porta porta

we were on our way to changi airport to eat at the soup restaurant when i decided i'll try my luck and bring mum to porta porta.

mum is usually skeptical about such adventures and can sometimes turn a happy occassion into a not-so-happy one. but i took my chances anyway.

seated at the table next to ours was this couple from the states, a black woman and a norwegian man. before we tucked into our food, mum acted cute and brought up her glass to propose a birthday toast. we "clinked" our glasses and the next table said "happy birthday". and this was followed by the most bizzare happening of the year, almost like fated to happen on this very day. the woman said that we've chosen to sit at the table next to theirs and they have come all the way from the states to sit next to us.

they arrived on monday and are going back tomorrow 5 am. she works for hp and he is self-employed, some kind of property business. they are staying at shangri-la and some colleague recommended them this restaurant, so they took a 45-min taxi ride from town to the east.

she saw my purple t-shirt, a gift from stef, and said that's where they're from - washington. then (the bizzare thing), she for whatever reason i can't remember, mentioned university of portland. bingo! that's where i intended to go to (at least, that's the university i put down as my first choice in the scholarship application - which i failed to get) she offered to help me pull some strings and so i naturally had to offer my name cards. that's when she said "you've come to sit next to us and we've come from the states to eat at this restaurant", or something like that.

mum said i should offer to send them back to the hotel. and this, i think i got it from mum, this side of her. it was too easy to catch a cab from outside the restaurant, so i had no reason to offer them a ride. all i could say was that when they next come back to singapore, i'll show them around.

so this kind of marks this (2007 - 1971)th birthday.

(today i received a few sms from overseas: peter in perth, wendy in nz, richard in china and stef in the states. @ncy msn-ed from china and thierry sent the card from uk. very internationally celebrated, hee)

happy birthday to me.

http://food.rumspace.com/2007/02/02/porta-porta-italian-restaurant/