As we all know the gala dinner was held at Marinis 57 which gave us a breath taking view over KL.
The evening was balmy, everybody was dressed beautifully, or appeared to be until we arrived at the restaurant and we realized that Alex had left his appropriate foot wear back in Australia and for a moment it looked like we would be forced to leave Alex in
the foyer where the rest of us were wined and dined in luxury.
It turned out however (the super hero gods must have been smiling
on Alex that night), that the restaurant just happened to have a pair of dress shoes to fit Alex, so he donned his new dancing shoes and was able to follow us up to level 57.
We were immediately ushered out onto the balcony where some us of sipped cocktails, others French champagne and Alex had a beer.
After soaking up the gorgeous sunset, we were seated in the main restaurant.
More wine and champagne and then our 1st course, Carpaccio di Polipi e Patate (Octopus), followed by Crespelle al granchi (crab crepes).
At this point we took a short break and moved back onto the balcony where we took the opportunity to recognized Alex’s contribution to Celgenewith a special focus on his contributions to MM and MDS.
At this point we took a short break and moved back onto the balcony where we took the
opportunity to recognized Alex’s contribution to Celgene with a special focus on his contributions to MM and MDS. There were lots of laughs and clapping as Michelle and Albert ran though some of Alex’s memorable contributions to the business. The speeches cumulated in the handing over of a token of the groups appreciation and it was something that Alex has always wanted but had never dreamed of owning……..his very own morph suit. Alex was so overcome with emotion, especially receiving such a special gift, he was an emotional mess and found it hard to string a sentence together (he had only had a few beers and a couple of glasses of wine so they weren’t affecting him in any way).
After these emotion charged speeches concluded, we moved back inside to finish the remainder of our sensational meal which concluded with ultra cool fairy floss and laughed some more.
The only negative part to the entire evening was the “toilet man” who kept following the males into the toilet, there were numerous complaints of “stage fright” when the small, neat man would sidle up to the males from our group, once they had readied themselves for the task at hand and stand close enough that they could feel his soft breath on their backs………not quite right although this was the cleanest, neatest male washroom ever and it was speculated that men couldn’t be trusted to aim straight so supervision was required. For the record, there was no “toilet lady” in the female washroom.
The majority of people made it back to the bar at the Hyatt however for the record, Jacinta, Rob and a few others did sneak off early in an attempt to gain points for the lucrative “Nanna’s award” however the rest of us made it to the bar only to be scared by the sight of Alex parading around the bar in his new morph suit…...this is defiantly one of those things where what happens on the footy trip, stays on the footy trip. INSERT PHOTO OF ALEX IN MORPH SUIT
Overall we had a lovely night, brilliant venue, delicious food and wine and the company made the night perfect
a gala dinner with fancy shoes and toilet stalkers