Mall of Asia, about 5 minutes drive, and Romer asked whether we go to the beach side of Mall of Asia to have our seafood or in Dampak. I have been to the beach side, and I am going to try a new place.

Reach Dampak, oh man, my tummy started to make noise, annoyingly it bothers me a lot (I don’t care of onlookers if they hear it too). Let me tell you what Dampak looks like, imagine like you are at a fish market and it’s a big fish market, that’s like in the middle where between the market, there is restaurants. Inside the market, you will see stalls that sells seafood, right upfront there is stalls selling all kinds of fruits, and maybe Philippines is known for mangoes (because I bought dried mangoes for my friends last time and they say it was delicious).

After the fruit stalls, you will come by stalls that sells crabs, squids, lobsters which comes in different sizes, one that I cross upon was as big as my thigh (and you know that my thigh aren’t small right?), but I am not into lobsters, nope, my eyes was fixed on one thing and that one thing is staring back at me (that time I swear that my heart was saying, pick them they are juicy, yes, pick that one over there, they are fresh, and for those who knew me, will definitely know to what I am referring to). Yes, prawns, and it’s totally my favorite kind of food, oh yes, there is many kind prawns, big, small, medium, blue, and oh gosh, you can’t choose.

Luckily I brought along Romer the driver, because it helps to bargain, first stop was at the prawn stall, I bought 1.5kg of prawns, 1 kg is 400peso, so I paid the seller 600peso (which equivalent to RM40, it depends on the current currency). Moving on, after the family of shell and tentacles, you will come over stalls selling fishes. You will come across strange fishes that you never saw before, and the fishes here are absolutely huge, mind you, I was scared of the fishes when I first saw them. Damn they are huge and not cute at all. Just for laugh.

After the fish stalls, you will be at the end of the market which sells clamps, oysters and what ever that comes from that family. I cannot say it was a never ending journey, but I didn’t buy any clamps family or oysters or what ever that is clampy (I don’t even know if it’s a word, clampy?)

Next stop, I bought 1.5kg of crabs, the crabs was huge also, 1kg equals to 600peso, amongst the foods I have bought, the crabs was the expensive one’s compare to the prawns, squids and the fish. Then we went to buy the squids, which cost 300peso per kilo, and we took 1.5kg of squids which costs 350peso (I say dudes, do your own math’s afterwards, I have provide you with guidelines on how to convert). Then I go and bought the Lapu-Lapu which is fish, I don’t know what kind of fish it is, the shop owner just hand me the fish and I just took it, and costs 350peso, and it is a big fish. To sum up everything and I mean everything that I bought that night is big and huge.

I have been buying the foods since we arrived at Dampak for like half an hour (I think more, because we manage to stop and get pictures with the seafood’s just for the memories) and around 10.15pm or so, we started to find a restaurant to cooked the seafood we bought earlier (a note for those who wanted to go here, please buy your seafood at the market first, it is cheaper, if you ordered it from the restaurant it will double your costs) and the restaurant will charged on how many kilo’s of the seafood is going to be cooked.
Then at one of the restaurant, we sat at a wooden place where our backs are facing the sea, the night was rather hot that night, but no matter, my only concern was to eat as much as I could. The way they cooked through the menu I read, it is not much different as it in Malaysia, the fish I asked them to cook in sweet and sour gravy. The prawns if I am not mistaken I have asked them to cooked in butter chilly or something like that, next the crabs, I wanted it too be spicy and so they cooked it in chilly also, then the squids, I asked them to make half of it cooked in Tempura and the other half whereby my driver suggest to cooked it in if I am not that forgetful or naïve enough to ask for the real spellings would be “Adongbong” (pronounce as A-Do-Bo, and it is cooked with soy sauce, and I found it very delicious)

The foods we give them to cook only took them around half an hour to cooked, at 10.30pm, our dinner is served. Not after the Happy Birthday song is sang that we started to eat our dinner. I was forgetting something, that is I was planning to go to work that night, because I left the office with the tasks a quarter way finished, but it is not until I have saw the foods where I told the driver that I am not going to the office that night, instead, I asked him to pick me up early the nest morning at 7.ooam.

The foods was very delicious, I liked everything that they cooked because it was magnificent, before this I tasted the Filipino cooked and it was terrible, but on my birthday, it tasted great. It was one of the best meals in my life. I can never wished for more things rather than having a wonderful meal right in front of me. Oh man, I swear, the birthday dinner was the best and I couldn’t wish for anything else but finished all the foods that we have bought.

I guessed we all finished our dinner that night around 12.00am, all of us was stuffed and full from that a lot of foods. What I can say that, I spent around 3500peso that night, whereby the foods we bought are like serving for 7 to 8 people and you can still have left over, and the left over I gave to the driver to bring back to his family.

The night doesn’t end there, Romer my driver requested me to sing that night, and it is my pleasure to sing at a 5peso karaoke machine. The song I sang that night was Boulevard by Dan Byrd, and the restaurant staffs were all applauding when I finished the song, and this you got to believed, I scored a 96 on the machine, and it surprised me (I sang that bad and still scored 96, the thing must have been broken down). Oh well, once I got into the car I started to dream away and thinking about the next morning to wake early and go finished my work. Reach the apartment, bid farewell to my driver and remind him to take me to the office before 7.ooam the next day and went straight to my room, reached my bed, turn on the alarm on my phone, and without changing to my sleeping uniform (which is my white Transformer t-shirt and kain pelekat) and sleep.

What I can say is that my 25th birthday is different in the sense that I am not celebrating it with my close one’s, and I am celebrating it in overseas which is the first time for me, and I t has been a memorable experienced that I will cherished it for the rest of my life. What a wonderful day it was...