May day holiday!

Ross and I made the most of the long weekend by lounging around the house in the morning before heading out to 1 Utama to look for ball dresses and recliners. We wandered around the massive shopping mall for a few hours before coming across one shop on our way out (and right next to Starbucks where we started!) which had a beautiful dress. I tried it on and it fit really well except for the last inch of the zip that wouldn't do up. The lady told us that their tailor could take out the seams and make it fit and if it didn't she would give us our money back. So we bought the dress - let's hope they can fix it!

After we got home, we relaxed for a couple of hours before heading out to our friends place, Julia and Phil, for dinner. Julia is Scottish and Phil might as well be so Julia cooked up a Scottish inspired meal for us. Scallops with black pudding for entree followed by steak and haggis and chocolate moulton puddings for dessert! I was a little anxious about the black pudding and haggis but it didn't taste bad at all, although I will probably not rush out and buy more.

After dinner, Phil broke out the Mahjong set and we played with their son, Lewis and his friend as well as Phil and Julia. It had been a while since we played but we picked it up pretty well and actually won a couple of games. Before we knew it, it was 1.30am and Ross, Phil and Julia had been through about 6 bottles of wine! I wasn't drinking because I am still doing my detox. The photo is of Phil with their dog Sheila.

I drove home with Ross hiccupping pretty much the whole way! We fell into bed completely stuffed and tired after a good night.

Mahjong

Today was a pretty relaxing, low key day with Caz and John flying out early this morning. The "remainders" (Dad and Ann), Ross and I headed off to the local mall for a bit of breakfast and retail therapy.

On our travels we came across a Mahjong set and have spent the evening taking a crash course (after printing out the rules from the Internet!). Besides the different suites (tiles) and a few extra ones thrown in, it really isn't too different from a card game. The hardest part is getting the wall set up, deciding who is the "East Wind" and where to "break the wall". Once the game starts it's actually pretty fast.

Although we're definitely not experts yet, I think we did pretty good for our first time... Chows, Pungs and Kongs were had by all!

By the way, the real game is not at all like the game I used to play on the computer for hours on end while sitting on an oil rig :-)