Parties and such…

"A" was invited to a party a Jungle Zone the other day (indoor amusement centre at Hyatt Plaza). So for a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon we entered a weird little alternative reality. The reason I say this is because it was the Birthday party you have when you are not having a Birthday party (a bit like Claytons for anyone out there that remembers that).

It gets a little confusing, but it was a Birthday party for a brother and sister, but it was neither of their Birthdays. We sang Happy Birthday several times, there were party games, and there was a huge cake… but the fact is the children spent a reasonable amount of time looking a little confused by the whole proceedings (probably because they had already had their respective Birthday parties in another time and space!

The best part was the “entertainment”, although I do use the term lightly. I am sure it has been said that one mans entertainment is another mans purgatory! As "K" has stated to various people, it resembled some weird and seedy Philippino nightclub. Proceedings began with someone in a lion suit (the Jungle Zone mascot so to speak) dancing with the children to very bad and very loud dance music (actually the same irritating song about 4 or 5 times). Next was a juggler who really was a cocktail waiter, and his act resembled the movie Cocktail complete with cocktail shakers and pretend bottles of Champagne. The “cocktail waiter” was followed by another juggler who I think was a circus performer in a previous life; he insisted on doing handstands, flips and summersaults between each bought of juggling prowess (he was actually quite good). His act was complete with a performing midget (I suppose I am suppose to say “little person” to be politically correct) who as you would imagine was the comic-relief sidekick (‘tis all a little sad if you ask me). Next was the magician who kept making one or two pigeons (I believe I counted 2, but then again I possibly was so amazed I wasn’t paying close enough attention) appear/disappear and lighting stuff on fire and turning fire into other stuff. I think he bought a good magic kit and is getting better at using it with every performance. The magician was also the DJ so by this point I was more than hoping he would make both himself and the sound system disappear!

Finally the female MC took over proceedings to host a couple of children’s games. One made sense as two kids were made to run up and down and fill a bucket with balls… simple! The next lead to a large amount of confusion as it consisted of children having to form groups of a given number on the MC’s command. Over half the kids sort of stood there and were “helped” into groups by the “cocktail waiter”, “juggler” and “bat painter”. I haven’t mentioned the “bat painter” yet, but the face painter did a little bat on the boy’s cheeks… I also think he was the guy dancing around in the lion suit earlier! Finally was a dancing competition… firstly the girls who seemed to be trying to dance and then the boys who followed each others lead and ended up standing facing the crowd of nannies (and some parents) clapping nearly in time with the music.

After all this excitement things slowed down a little with the appearance of CAKE (the big one), more renditions of Happy Birthday, Burger King for the kids, pieces of cake for all, the handing out of the gift bags, and the my favourite part… the disappearance of the sound system as everything was shuffled into the next party room ready for another “performance”; another term I use lightly!
As a side note the best part of the afternoon was seeing a woman in the full black Abaya and veil come down the flume ride alone and get wet… not because she got wet, but it looked like she was having a lot of fun… I think we did too, but our fun was far more obscure…