It was a huge surprise to me that the new friend who we met in church 2 weeks ago is actually my youngest sis's senior in her secondary school volleyball team.
Rena, bless PHS, was my sis's captain in the school team and because of FB, I saw the connection and was immediately filled in by my sis who happened to be on MSN. Oh, I love internet. OK, no more than Ernest and God.
Anyhoo, Rena's 21st birthday is today! And this poor little rich girl had to spend it all by herself in this foreign land. I remembered my 21st too. It was spent in Uni of Q with Ernest and 50 more other strangers on my first day of the school term.
Ernest and I blew out a candle on the cake Ernest bought for me and he wished my 'Happy 21st!' and that's it for my 21st! I vowed never to see another one of that on any of my friends or even anyone I meet, so I thought we got to do something for Rena.
She just came to Sydney 2 weeks ago for school. Didn't know anyone and was quite forlorn about her 21st and all. Sigh....how not to be nice to her you tell me?
So Ernest and I got her a cake for the big sing-along. We sang the traditional 'Happy Birthday' song, then the 'God's Blessing you now' song and even the 'For She's a Jolly Good Fellow' song. It was hilarious.
After that, we brought her to her fav brand of shop Addidas and she went wild in there buying this and that. Next stop is Nike and she got something else there too. What a lot of shopping!
Then we did the touristy bit and took her to Sydney Olympic Park. We showed her the outside of the Aquatic Center, the outside of Acer & ANZ stadiums and the Archery Park.
It was very disappointing that they now charge an entry fee for all visitors who wanted to see the inside of the Sydney Aquatic Centre. I took my entire family of 8 there inside to see where Ian Thorpe used to compete and also at the kiddy pool where we took lotsa pictures FOR FREE and a smile by the person at the counter who let us in at the gantry. Now we were asked to pay $3.20 for each person for just wanting to see how the inside look like. Sianz.
At least Rena seemed to enjoy taking pictures of the stadiums and we had a nice chat by the Archery Park where we saw 2 men in full archery gear taking hits at the target board FOR FREE because the Archery Office is closed for the day. We sat down at the benches watching the 2 men fight it out to see which one is more accurate. We analysed their equipment, their every move and how cheapo they were. And we chatted more about Rena and her life and basically just getting to know her more. It was a very nice afternoon spent.
Before the end of today, we brought Rena to a Chinese restaurant at her request for real Chinese food (haha...she missed Singapore food already, after 2 weeks away!) and had a really sumptious meal. And we went to a real height as a proud and kiasu Singaporean today. We tah-baued the white rice home, cos Rena figured she need not cook her carbs then. Oh...the shame. Haha.
Happy 21st, Rena!
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