A year older... and none the wiser.

Man… talk about birthday weekends.

I’m not entirely sure how to describe the epic debauchery that went on over time between Friday evening and Sunday morning, but I’m sure as hell going to try.

First of all, lets clarify that yes, it was my birthday on Sunday, July 26, and what a birthday it was.

We started off Friday night by attending an event at the Forbidden City in Clarke Quay, and were treated to some pretty good sounds by their guest DJ from France. I ended up staying there for a couple of hours and having some beers and numerous glasses of a strange orange colored concoction that I will aptly name “hangover juice”.

After getting a little drunk (which equates to about 10 drinks), I had the bright idea of going to Zouk since it seemed that all of my friends were there.

Sure Carlo, great fucking idea, go to a place where you know you’ll need to drink to deal with the crowd on the day before your big birthday bash.

Suffice to say, it was packed. With me being such a genius, you know that I would TOTALLY check whether or not there was a popular act at Zouk on a Friday night right? God I wish. It turned out Crookers were playing and I was going to have to deal with more mayhem than usual!

Let me point out now that I can’t stand big crowds, they make me want to hit people in the back of the head.

Needless to say, I ended up drinking. A lot.

What was supposed to be a quiet night ended up involving tequila, and anyone who knows me KNOWS bad things happen when I deal with tequila.

Still, it ended up being entertaining, and I made it home at a reasonable hour thanks to my best friend Tiffany giving my drunk ass a ride home at around 4 am.

Saturday morning was one of those moments in life where you wake up and go “Fuck, I really shouldn’t have done that”. Feeling rough and destroyed, I ended up having to force myself to sweat it out on the basketball court so that I could survive the coming storm…

Best idea I ever had.

Fast forward a few hours later, and the night begins.

My… what a night it was!

After having a few drinks at my house with a couple of friends, we headed down to Le Noir, where people decided to keep buying me drinks even though I said I needed to pace myself. That didn’t work out too well, and I was definitely already feeling a bit warm by the time we went to Attica. Oh well, at least I got a nice chocolate cake for free!

Oh, and I should probably mention that me being Carlo, missed it when people sang and presented a cake for my birthday because I was outside having a cigarette at midnight. This shit only happens to me!

Attica was unbelievably fun, and I say that even though I don’t remember the tail end of it.

After getting one of the VIP tables upstairs, I ended up ordering one of those three liter bottles of Belvedere (I was going to get the six liter one but since people started ordering other bottles I figured I’d be prudent).

Ah… and more shots… and flaming cocktails… and a couple of chugged drinks down the road.

This is where my memory of the night begins to turn into a powerpoint slide, with me only remembering tiny little flashes.

In a nutshell, here’s what I remember: chugging a drink, talking to some cute blonde girl, chugging a drink, talking to some blurry faces, taking a flaming drink, jumping up on the chairs and being merry, taking a shot, biting a bunch of my chick friends.

Then I wake up at my house...

Alone.

Missing my shirt.

With a massive hangover.

All I can say is, I think It was an unbelievably epic weekend, especially since I capped off Sunday by having a massive steak with the family at Morton’s. God I love that place. Sure it’s pricey, but you’ll get some GOOD ASS STEAK! The 200 or so you’ll pay for your meal is more than worth it.

I’d have to say this year’s birthday was a success, seeing as everyone that I wanted to see came, and my boy Danny even extended his return home to Jakarta so that he could make it for my birthday party. I’d name everyone but that would take a separate blog entry!

All I can say is much love to everyone that came and gave their wishes, and I really appreciate the fact that you all showed up. I’m hoping next year (when I hit the big quarter century) is even CRAZIER!!!

- Carlo

P.S: I can’t share the story of getting headbutted by some random, mainly because I don’t remember that part. So ask someone else not me! Hahaha.

And so the weekend begins...

Ah... Friday.

That blessed time of the week where we can welcome a short break from reality and let go of our inhibitions.

Ok... that's not entirely true. I don't really have inhibitions even during the week, but I do need a break!

