Birthday cake in the eye!

I know my birthday was a while ago but thanks to the unpredictable nature of the Chinese internet providers (or whoever it is that plays with the connections) I can not always update when I would like. At the moment it seems to be OK so grabbing my oppertunity with many more posts to come in the net few days.

This year my birthday was a school day, which is never great but I was lucky enough to be teaching one of my favourite classes in the evening. The class was nearing the end of the course so I decided to take ten minutes of the class and get a birthday cake. Typically birthday cakes in China taste awful; but the one I bought from the local bakery was not too bad. it still had the several inches of cream on top and loads of candied fruit but the sponge was chocolaty and full of cherries. And not too bad at £6 for a cake which fed 15 people easily.

The kids had been warned so turned up to class armed with a huge variety of weird and wonderful presents. I recieved everything from a teddy bear to two gold fish, they were so excited it was really sweet. Sadly the fish met the usual fate of goldfish in this country (in prticular in my house) but they hung on for a whole week first. Paul made me a small plasic gun which he had spent, according to his mother, a whole week putting together.

There is a silly Chinese tradition of slapping cake into the face of the other people eating it, especially the person whose birthday it is. The kids looked genuinly dissapointed when they clicked I was aware of this and attacked them first. Stu came into the class and joined in (I am sure just for the cake) and the kids loyal to their fvourite teacher covered him in birthday cake.

After the cake, parents came in and gave me all sorts of alcoholy presents. it truely was a profitble year. 4 months later i am still getting through the wine.

After class and cleanup we went to the usual box standard night out venue that is Moondog. It had been a busy week with several leaving parties, so my birthday night was a fairly quiet affair. Not always a bad thing.