of a birthday at the races
Sokhan celebrated her birthday on Saturday (13 Sept) at Rosehill Gardens Racecourse, where it coincided with Myer’s Mad About the Hat Day. This naturally meant that we had to dress up and be decked out with all sorts of fancy accessories (namely a big ass hat). And naturally, it also meant that I was ill-prepared for it. I had planned to use this dodgy hairpiece thing that I had made for Sath’s birthday a while back (birthday theme: day at the races), but it was pretty dodgy so I asked Ruby what she thought of it.
“It looks like a troll,” she replied, wrinkling her nose a bit at it. T_T Gah. Fine. I didn’t have time to worry about a replacement, however, because I had forgotten to vote for the local government election on my way back from Ram’s and so would have to also forgo the fancy hair experiments Ruby was going to conduct on my head. Ugh, I was so running late that day! It was a good thing Ruby reminded me, but bad that I had to vote in my cocktail dress… complete with flip flops. Classy.
We picked up My-Le (where I borrowed her little silver hair piece thing to stick in my bun), headed to Sokhan’s place to pick up our wristbands to get in, and finally made our way to the racecourse. We should have expected to experience massive traffic jam around the place, but somehow was still surprised at the sheer number of cars blocking up all 3 lanes. I was so glad Ruby was driving, as she deftly bullied her way through to the right-most lane from the left-most lane, only to discover that all the racecourse’s parking lots were full and so had to bully from the right-most back into the left-most. I know we would be still stuck in traffic if I was driving haha.
It looked like close street parking would be a lost cause, but thankfully found one right at the end of a side street. Although it was a short walk (maybe about 10-15 minutes in total), it felt like a trek in our heels and the heat – especially since we had to go across that ginormous footbridge.
Happily, the Grand Pavilion wasn’t far from the entrance and it was blissfully air conditioned. We were checked off the list of attendees and had our wristbands noted by the staff as we walked through and up the stairs to the room-hall-thing.
We were struck by how big the function room was and tried to absorb the sight: 2 massively long glass walls (opening to the racecourse itself), tables decorated by different headpieces as the centrepiece, bookies to the left, live band a bit further up, and a pamper lounge tucked away in the corner. What the? Pamper Lounge? This needed further investigation… later.
The staff told us our table numbers (9, 12, and 13 – yay for photographic evidence! Haha) and that we could choose to sit anywhere at them. No one from our party was there yet, so we bagged table 9 as it was closest and right next to the racecourse. Perfect view of the racecourse – not that it matter as when the races started, practically everyone had surged to the grand stand, blocking out the natural light and of course the view of the race. *sigh*
While waiting for everyone else to arrive, we sauntered over to the Pamper Lounge. Two girls were having their make-up done and it seemed that the ladies doing the make-up were also educating them on what was done and how to do it.
A long time later, it was Ruby’s turn, then My-Le’s. By this stage, more of our group had arrived and Betty joined us at the Lounge. We were both contemplating whether or not we had the patience to wait and to sit through lengthy lecturing on our skin condition/tone/whatever. I decided I wasn’t. Hehe
Ruby was finally complete and the first thing I thought was, “Oooh sparkle-sparkle!” as the foundation used had tiny-tiny glitter stuff in it, which was quickly followed by, “That looks a bit heavy.” And it was, Ruby felt like she had a mask on her face and the lipstick/lipgloss thing made her smile funny. She ended up blotting most of it off her crisp white napkin. My-Le, in the end, didn’t like it either – it was way too heavy and to be honest, I thought the foundation she had on before was much better than the make over (you couldn’t tell she was wearing any!). Betty ended up getting her eyes and lips done only, but even then I thought the make-up artist was a bit heavy handed with the eye shadow.
With all the makeovers and eating the entrée (the prawns were quite nice hehe I quietly swapped my chicken/beef/whatever-it-was dish with the prawn dish sitting next to me – I’m quite sure no one was sitting there =P), we missed betting and watching the first race of the day.
Almost everyone got into betting for the second race and a few of us won. My-Le decided to go for the trifecta and every single time she would get 2 out of the 3 horses – she’d get all excited… until she realised 2 out of 3 ain’t good enough and would returned nothing. I think she got all frustrated and drowned her sorrows in her cups, as she got quite, quite tipsy hehe.
