Three Men And A Lady

June 23rd, 2008 | Posted by Sharon Joy

How I met my Big 30.

June 11. “I’m going to see them monkeys the tomorrow, but tonight, I’m gonna spend it with people.”, I said to myself. So I informed Suchen, the couchsurfer that I previously contacted that I’ve arrived Kota Kinabalu.

He invited me to have dinner with him and his friends who also just arrived from Kuala Lumpur which I gladly accepted. Suchen, with his friends Chris and Kwan picked me up from my guesthouse that night. Suchen is a professional photographer (check out his awesome photos at www.suchens.com), Christopher and Kwan are event organizers whose work invlove travelling, and getting drunk. They make me green with envy I want to stab them and take their jobs from them.

We we went to KK’s version of SuTuKil and they ordered loads and loads food! Fresh fish, shellfish, veggies, (I’m drooling as I’m typing this.) Then we went to KK’s posh revolving bar and restaurant Atmosphere. It’’s situated on the 18th floor of Menara Tun Mustapha and revolves 360 degrees every hour, which got me quite dizzy… or maybe that was from the 2 rhum-colas I’ve taken. Suchen told me that I’m very welcome to stay in his place if I wanted and that it’s perfectly fine with his wife as they’ve hosted couchsurfers before. Since I’ve already paid my 3 days stay in the guesthouse in advance, I had to stay there. The three guys I was with were really nice and I really like them. They’re all married so don’t look at me in that tone of voice. I like Malaysian people a lot. They’re very friendly, and warm, and hospitable. When I found out that they’re all in their early 30’s, I told them I was entering into version 3.0 myself in a few hours. (Yes, I was born on the 12th of June, The Philippines’ Independence Day). They were all pleasantly surprised that I was meeting my big 30 with them. The highlight of my night was when we went to this bar called Shenanigans. Guess what. They had an all-Filipino showband playing! Apparently, a lot of Filipino bands are in Malaysia. Jaci, another couchsurfer I met there on my last day, is convinced that all Filipinos are good singers. Hahaha! Anyway, it was less than an hour before midnight strikes to mark my Big 30. The boys ordered a bottle of Scotch whisky. I’ve never had scotch in my whole life but nothing will stop me from trying scotch to meet my big 30! (I can’t stand whisky that’s why I didn’t bother trying Scotch.) And what do you know, I LIKE SCOTCH ON THE ROCKS!

Apparently, Suchen is quite a personality in these here places. Everyone in the bar knew him and some even taking his photos for the local magazine! Cool! I’m with a local celebrity! Haha! He was going around like he was running for public office. Hahaha! As soon as midnight struck, the house DJ announced to the room that it was my birthday! Then the boys I was with gave me a big hug and we drank and cheered. Like that was not enough, Suchen goes on to tell every person he knows that passes our table to give me a hug! I can’t remember how many people I hugged that night! And like I said, he knows almost everyone in the room! Hahaha! “Give her a hug! It’s her birthday!” And like that’s not enough still, and because this bar has a girl who goes around with a bottle of tequila and a shot glass holder with at least 10 shot glasses in it, Suchen had some of his friends (I figure those were his rich friends) buy me a shot if they made a huge mistake of passing by our table. I think I had more than 5 shots of tequila that night on top of my scotch whisky. Then me and the 3 men went to grab something to eat and they drove me home.

What a fucking amazing way to meet my Big 30. With people I’ve just met, free hugs from strangers, in a city I’ve never been to until then.