Royal Pine

The name of the today's hotel was slightly misleading. Firstly, it was a completely pineless facility: the only greenery were the tall luxuriously fake plants next to the elevators and the light-encrusted bushes outside. And secondly, it was a hotel of the slightly middle-er class, even if one of its restaurants did win an acclaimed French award for its food.


Oh yeah. Yum.

The banquet hall was small - more cozy and intimate than the sprawling monstrosities that the Lion's Club parties are usually held in. It was on the very top floor of the building, and the view was spectacular -



- especially at night.



Our bentos were a little... different. Filling, in an interesting way:



I dubbed them our Kazu-Bens, short for Bentos Made Up Almost Entirely Of Okazu (tiny traditional Japanese side dishes, usually for eating with rice or noodles).

Our 45 minute set sort of flew by. It had a completely different feel to it, like I mentioned above: just another example of how different Lion's Clubs and Rotary Clubs events are.

The sound was great, the audience was a very captive one, and I basked in the overall feeling of affluence until I almost believed I also was wearing a string of pearls and designer tags. Our collective mood picked up from droopy to hyper and by the time we piled back into the van we were singing carols in four part harmonies and generally having a fabulous time.