Caryn and I will be around Clarke Quay tonight, there's some sort of event that she's dragging me to. We'll hopefully have pictures and at least a few memories for our next update.

As for tomorrow night... there's even bigger things planned. However I can't go into the details of that one right now. You'll have to wait until next week for an update on what happened!

I'm sure I'll find some way to embarrass myself.

I'll leave you now with a picture that currently describes my pre-weekend mood.

- Carlo

P.S. Hopefully I'll be looking more like this tonight:

Party like a VIP in Hong Kong

On Tuesday, Darius left for Hong Kong while i went back to work. All i could think about was Friday as i was leaving for Hong Kong right after work, arriving at 8.15pm.

I checked in at Bishop Lei International House upon recommendation by Peter Yee, a good friend of mine in Hong Kong. It was HKD500 per night and i get one night free upon purchasing two! The location on Robinson Road was fantastic as well. All i had to do was climb down some stairs and i'm at Soho. Further down, it's Lan Kwai Fong! How convenient and the Hotel was pretty basic but comfortable and clean.

I went off for dinner with Peter at Finds, a Scandinavian restaurant with fantastic food. The mixologist/bartender Antonio really impressed me with his concoctions.

First up was champagne, with sparkly gold bubbles which turns out to be Cointreu bubbles with gold leaves embedded in it. The taste was simply unbelievable unlike anything i've had. The bubbles bursts in your mouth as you sip the champagne and the combination of taste and texture of both Cointreu, Champagne and the barely noticable taste of gold (but you know you just drank gold) was explosive!

After that, we had some Patron Reposado shots. Unlike a typical tequila, Patron is an ultra-premium spirit which should not be taken with salt as it would ruin the taste. What Antonio did was, he substituted salt with sea salt which compliments the drink. However, the sea salt comes in the form of foam on top of the shot with Patron. He was explaining that the foam would last for at least an hour untouched! Incredible!

15 minutes later, we were joined by Peter's colleagues from Telford (an alcohol distribution company) and we had some Cointreupolitans and more Patron shots. My newly found friend whom i met at on the flight from Singapore, Tues came to join us. He was such a sweet guy helping me with my bags.

After Finds, we proceed upstairs to a Steak Restaurant whose name i can't remember. There, we were given endless serving of White Wine by the manager, Parry. Before we were even halfway through our wine, it was topped up! This is what i call hospitality. I was almost tipsy before i recalled i had to meet Darius at Azure which is in the same building at Wyndham Street. They have a rooftop view which is fantastic and really good music.

After some rum and coke, followed by Jagerbombs, we headed off to Volar. According to my memory, we ended the night there but according to Darius who had to grab my hands from behind to put it down everytime i tried to order a drink, we actually went off to another bar with a live band...no idea... Also, apparently he and Tues had to help me down my drinks as he realised after a couple of seconds of distraction from me, i had 4 glasses of rum and coke in front of me! That was absolutely hilarious as i did not recall any of it and i also had to be threatened to drink water. Gosh.

Day 2 - If you think what we did on Friday night was insane... think again. I was having a couple of Guiness at an Irish bar where i met two nice Irish boys, Peter and Brian when Darius called to have dinner.

Off we went to a nearby Kebab place and then it started pouring. We had to run up to my hotel in the rain which was not a small feat. Imagine running up those infamous Hong Kong stairs( we only ran part of it since there are escalators in some parts) then through an alleyway where i kept slipping out of my flip-flops.

By the time we got back to the Hotel, we were both drenched! It was really funny watching Darius dry his shirt with the aircon then the hairdryer..lol. At 10.30pm, we set out to meet Peter at Sevva which has a fantastic view of the city. The drinks are also a little on the steep side but having some rum and coke on the terrace and some nice conversation - priceless.

Next up, we headed off to Kee Club which is a member's only bar. Had a fairly nice decor and a crazy Maître d’dancing all over the place.

