A time to dine in style

Mindful of the worthy traditions of the English Bar which requires new/aspiring barristers to keep dining terms (sometimes as many as 24 separate dinners with eminent members of the bar, I am told), our Board of Legal Education has also come up with its very own tradition, complete with a snazzy name.


Edu-Dine. Not only are we to be wined and dined, but we were apparently to be educated and edified at the same time.

The event was held in CHIJMES, sometime a Catholic convent, but now revamped and made into an entertainment centre with dining and shopping facilities. The wonderful architecture is still preserved though, and my friend Long did them justice with some of these skillful shots:


A shot of the chapel in which our dinner was held. The interior is still well preserved, complete with lovely stained-glass windows, albeit with the additions of chandeliers and air conditioning to convert it into a dining area.


The same chapel, seen against the clear sky, from inside one of the arches.


The facade of the chapel. Gothic, they say the architecture is, but I didn't get an impression of just how sumptuous it was until Long took all these pictures.

Now on to even more interesting photographic subjects:


Me, standing in a hallway in front of Caldwell House, the upper floors of which were previously a lounge for the nuns.

Kwan Mei and I, with the chapel in the background.


With our photographer, Long.

Long having fun playing paparazzi.


This is when we were seated at our table. I do think the lighting was so much more flattering indoors.

The evening was marked by (weird) Chinese food and suprisingly lively conversation, thanks to some gregarious people at our table. Considering that many of the people at the table don't know each other that well, it took a combination of favourable micro-factors to warm up the atmosphere. The presence of one particularly vivacious girl (educated in UK) helped quite a fair bit. A situation much to be hoped for, on our next and last Edudine.

When sloth gets unrewarding

I've just spent a part of the afternoon wandering about the mall oogling at nice clothes without feeling all that much the better for it, for some reason.

I mean, I thought that after I got my copy of the free Today newspaper (yay for free newspapers!) and grabbed a BreadTalk floss bun for lunch (yay for BreadTalk!), I would have gotten two of my 'irrational feel-good factors' nailed. Instead, I felt that this afternoon seemed to lack something and so I spent an hour or two wandering a mall thinking about finding a bag or a pair of sandals but instead ending up looking almost exclusively at nice dresses.

The search proved unfruitful and in disgust, I went to Carrefour instead and got a bar of 72% Carrefour dark, dark chocolate (which was cool and silky), some shortbread (which I am saving) and a piece of teriyaki chicken (which I absolutely do not recommend). So ended my afternoon's shopping.

Coming back, I reflected on the unusual turn my moods and inclinations took and concluded that perhaps I would have felt better about the afternoon if I had taken out books and notes and mugged hard instead.