Farewell Dinner (NS) 060707

Guess I'm not the only one leaving.. My friend, weatherman Eugene Fu from my battalion is also going to Australia to study as well. He's headed for UNSW in Sydney - Yes, THE uni which Asia Campus in Singapore was shut down due to poor enrolment and colossal losses. But that does NOT mean that UNSW is not a good educational institute !

What you see on top is Eugene and I, shamelessly flaunting our 'Farewell Gifts'. Well, its actually a picture of our 35th BTACC Commissioning batch. I'm nt authorised to tell you what BTACC stands for, if I tell you, I'll have to kill you... with cheese. Just know that we are all Army Lieutenants who had recently just become 'operationally ready' together.

Dinner was at Swissotel *wow* Merchant Court *chey* but it was pretty good! Ellenborough Market (where's that?) is the name of the buffet restaurant. It's an International buffet (hardly though), focussing mostly on local food, mainly chinese food. However, they do provide fresh sashimi, raw oysters, scallops and cooked octopus. One thing I really loved about this place is their DESSERTS section. They feature their speciality Durian Pengkat (Durian mousse) and lots of local delights. They also had a 5-tiered chocolate fondue fountain which was really sinful. Not a bad place to bring your ang-moh (caucasian) friends to sample the local flavour.

The whole dinner event was a very successful one. Many thanks out to Kuah Weehian for organising the event, and the rest for both the farewell gift and simply 'being present'. It's just too bad that my NS buddy, LTA Ray Tay (the only one who *gasp* *signed-on) could not make it as he was overseas.. As usual, we left out one person.. you know who you are.. Mike. Oops, did I think that out aloud.. with cheese?

*sign on - these 2 words when used together in Singapore, means to voluntarily enter the regular force of a given Uniformed group, usually the Singapore Armed Forces. E.g. Hey, so how? Have you found a job yet? Not yet? Then you better sign on man!
After dinner, most of them left.. the only 'stayers' are Collin (pink..as usual), Joel(black), Weehian(red). Xiaoping joined us after dinner. From Clarke Quay, we headed down to Prinsep St. to Mind Cafe. A really niche cafe whereby board and card game lovers frequently gather and frolic happily while sitting in a circle.
Game of the day: I'm the Boss!
Rules are simple. Find investors, seal the deal and make money. Player with most money at the end of the game wins. We stayed there till.. nearly 2am, before we finally could bear to part..(mainly because we got the 2 hr package so we couldnt leave until our time was up).

We had a really great time. At the end of the day.. I was feeling.. suprisingly sad. It was like, I didnt realise that after this 1.5 yrs together, the bond I've forged with these guys have become so strong! Not one who is good at farewells, I simply shook their hands and bid them a quiet good bye. See you guys in June 08!