On a lighter note I recently celebrated my birthday! Yay! On the Friday I was taken to La Palm Royal Beach Hotel for a Thai dinner. The food was delicious, but I wouldn’t call it Thai. It was Asian Fusion at best. Anyway, dinner was at the Bali Hai Restaurant and to their credit they call their cuisine French Polynesian.
Then on the Saturday I had lunch with friends at Noble House, a new Chinese restaurant. Like anywhere else, there are a lot of Chinese restaurants in Ghana. The staff must have overheard my friends wishing me Happy Birthday, because when it came time to serve the dessert (we had a set course meal), they played Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday” song on the loudspeakers and all the waiters and waitresses (it seemed) came out singing along, with our dessert (a bowl of ice-cream scoops of different flavours with lit candles served with honey sweetened fried noodles). I was taken by surprise because I made the reservations for the lunch and definitely did not tell them that it was for a birthday celebration. It was quite memorable and very thoughtful of the Noble House staff who had already received high marks for being courteous.
After stuffing ourselves with all that food, we walked around Osu visiting the plentiful shops or rather enjoying brief sojourns of air-conditioning. We finally settled at Hemingways Bar for cool drinks and further socializing. In the evening I met up with one of Nii’s friends who I met at Monte Carlo my first night in Ghana. I spent time with him and his friends engaging in intelligent debate with the aid of Courvoisier cognac! Really, it wasn’t drunk conversation I promise!
Then we made our way to The Office, a local hotspot, which is situated next to a strip club. I hear the strip club is frequented by many “big men” be they Ghanaian, tourists, or ex-pats. Anyway, in the news last week, it was reported that the Ghana Tourist Board wants to close down all strip clubs because they are illegal and because Ghana is not a sex tourism destination. Well, I’m sure a lot of European and American men and women would beg to differ and that a few young Ghanaian lads and lassies would have no source of income if that was indeed the case. But I need not say more – a simple search on any search engine will give you the facts.
But back to my birthday weekend. On the Sunday, I went to church with the sister of a Ghanaian friend back in the US who then decided to take me on an impromptu visit to Akosombo.
No wonder I’m knackered!
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