Shanghai on Life

Many thanks to all those who sent birthday greeting by email, skype, facebook (btw, I get the notification in my email but I can’t log into the site to respond in case anyone was wondering), mail and however else!

My birthday in China was really one for the books – a truly memorable 22nd!

Most of the celebrations took place on the 7th, as Saturday is a much more appropriate day for birthday celebrations. In the morning Sandra and I dragged Christian and his visiting brother to the grocery store to stock up for the big night. The chips we could carry ourselves but beer was the main goal. You can buy an obscene amount of beer for 300 Yuan (~$50 CAD) in China, so that’ s exactly what we did!

That night I had dinner with Sandra, Danny Boy, Danny’s friend Ryan, Simon and Joy at the Japanese restaurant around the corner from our place. The party started at 9, but was kicked off a little earlier by a group of Daniel’s most fabulous (in every sense of the word) friends. I guess in the end we were some 20+ people, consisting entirely of Chinese people and Germans..and me, of course. Simon, who spent a year in Canada, helped introduce the classic drinking game of “King’s Cup” to give the party more of a Canadian feel, and despite a bit of confusion over how exactly one “busts a rhyme,” people caught on quickly enough. Perhaps the most entertaining part of the evening was “JJ,” a flamboyant and overly confident friend of Daniel’s who decided to try his luck with every foreign guy in the room even after being told none of them were gay. Christian’s poor little 17-year-old brother looked like a deer in the headlights when JJ made a pass at him.

There was a lot of anticipation for midnight, I think this might be some sort of German thing, but everyone said I couldn’t be wished happy birthday or open presents until midnight or it would be bad luck. So at midnight there was champagne, a countdown and even a small toast made by Sandra; it was like New Years eve, except all about meeee! :P Following that there was presents which included a framed photo collage from our recent travels and adventures, a couple of gag gifts, and a money pot which my closer friends contributed to on the condition that I use the money to fly somewhere (Hong Kong here I come!).

After presents the police showed up and told us to turn off the music and move the party along. We sent everyone out with a can of beer as a parting gift and headed out to the bar for a few hours of dancing. At around 3 or 4 we were enjoying some noodles and considering heading home when we were persuaded to karaoke instead, so we hit the KTV and ended up back home at around 6 :D Good times!

The next day (being my actual birthday) was mostly spent sleeping.  Woke up at 2, cleaned up the apartment, talked to Cody, and then went to basketball practice at 6.

Today life is getting back to “normal.” Had a class presentation this morning and now I’m updating the blog instead of studying for my midterm coming up at the end of the week. Daniel is taking me and Sandra out for dinner as his birthday gift to me and the post office informs me that there’s a package from Canada waiting to be picked up, so apparently I get to stretch my birthday on into the week as well :D

Anyway, thanks again for all the birthday greetings, it’s very nice to be remembered even when I’m so far away!