After one drink, we went over to Halo, another members club. This is by far my favourite club in the city! Amazing espresso martinis and not forgetting loads of cougars ;) There was especially one who was trying to hit on Darius, touched his hair and asked to touch his beard! The poor boy was so frantic he had to pretend i was his girlfriend while i was trying not to break out in laughter as i was watching the action through the mirror at the bar.

Without wasting much time, we went over to Beijing Club on Wellington Street. Beijing is a multi-storey club located on the 2nd, 3rd and 5th floor of the complex. Again, after a drink we went down to a Billiard Bar in the same building for some Jager Concoction.

Next up was Sugar. As we approached the building, the queue was so unbelievably long it makes the queue at Butter Factory seem like a joke. Peter the hero, went right up, pass even the VIP queue and walked straight in! Well done! We did not stay very long at Sugar though as the crowd was a little on the young side so, we went over to Billion.

Billion, had Moet branded across the bars and Belvedere all over the ceiling! This was where we really got trashed and it's also where i met a really hot guy by the name of Shane, whom Darius kept insisting was gay and i could vouch he is NOT! Peter got us a bottle of Patron which we polished off in no time at all and straight after was ushered off to Dragon-i. Dragon-i was not very packed by this time so we went back to Volar where one of the owners was throwing a birthday party. Again, Darius was hit on by girls but they were not so good looking...poor boy. We ended our bar/club crawl at Drop. By then it was already close to dawn and as you could see Darius took this opportunity to take a picture of me passed out again...

Think we could make a series out of these. Finally, supper/breakfast at The Flying Pan, back to Hotel and off i go back to Singapore on Sunday but not after i had some Pret and taken the Star Ferry!

You just have to love partying with me!

The day i've been waiting for is finally here when Darius arrived on 13th of May. Parties were planned for the week. First, was Alley Bar for the Choya Green Party where we had some Choya Martinis garnished with Japanese Plum. Those are really yummy, to the point where you don't even know you're drinking alcohol! Upon arriving at the party, we were given some masquerade masks to put on and boy do the guys look gay in it!

The party ended at 10.30pm and we headed up to one of my favourite chill-out place - No. 5 Emerald Hill. The 1-for-1 martinis promo after 9pm is one of the best deals in town i must say. We had some delicious Lychee Martinis and curious Darius suddenly decided to order a dry Vodka Martini...wrong choice...Knowing No.5 uses 50ml pours instead of the 30ml we Asians are used to, the Martini tasted like we were drinking Vodka straight up! We struggled to finish it for at least half an hour and by then we were slightly 'happy' if you know what i mean. We finished off with another pair of Lychee Martini before heading off to Butter Factory to wash down the pungent taste of the ever-so-strong Vodka Martini. Unfortunately, Butter Factory was full of 'kids' on a Wednesday night but we still managed to satisfy ourselves with more drinks! Funny thing was, we ordered 2 glasses of Rum and Coke during their 2-for-1 promo, got 2 more glasses foc and while waiting for the bill, received a full jug for free! Basically we paid about $26 for 4 glasses and a jug! No wonder we got slightly wasted that night and shoved down some sinful banana prata with chocolate at Spize. Ewww...the calories.. but it was his first prata in almost 2 years!

Thursday was just a chilled out day when Darius came looking for me at the Trade Fair where we had some free flow of Hoegaarden and Stella Artois. After 4 beers, he confessed he felt a little tipsy... Hello?? What kinda German is that ;) Thursday was pretty chilled out though and we joined Anthony, Gio, Rouslan, Priya, Mike and Ryan for some Chilli Crab.

The mayhem continued on Friday with John Langan's Elegantly Wasted party at House where we had some Belvedere Cocktails. Unfortunately, the cocktails actually taste more like juice but the good crowd made up for it.

As usual these days, the night ended up at Butter Factory again!Somehow, we had too much Vodka Redbull and Darius did not want to leave even after the party was over so we went with Stefan to Home Club which unfortunately was closed by then! That left us with no other choice than to end up at Living Room... a whore-filled place. Good thing we did not stay there for long as every white guy in there probably thought i was a working girl.

