After much trepidation and apprehension over the idea of 'turning 40', I am now 40 + 11 days old.

To help me ease into this new era, I have been blessed to have so many friends, family and colleagues to organised several birthday gatherings for me.

To start off the first in a series of my 40th birthday celebrations, on 4th June 2009, the ladies in Industry - Alicia, Kamala, Tiffany and Sophanna took me out to a Spanish restaurant called  "Lulo" which is located in Hawthorn, Melbourne. Its specialties include some very delicious tapas - particularly worthy of a mention was the king prawn dish. But the blackened sausage - best to avoid it! Yuck! I had a cosmopolitan to start the evening - much needed drink to wear off all of work's trouble.  We also had a jug of sangria which was just the perfect drink to go with the tapas. It was enough to make me very relaxed.  That afternoon in the office, these ladies also gave me a slice of choclate cake with one candle on it. 

The second celebration came on 11th June when Janet arrived in KL to spend a day with me . Yes, I do feel very spoilt by my friends including Janet who had taken time of out her mega busy schedule to visit me in KL. Although we only had roughly 24 hours together, we had precious time catching up with one another again. It felt like the good old times - when we were working for AMC in HK.

Then on 12th June, after sending Janet off to the airport. The first set of my surprise guests arrived from Singapore. Sis Heng and brother Mike drove (sped) to KL after work. I was very glad to see them. My party won't be complete without them.

My KL birthday party took place in a small French boutique restaurant in Bukit Ceylon (20 mins drive from where I grew up). I loved the cellar-like room they gave us. It had this cosy and intimate ambience to it. Then another pair of surprise guests arrived - Chris and Tawn from Thailand. My best friends , Chooi and Lizzy, from uni days were also there together with some of my uncles. Yes, we were noisy and loud. I was relaxed (which was a good thing), especially after having had a few glasses to drink. We had to skip painting the town red by declining Peter's offer to go the Sultan at the Hilton as we all had a few too much to drink that night.

I celebrated my actual birthday in Bali with Sis Susan, Brother James and cousin Oi Ling. This was my Sis' present to me - Bali trip.  Birthday lunch was at a lovely restaurant (forgot the name!) with traditional Indonesian dishes. Sis, James, Oi Ling, Leon (Sis' friend) took me to a fancy restaurant (best setting) called the Ku Da Te. Again, it offered tapa-like dishes. Once again, we had a huge fish-bowl sized Sangria. It had the perfect mix. We had a table overseeing the beach and the roaring waves rushing onto shore. The dark sky was clear with tiny stars glittering.  I just loved the ambience. The waiters/waitresses were friendly and attentive.  They brought out a slice of chocolate cake and wrote "Happy Birthday to Stephanie" with chocolate icing around the plate. To finish it off, they joined in a chorus and sang an Indonesian version of Happy Birthday to me. Sweet! A night worth remembering for years to come.

Finally on 26th June, a group of my LLNP (Language, Literacy, Numeracy Program - this is what my job is all about) teachers and associate organised dinner at the Fedeles, Waverley, Melbourne. Actually there seem to be this consistent theme of choice of cake - chocolate - I had another chocolate cake. They bought me these candles which were very difficult to blow out so in an effort to do so, I might have accidentally sprayed over the cake. Once again, after a glass of red, I was able to relax and be my foolish self again. Needless to say, I had a great time.