birthday happs
The past 24 hours have been pretty awesome. Explanation and
Last night started off pretty early when I went out to dinner with Brian and Richard, a former student and his wife for Hunan food. It was surprisingly spicy. We tried a new bijiu, chinese wine, that was really good and easy, kind of rare for bijiu. good stuff.
After dinner Brian and I were dropped off at his office, my old office and plans were made ot go over to Tino's house, my old apartment, for mahjong and cards.
They totally surprised me with a huge birthday cake and then surprised each other by having a cake fight all over the apartment, at a time when, for some reason the water was turned off in our district. Then we all went outside to set off fireworks. It was right on. Even though fireworks have been going off nonstop for the past week for the new year's celebration, I did not actually set any off until last night. Pretty cool!
AND THEN this morning when I woke up IT WAS SNOWING like crazy!
I went to lunch with some peeps to Tianjin's 100 dumpling restaurant to celebrate to end of spring festival and it was GOOD, especially the crab jouza, my favorite.
After lunch we all went for a walk,
had a snowball fight, and saw some snow people!
The best snow person we saw was made by these guys that were being paid to play in the snow ;)
I think the sign says don't touch me I am annoyed.
I don't have visuals from dinner, but I went to the biggest seafood restaurant in Tianjin. They had tank after tank of live seafood. I had never so many live animals that were all getting ready to be eaten. Usually in a restaurant over here there will be maybe one or two medium sized tanks, but this was like a whole house full, amazing. One of my studnets, Evelyn took me there. We had nice conversation and giggled a lot. I ate pigeon, Evelyn's favorite, for the first time tonight. The bill for the two of us was what some people in the countryside make in a month. I mean the food was good, really good, but it was just too expensive. I am not one to skimp on food, but come on. It just seemed like a place to show off or hook up with some guanxi, connections.
Last night started off pretty early when I went out to dinner with Brian and Richard, a former student and his wife for Hunan food. It was surprisingly spicy. We tried a new bijiu, chinese wine, that was really good and easy, kind of rare for bijiu. good stuff.
After dinner Brian and I were dropped off at his office, my old office and plans were made ot go over to Tino's house, my old apartment, for mahjong and cards.
They totally surprised me with a huge birthday cake and then surprised each other by having a cake fight all over the apartment, at a time when, for some reason the water was turned off in our district. Then we all went outside to set off fireworks. It was right on. Even though fireworks have been going off nonstop for the past week for the new year's celebration, I did not actually set any off until last night. Pretty cool!
AND THEN this morning when I woke up IT WAS SNOWING like crazy!
I went to lunch with some peeps to Tianjin's 100 dumpling restaurant to celebrate to end of spring festival and it was GOOD, especially the crab jouza, my favorite.
After lunch we all went for a walk,
had a snowball fight, and saw some snow people!
The best snow person we saw was made by these guys that were being paid to play in the snow ;)
I think the sign says don't touch me I am annoyed.
I don't have visuals from dinner, but I went to the biggest seafood restaurant in Tianjin. They had tank after tank of live seafood. I had never so many live animals that were all getting ready to be eaten. Usually in a restaurant over here there will be maybe one or two medium sized tanks, but this was like a whole house full, amazing. One of my studnets, Evelyn took me there. We had nice conversation and giggled a lot. I ate pigeon, Evelyn's favorite, for the first time tonight. The bill for the two of us was what some people in the countryside make in a month. I mean the food was good, really good, but it was just too expensive. I am not one to skimp on food, but come on. It just seemed like a place to show off or hook up with some guanxi, connections.