I had some pre-game at my place the day after with Hartaz and Darius where Priya brought along some Absinthe and Grey Goose.. oops!

Guess where we were headed after pre-gaming...Butter Factory! Poor Darius who was visiting had to see the same club 3 times in a week! What can i say it's the best club right now and we were meeting up with Karen who came to visit from Scotland.

This time, i got really really wasted and ended up falling asleep at Niqqi's Cheese Prata all the way at Clementi for old times sake when we used to study at NUS.

Degeneratism 101

Well…

As everyone can see, Caryn’s already been super busy updating the blog.

While I’d really like to have had something up before now, extenuating (alcohol related) circumstances have prevented me from putting up my first post until now.

So… what DID go on last weekend?

We started off with Estelle’s playboy party, which had a decent turnout. The party itself at the Sail was entertaining (in its own way), though I’d have to say my ears bled a little from how loud the music was.

Then again, a little bit of noise shouldn’t be a problem when one’s chugging down a bottle or two of Grey Goose.

I do have to say though, I was expecting far more cute girls in skimpy outfits to show up. There were way too many clothes and way too few girls!

It was a pretty chilled out way to begin the weekend though, especially considering how quickly things spiraled out of control.

After a little (well, two hour) detour to the Tanglin Club for cheap drinks, I followed everyone up at Butter Factory, where just about everyone that was at the party seemed to be drunk past the point of no return.

It’s around this point that we see our other favorite protagonist, Caryn, looking dazed and confused after way too much liquor.

Butter was packed and entertaining as usual, and the crowd was pretty decent. I couldn’t really tell you how the music was though, considering the toxic mix of whiskey, tequila, jagermeister and vodka that my poor liver was trying to process.

Ah… but I wish that was the end of the night. While the other soldiers decided to go home and get some rest, a few of us decided to have a post-clubbing poker game.

That was not a good idea.

I guess it wouldn’t have been so bad if we had stopped drinking while we played, but who the hell does that? If you’re going to push through the morning, you may as well drink! Like the geniuses that we were, me and Danny (a good friend who seems to always be around when I get myself into entertaining trouble), busted out a bit more booze to get things rolling.

It was only seven hours, two McDonalds deliveries and a whole lot of poker played later that we realized it was 2 pm.

The rest of the weekend developed in a normal (albeit uninteresting) manner. After getting three hours of sleep, Saturday was spent at Supper Club and Attica, where once again, there was far too much vodka and tequila, and way too little sanity. On a side note, we found out that Balcony bar now has a closing time?! What the fuck? Where the fuck am I supposed to drink after all the clubs close???

You’d imagine that two such nights would be enough for a human being… But think again. I can’t go into details about what went on Sunday, but suffice to say it was rife with more entertainment and drinking.

Now I look forward to a week of recovery…

- Carlo

Shameless plug of the day: So… anyone got a card game they want to invite me to?

DJ Toni Granello @ New Asia Bar

The Best of House Music with DJ Toni Granello (Switzerland)

8pm-9.30pm

Swissotel the Stamford, Helipad

Exclusive Pre-Aperitif

9.30pm till Dawn

New Asia, Level 71, Equinox Complex

It's time to PARTY!!

Immerse yourself in Dj Toni Granello's wicked house music as he powers New Asia's turntable with his magical touch and rattles the beams with his explosive mixes. A shining beacon of light in the international music industry, Tony shot to stardom with his track Lift Him Up and has been blowing up parties globally, including Hed Kandi's parties in Switzerland.

This event is sposored by Belvedere and Moet & Chandon. Any takers?? ;) Hit me up for invites!

-Caryn

Estelle's Playboy Mansion

Tonight, Carlo and I would be attending Estelle’s Playboy themed birthday party. Interesting...

