December birthday bash

A few weeks ago, Sam, Susan, and I realized that no fewer than five of our friends in Macau all had birthdays in mid-to-late December: ETAs Austin and Holly, Grinnell fellow Brian, UM GA Karen, and UM student Henry. (Actually, we later realized there were a couple more, but those were the main ones we were celebrating). Unfortunately, late December is exactly the time that we will all be split up traveling with different family members/friends, so we decided to plan a preemptive surprise joint birthday party, aka big family-style dinner + cake, then go out for drinks afterward.

The evening started off at Azita's parents' restaurant, a small place near the border gate with 7-8 tables, and we took up two of them! Susan and I went early to sneak in the cake (a 1-pound fruit and cream confection from St. Honore's), then the others came in dribs and drabs, eventually totaling 17 people. Azita's parents were super-nice...her dad is apparently the only chef in the kitchen, so we felt bad about getting so much food, but I guess it wasn't any more than that number of ordinary customers would have ordered. We even tried to help by pre-ordering some things so he could prepare them earlier, but then we realized that wasn't going to be nearly enough food...we ended up getting about 15 different dishes ^^;

Some of the many delicious things

The devious part of the night was that we had told all the birthday people that it was a "big holiday gathering" to celebrate the end of the semester before we all split up to travel, but once everyone was there, we whipped out the birthday crowns!

Karen and Brian putting on their crowns

Niko (an exchange student from Finland), Austin, and Emily

The second part of the birthday surprise was the cake, and also this massive card that St. Honore's had thrown in for free. All the birthday people took photos with the card, but we eventually decided to save it and all sign it for Holly, since she wasn't at the dinner (she was busy at debate team). After we looked like we couldn't eat any more dinner, Azita's mom brought out the cake, with just enough candles so each of the birthday people got one to blow out.

Happy birthday...

Dinly and Henry with their candles

Karen taking a stab at cutting the cake (pun intended)

Azita insisting that Henry "read" the card

With many thanks to Azita's parents, we departed for NAPE, the "party zone" of Macau near the statue of Kun Iam, on the waterfront of the channel between Macau and Taipa. We ended up spending most of the night (until we went home around 1 AM) at this relatively new bar called House Cafe, which was shiny and white and clean, but the drinks were only ok (for the price) and the smell of perfumed potpourri inside was overpowering. Luckily, it wasn't that chilly out, so we put a bunch of tables together and basically took over half the patio area. Perhaps the most amusing thing was a big screen that was playing fairly old/awkward music videos...it would have been a lot more fun if there was karaoke to go with it heh.

I didn't get much sleep once I got home because I had to proctor the ACT this morning, but no time for a nap now because I have to get some gift-shopping done before my friend Matt flies in to HK tomorrow. I know I've failed at blogging catch-up so far (I thought I was doing pretty well to have at least one post a week) but I'll definitely be working on it over break, between baking cookies and doing all that other holiday stuff back at home =D