Oilman's Gala Dinner

This morning started early with Julia picking me up at 7am to head out to netball. We had coffee at Plaza Damas first where we met up with a few other ladies.

Netball was good but hot! By about 9.30am is was too hot and the black clouds were rolling in so we all decided to go to the Blue Cow Cafe for breakfast.

Julia and I headed back to her place for a quick shower before we drove to Great Eastern Mall. One of the shops there was selling ceramic Samurai warriors that stood about two feet high - similar to ones that Julia had seen in Hong Kong and loved. She ended up buying one so we went downstairs and had coffee while they wrapped it up.

Julia dropped me back home and I went straight to bed for a nap as I was exhausted after all the exercise this week :-) I slept for about an hour before I was woken by a text message from Elyse. We chatted on Skype for almost an hour making plans for our summer vacation driving up from Perth to Broome.

By this time, I needed to have a quick shower and head over to Pavillion to have my nails and hair done. After a quick mani/ pedi, I went to the hairdresser and asked him to do something with my hair for tonight. Chris kind of curled my hair and put a lot of volume into it. It actually looked quite good!

Ross was home when I got there and we relaxed for about an hour before having to begin getting ready for the dinner. Brian was nice enough to drive us over to the Mandarin Oriental so we didn't have to get sweaty walking there. The ballroom was decorated in kind of Mediterranean style but the theme was Chinese - it was quite an interesting concept!

We took our seats at the table which was right next to the big wigs and the dancefloor. We met a couple of the customers that had been invited (as the dinner was really a networking opportunity). I sat next to Debbie and Dan who were a couple from the U.S. now working in Malaysia for 8 years. They seemed like nice people and we chatted away pretty easily throughout the night.

In true Malaysian style, the speeches by the vice-president and the secretary of the Malaysian Petroleum Club (the host of the Gala) were quite... weird. Lots of talk about where the roses came from, dirty jokes about CEO's of oil companies and other quite interesting topics.

The speeches were followed by dinner - a traditional 8 course Chinese meal which was served with great fanfare. Not being a big fan of Chinese food, I can't say I really enjoyed it. The whole thought of eating Shark Fin soup kind of grossed me out. Dessert was the hightlight even though I had no idea what it was it tasted really good.

During dinner, the entertainment began. First up was a girl from Indonesia. She was obviously a popular singer but we didn't have a clue who she was. She was only knee high to a grass hopper but was wearing the highest heels I have ever seen! She also had bright red hair - unusual for an Indonesian :-) She sang one song in English and then a few in Bahasa. She dragged the Vice-President up for a song.

After dinner was finished, Freddo and the Flinstones were up. When they first came out, they looked exceedingly dodgy and they were a bit to start off with. The lead singer must have been at least 50 and was incredibly cheesy - wearing a sequined jacket with a tiger on the front. He sang a couple of tunes in Bahasa and funny enough in Thai first but from then on they played pretty good western music. He had two girls who were backup vocals, keyboard and rythym section who also were part of the entertainment as they teased the lead singer. It was suprisingly entertaining and the lead singer did, after much effort, manage to get people up on the dance floor.

Dan, the guy we were sitting next to was so funny when the twist came on. He literally bolted up out of his seat and sprinted to the dance floor where he proceeded to twist like a madman by himself on the dancefloor! I nudged Debbie (his wife) and said 'Looks like you need to get up there Debbie'. She said 'He doesn't need a partner for the twist - he just loves it'. And she was right! He stayed up there for the entire song and twisted better than almost anyone else on the dance floor. I don't think I could get down as low as him and he was old enough to be my dad! We gave him a round of applause when he got back to the table - and passed him a glass of water as he had worked up quite a sweat!

For some reason there was a lot of line dancing throughout the night. I guess the only thing I can put this down to is that it is probably the safest dance to do in a Muslim culture as no-one has to touch and men and women can dance together without being inappropriate. It was quite a sight to see.

One of the guys that Ross worked with requested 'Sweet Child of Mine' for Ross so we got up and did a bit of boogying. At midnight, which came by much faster that I thought it would, they drew the raffle prizes. Unfortunately, no-one at out table won. After the raffle, the ballroom pretty much cleared out. We stayed for a while longer to dance and waited until Dan and Debbie left before we decided to go too. The photo was taken on the way out of the ball.

We jumped in a cab and headed home after a better than expected night.