Hey Hey and a Big G'Day to you

For all those whom thought of me....THANK YOU...THANK YOU....THANK YOU... for the beautiful emails, the ECards and the phone calls for my FIRST birthday in China. (I'm writing this on Friday, 14th October 2005). You all made me feel very warm, special and being so far away from you all, not so lonely. The school made me feel very special. A heap of teachers took me out for dinner and KTV. Oh what a night! After a huge HUUUUUGE dinner we all squeezed into a tiny little van. I think there were about 11 or more of us.

Usually most of the females sing and drink tea, not this time. They were playing beer games and pretty much keeping up with us. Thats not supposed to be a sexist remark either, it's just that most Chinese females don't drink much, if at all. Oh so many games you can play with dice, so many ways to lose and get smashed really quickly! It is the way here. When they are staggering home, we would normally be heading out to see a band or to the pub. Oh, and I think I sang rather well the song 'I am sailing', however many times I sang it. They could only find the Chinese version of 'Take me to your heart'....whew!

I had one of the best birthdays I've ever had..and yes, there has been quite a few of them!
No counting ok as there have only been 21! (plus *&^%$%$&)

Besides the special calls from family and friends, Owen Buckland made my day with his early morning phone call singing Happy Birthday. I couldn't stop laughing all day, whenever I thought of the crazy China Man singing Happy Birthday and then finding out who it was!

Last night I had another little party with some of my students. We had cake, sweets and orange juice whilst watching the DVD 'Ice Age'. I've finally got Lilly off Harry Potter. It was getting to the 'Oh, not again' stage. So we are now on the 6 'Star Wars' movies and any other movie I can find to stop the Harry Potter DVD's going back into the DVD player. I had a birthday dinner with Tanya, my friend from Baise. They are using her school for 'teachers exams' this weekend so shes back in Tianyang to spend her weekend doing homework and in about 30 minutes I'm heading across to the market place for many birthday beers with my market place friends. Should be a loooooooooooooong night I think. As long as they don't bring out the EVIL Biajio I'll be happily walking home around 4 or so am.

OK, once again, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for being so special and kind to me.
Many big Birthday Cakes full of smiles to you all..............shane