Happy Land

I know I said nothing interesting was going to happen, but that's before I found out about dinner last night. We were going to "Happy Land" which we all sort of assumed was just a humorous translation similar to that you get with a lot of chinese food back home.


Remember I told you a while back about a doctor that actually owns a hospital. Well, Happy Land is the name of the hospital. Yup. I thought maybe Charry should have a long hard think about that.
There is an absolutely stunning outdoor set of gazebos next to a playground that is used for meals etc. The goal being if you're going to be in a hospital you should at least be in a nice place (maybe even a happy land). Anyway, it was one of those shoes off, sit on the floor around a low table deals. Everybody was in a bit of a party mood and remember I said about the birthday that we went shopping for a present...

There's the birthday boy. You may be wondering, what's with the cake? Well I'll tell you - it's not a cake, it's a mountain of rice...

That's the traditional birthday thing here. Complete with a banana leaf top and what looks like lava erupting. Nice visual when you're just a few km from an active volcano huh. Buffet dinner with lots of yummy things. And because we're in an asian country there was the oh-so-traditional ancient art of Karaoke. Gee they really get into it! I managed to escape without trying too hard because so many others were so eager to sing! Here's Tari, Jacki and Mario doing YMCA. Mario was the first on the mike and probably the last off, I think he managed to get in on almost every song.

And just to make things perfectly clear - this all happened in the absence of alcohol. Tari thinks there's a genetic component to it. Tari had a great time, she does like to party and dance. I was happy enough eating and taking pictures, thank you very much. Afterwards she said that part of the fun comes from people from multiple countries and five different religions all getting in there and doing limbo and dancing the macarena.

One of Tari's colleages was saying that one of the big difference that they noticed was that in a serious meeting, Europeans (in this case Australians) are so serious, they take things personally and can get very intense. On the other hand a lot of these guys are so jovial and energetic that they just don't get that way often.

Anyway, I promised a very short one today, just a continuation of the ginger-bread church, it's getting close to completion now:

And on that, I'm off for a quick nap followed by a swim =)

Sim.