Birthday Bonanza

Been a bit of a delay in blogging my birthday...but it has been crazy busy. I can't get over the generosity and kindness of the students and the staff at my school. I think in all honesty I can say I have never had such a busy birthday. When I arrived for the first class of the day I had a huge rendition of "Happy Birthday" sang to me and the blackboard was all decorated. Many students gave me gifts and cards. I then trundled off home as I did not have another class until two o'clock. When I returned for that class it had been moved to the "Multi Media room" and my class of junior two's had turned on a big birthday party. The students performed (singing and dancing), gave me more gifts and cards, sang "Happy Birthday" and then asked me to shut my eyes. When I opened them, there was a massive birthday cake.We then tried to dish it out between 60 students and some teachers (this class is taught English by Lily,who tries to teach me Chinese, but i'm not a good student (lol) and she must have done quite a bit of organisation with the kids and the cake..very kind! I did not get photo's of all this, but others did...so I will try and track them down.
Then I had the last period of the day...this class also sang "Happy Birthday" and showered me with cards and more gifts. Some of the letters and cards I received from the students throughout the day were just so beautiful..They had written things such as "although you are away from your family...it's o.k, we are all your family" :-)They are so sweet and some of them have huge aspirations and really want to improve their English to fulfil their dreams.
Straight after class I was taken out for a birthday dinner by the school...We went to a "Farmers Restaurant" and I had my 5th dinner at a restaurant within the last 6 days (pretty impressive hey)I was also presented with another cake (this time a Chocolate Mousse)and an amazing gift from the school of a special Chinese paper cut book with paper cut art pictures of Peking Opera Facial Makeup. THEN......We headed downtown and I had my first Chinese Karaoke experience...
Hey at least you're in a private room...not like in Australia where you have to do it on stage. There are even buttons on the wall you can press for applause and whistling (lol)and YES ..I did actually sing a few songs, enough to make me realise that I should definitely stick to playing Drums...but it was fun :-)
Sooooo....Many meals, 40-50 cards,3 birthday cakes, many beautiful gifts, suprises at every turn and well wishes from so many students...Anyone back home that is worried that I might be lonely...NAH....and the experience of living and teaching here in China...UNBELIEVABLE.