Audi Singapore Fashion Festival 2009

Audi Singapore Fashion Festival started off on the 6th of May with a Christian Lacroix opening gala dinner and fashion show followed by an after party on the helipad of New Asia Bar in collaboration with none other than Time Out magazine. The after party started at 10pm on the helipad with free flow Sagatiba cocktails and guests had to adjourn down to the VIP area of the bar around midnight as it looked like a storm was brewing. The party continued till 2am if I remembered correctly as I don’t recall getting into a cab after and I could say that on behalf of quite a few people…you know who you are ;)The day after, Kathleen and I went for the Gareth Pugh fashion show at the Tent outside Takashimaya. It was very impressive and I love the way he plays with shapes and different materials. It really sets him apart from the rest. We headed off to Prime Society after with Arissa for the Ashley Isham Summer Collection party where we had some paraffin wax and massage while sipping on champagne and watching the show. That was pretty much a sober night until Mark and Lionel came and convinced us all to head off to Velvet for the after party….I think I passed out on the couch. Oh, and did I mention I met a really really hot guy at Prime Society. Well, he was just on vacation and I can’t even recall his name now.

The last fashion show I attended was on the 8th of May with Chaya who came down from Jakarta just to catch the Marc Jacobs show. It was not worth it at all. By the time we got seated, the show was over before we knew it! By this time, I was already sick of the shows. The after parties were definitely a lot more fun so I went off to join my friends at Supper Club for Ashley Isham’s after party.

-Caryn

An Excuse to Travel which started with a night’s out at the Police Station ;)

So, here goes the beginning of a travel addict’s diary.

My best buddy Darius whom I’ve not seen for a year and a half was finally going to visit me in Singapore after a long LONG wait (I thought I was gonna start getting grey before we meet again).

He’s still studying while I’ve already been working for two years which means he has a long vacation while I have next to none!

Therefore, this was the only time I actually took time off work just to travel with him. However, he was arriving on the 12th of May and the weeks leading up to that was a major headache.

I had to deal with the Singapore Beer Festival, Audi Singapore Fashion Festival and then the Tax Free World Asia trade fair.

Let’s start with the Singapore Beer Festival which started on 29th April and ran until the 3rd of May.

I was helping run the outdoor smoking bar with a team of awesome bartenders and servers. It was a fun filled week with Hell’s Belles performing on Wednesday and Friday, B-yond VIP Party on Thursday and Vertical Horizon on Saturday! We worked from 12 noon all the way till 4 or 5am every single day.

The great part about my job is I get to drink while I’m on the job and my friends all showed up to accompany me for a drink or two…. but then again, there is also a downside to it. At the end of the night, I had to exchange all the drink coupons for cash so I could pay the staff on a nightly basis. Could you imagine how many coupons there are in denominations of $1, $5 and $10??? I had to count them up every single night and this happens everytime when I’m on the brink of getting drunk and then because of these stupid coupons I begin to sober up again! What a waste of alcohol!

On Sunday, the last day of Beerfest, we ended at around 11pm. This called for a celebration so all those involved stayed back for some drinks and drunken dancing. This time, I took it upon myself to actually get wasted for once since I’d been way too sober thanks to those silly coupons.

My saviour came in the form of Mark Mandemaker…my little brother who would not pass up a chance to drink till he drops!

First, we started off with some beer bongs with EFES beer, then double beer bongs (where the pipe branches out into two so the both of us could do it at once) then more beer bongs when we went back to the smoking bar as Harry brought the bong over! We ended it with a double beer bong with 4 cans of beer between the two of us. That I think was the final straw for me… Can’t remember anything after and when I woke up, I was at the Police Station!!!

Apparently I passed out on the way home and the cab driver was afraid that I won’t wake up.

He said he didn't dare to wake me up in case I sued for molest or rape...

Huh??? Has that happened in Singapore before to contribute to the kiasu-ness of these cabbies? The most horrendous thing is, my cell went flat and the only number I could remember was Karen’s so I gave her a call and she came over to get me out of it. I can’t write anything about what happened in there as there were a lot of offensive vocabulary coming from my end (just in case they find me here and I really get into trouble this time).

I'll tell you this much though: at the end of the day, I got out unscathed ;) I WIN!! ahahah

-Caryn