Bob the Builder for Sandro

Last October 30, my nephew, Sandro celebrated his 3rd birthday in Manila Polo Club. It was raining so hard and I thought the celebration will be postponed since it should be done in the cogon area which is an open area. Nevertheless, it was transferred to McKinley room.

There were about twelve (12) kids who attended the party with their Bob the Builder costumes while others did not make it due to the rain. But everything went well. I highly praised the host of the party as Bob which was done by Clowning Around. Such host was very effective since he was able to let Sandro cooperate in the games and follow his instructions. My my my, our little rascal Sandro.. he was so happy on his party more so the kids. They enjoyed the games and the prizes they have received and not to forget the personalized loot bags prepared by my sister, Tel.

Lastly, I congratulate my sister for making the party so wonderful. A lady who is very talented and creative when it comes to children parties. Through her Twinkle Dreams business, she is able to extend and share her works to other mothers and kids. Well, as an advertisement, you can reach my sister through her mobile number, +63,920.9613437 for personalized invitations and novelty things. (how's that sis,huh..)

Mahjong, A Classic Game

Mahjong, mah-jongg, majiang, or whatever you would like to spell it is a game of four (4) players that basically originated in China. It is a game of skill, intelligence, calculation and luck. In most countries, mahjong is often used in gambling.

If you're not familiar with mahjong, the closest game to it is the western card game called gin rummy. Both games involve selecting and discarding cards or tiles to score points by forming groups or runs of similar units.

In mahjong, the object is to build complete suits (usually of threes) from either 13th or 16th tiles. The person to achieve this goal is said to have won the game. Hence, the winning tile completes the set of either 14 or 17 tiles.

To give you a background of the equipment used in mahjong, there are six (6) types of suit tiles used, namely, the circle, bamboo character, wind, dragon and flower suits. In the Filipino way, we immediately disregard the wind, dragon and flower suits and considered all of them as flower tiles already.

In winning the game, we need to complete some sets, namely:

Pong - is a set of three (3) identical tiles
Kong or kang - is a set of four (4) identical tiles and must be immediately declared.
Chow - is a set of three (3) suited tiles in sequence. Unlike other sets, an exposed Chow may only be declared off the discard of the player on the left.
Eye - it consists of two (2) identical tiles and is the final component to the standard hand.

There are other special sets that would give excitement to the game and these are what we filipinos called "Escalera" and "Seven (7) Pairs".

Such game is very famous especially to older people. For our family, it is our way also of spending weekends with coins in replacing the chips and as part of the bet.