Hmmm what else happened…
During the second race, a chick’s hat flew off and onto the green below the stand. She went to pick it up and was ambushed by a sudden gust that lifted her dress up to almost indecent heights. There were catcalls, cheers, and a few disappointed groans from the crowd – the poor girl was so embarrassed, you could literally see her turn bright red, as she hurried back to the grand stand.
We went out for a walk to the other side of the pavilion, just to see what’s the go. The automatic doors slid opened, revealing a much brighter light than we were accustomed to and a waft of warm-hot air curled around us, toying with our attire and hair. Did I mention it was a gorgeous day? Blue, sunny skies with a warm breeze that now and again picked up. The girls were saying that it was such a perfect day for such an outing and that it was the perfect start to the warm summer season coming up. It was nice… until it got a bit uncomfortable and the air a bit stifling.
The other side was very much the non-fancy side and the more betting side of the races, where almost old-style bookies stood by the odds of the horses and each carried a massive bag that seemed like it was a throw-back from the days of yore. We did find something new though:
Two girls were walking around selling tickets for the “official” after-party at Argyle, complete with bus ticket. They wore tight outfits and the blonde decided to up the ante and had her shirt unbuttoned half-way down. I practically boggled, but she had nice boobs I guess – flaunt what you’ve got while it’s still good? hehe
We took lots of shenanigan photos and before we knew it, the day was over.
More photos are on facebook and naturally, flickr! Wondering why they’re mostly in black and white? I’m not sure what it was, maybe it was the bright light from outside that messed up the indoor lighting, the clashing colours, the awful carpet… whatever it was, the photos were awful! I got rather emo and had Bien compare the colour photos with the black and white ones to see if it was just me that thought b/w looked better.
He didn’t mind the colour photos so much and we kind of argued back and forth on the merits of b/w versus colour photos (specifically to this set anyways). In the end, I was like, “Screw it. I’m so very certain black and white looks much, much better in terms of contrast and definition. If anyone whines to me about not knowing what colour a certain dress is, I’ll link them to someone who left their photos as is.” and proceeded to black and white almost all of the photos. Bah.
Ooopsy, I digress. So we ended up at Tom’s place and then went to Albion Hotel for dinner. Most of us anyways. One of the other girls didn’t bring her ID with her and so wasn’t allowed in, so that group went home.
Betty raged a bit at the girl’s lack of common sense. She had asked her why she didn’t bring her ID and the reply was: “We were going to the races. I didn’t think we’d need it.”
“But you always bring your ID everywhere with you!” Betty said indignantly to us afterwards. “Why would you leave it at home?! Especially when you look like you’re 16 and you know there’s going to be alcohol involved!” It was kind of funny watching her rage, but I did think the other girl was a bit silly in not bringing her ID. I mean, if anything, I bring it just in case something happens and they need to identify me. *shrugs* Morbid I know, but hey… anything can happen.
We chatted and ate pizza and chatted some more, until Ram came. Well, not really, where there’s Ram, there’s always chatter, so there was more of that. Hehehe.
Mark, Frank, and Christian dropped by Ram’s place and we watched The Mummy 3 and Wanted – Ruby came by about a quarter or halfway through the Mummy 3, as everyone went home from Roxy and she couldn’t sleep.
Was very late when we finished. So very tired, but fun! =) That night was kind of a blur so I can’t remember all the silly things that were said or done =( I’m quite sure we teased Mark for being a sad panda again, for whatever reason… OH!
I whispered to Frank, “Let’s stacks-on Mark!” Frank did an impressive stacks on and I jumped on top, only to kind of do a slide-tumble off Frank’s back. T_T Frank complained that I didn’t help with the stacks on and that I needed to give it more “oomph” when coming down.
So we tried again, this time with Ruby, except Mark was ready for us. Frank kind of did a guerrilla war cry as he was about to stacks-on Mark, which changed mid-way to a slightly panicked, half-strangled noise. Mark had kind of punched him in the special place. =.=;; Or almost, I’m not sure which, but Frank was like, “Boy, was I glad you guys didn’t jump on top yet!” Hahahah.
Anywho, that’s all I got =P
teehee
