BiRtHdAy Shenanigans

The festivities were started a week early by my school, which throws a little make-the-people-with-birthdays-this-month-sing-and-eat-cake party.  We got the customary cake smeared on our faces (traditional to do to birthday celebrators) and gift cards to a local bakery to get our own cakes (I think, though honestly the card doesn't say and I have no idea).  I managed to make a fool of myself as usual by dropping the piece of cake they handed me while everyone watched.  It was cute and luckily only lasted for an half hour.

We (me and a couple friends) celebrated the first part of my birthday week with an excursion to Hong Kong.  We consequentially learned to never try to cross the border on a Saturday morning.  From my apartment to where we were meeting for breakfast took me a good 5 hours, where it normally would only take 2.  So breakfast became lunch, but tasted just as amazing because the Flying Pan has incredible breakfast -- and bottomless coffee!! -- all day long.  After stuffing ourselves silly, we went to try to find the Hong Kong Pride parade that was going on that day.  We knew the generally area where it was supposed to be, but not the actual place.  However, usually that would be enough because Pride parades are huge and flamboyant and very hard to miss.  Not true in Hong Kong.  We saw a guy wearing a giant Queen of Hearts (from Alice in Wonderland) costume and thought, hey, that must be it let's follow him.  So we did.  And he led us straight to... a park that looked like it was having a celebration.  That must be it!  So we went in to find... a kids Mardi Gras festival?  I think?  There was face painting (only for the kiddos, we tried :(  ), dancing talent show, booths, etc.  We hung around for a couple minutes and were given giant pink leis.  Then we headed out to resume our quest.  Eventually we ran into it, but like I said Hong Kong Pride is disappointing as far as Pride goes.  There in fact was no parade, just a march.  I saw only one or two queens, and the highlight was the group of men advocating "Sex work is work".  But we marched for a while, then casually exited and went to get cocktails.
Burgers and more drinks and quests for the last few minutes of happy hours ensued, then we crashed at our friend's apartment.  In the morning Christiane and I went wondering down to the piers then grocery shopping for delicious western foods.  Several hours and wayyyy to much money spent later, we returned home.

On my actually birthday day, we went and got Cold Stone ice cream and then happened upon a bar that does salsa dancing, which turns out is less fun when you have no idea how to salsa dance and didn't bring a partner.  I called it a night pretty early with mild ambitions to return someday and be able to dance :P

This weekend we are planning a KTV excursion, so I will have updates later.

And THANK YOU everyone who sent birthday cards/wishes/skype calls.  It was so kind of everyone to keep in touch!  I truly appreciate it.