Long live the King!

Today is the Agong's birthday. And it is also the day whereby I attended my first ever open house, Msian style (how ironic that I didn't bother to go to any back home but eager (initially) to grace the one here). It was a formal event with an emcee and an opening speech by the consulate general. It was mentioned in his speech that Msians abroad (everywhere) are celebrating the ruler's birthday today. Of course when celebrations are concerned it always involve the gathering of people and most importantly (local) food. Well, for all I know, back home we celebrate it with a 'yay, it's (just) another public holiday!!!' or in my case previously 'yay, it's another day to be added to my annual leave'!!! Probably when one is far away from home one tends to look forward to every single Msian celebration to get that home-feel.

Ok. Back to the birthday bash. It was buffet style with local delights such as nasi lemak, roti canai, lontong, mee goreng cili and some kuehs. Yay, a taste of home (or so I thought). Hubby did warn though not to harap so much. But I got excited all over again after learning that some were homemade. Eww.. big mistake! The spread actually looked yummy and like how it was supposed to look. A classic case of do not judge a book by its cover. Most did not meet up to my expectations. Maybe I have fussy tastebuds. The dhall was too watery, the mee goreng was a disaster, the sambal udang wasn't spicy enough (probably the hk way), the kuih lapis (or kuih genggang) had a funny syrupy taste (never before tasted one like that), and I couldn't even be bothered with the lontong (how excellent could it have tasted after all that?!). In short, all did not reach my high standard of taste. Not even close. Maybe because I've only left home for a couple of months. Probably these tasted like heaven for those who have been here for ages.

The attendees? All the successful wannabes. Most look like hongkies, bergaya to the max and dressed to the nines (referring to the women)... in a pathetic attempt to impress and show-off to another fellow country(wo)man. One particular girl was carrying an LV (the one with colourful LVs stamped all over a white background), an equally colourful dress (reminded me of emilio pucci but probably not) with a pair of strappy maroon heels. It was all a mis-matched of colours *cringe*. Being in high fashion from top to bottom do not give an automatic immunity from doing a fashion faux pas. Also, most of the people there are in finance. I think practically everybody at our table are working with some banks. This we learnt from their converstions among each other and with the exchange of namecards (of course we were not offered any.. who are we lar??!!!). Sure, not everybody were as obnoxious. There were a few nice ones especially the people at the consulate.

Would I attend another one? Maybe. Maybe not. Oh, why not, I could just do with some amusement!