The Big 3 Oh...

In July my good friend Lareina Szpak (the girl named Larry) came into town. I picked her up in Taoyuan with my buddies Roz and Justin, and the 4 of us went touring around Taiwan. It was a bodysurfin' safari mixed in with some pretty quality KTV where Larry and I performed our first ever duet to Bon Jovi's Bed of Nails.

In order to bring in my 30th, Larry and I headed to KL where her mum had booked us a room in a pimped out hotel. I was flying out Sunday and back in Wednesday - the Tuesday being my birthday.

On the Monday night we were sitting on the 54th floor of the hotel around a pool, sipping on martinis and having a fairly low key night with Larry's mum and cousin. These 2 decided to retire around 11, at which point Larry and I tagged ourselves into a drinking game with some rich Chinese businessmen.

We brought the decade to a close with them and some excess rowdiness. Then they headed off to take care of some extra business (they were with 2 women who were a LOT younger than them).

At this point there was a flood of extremely good looking people who sat down at the table next to us. Something was definitely cooking now, so Larry and I decided they needed our company and sat with them. Larry asked the blunt question of whether they were models. Of course they were. Models from Australia, USA, Russia, Sweden out there in KL to walk around in fancy clothes.

After dancing up a storm (perhaps make that a drizzle as from memory it was pretty much only me dancing) we were invited back to their penthouse apartment at the Ritz. It was a tough call, be we decided to go with them.

2 minivans picked us up and took us there. Music was pumping, the neon strobe was on and it seemed like there were some donut treats in a locked room as our model friends seemed to disappear for a while and reappear much happier with a hint of powdered sugar on their noses.

At about 5.30am Larry came to me and said, "We've gotta go. I don't want to piss off my mum." It was a tough call because when that door closed, that was the end of this strange rabbit-hole like adventure.

After some deliberating, I agreed that to leave was the best thing. Just before I left, however, 2 Russian models came to me and said (read in female Russian accent), "You're not going to go are you? It's your birthday and you're in a hotel room surrounded by models." Damn, did she have a good point. But we left anyway.

When the door shut on the penthouse apartment in the Ritz of KL the adventure had found it's end. All I was left with for the next while was the question - was that real, or was that just a dream? I guess I'll never know.