Quinlon's first BirthdayQuinlon loves cake... Scotty don't!!!

So...

Quinlon is officially one year old today. And a Ha[[y Birthday, or sheng ri kui le, to my cousin Timmy who had the same date of birth first. happy Birthdya James!!! :D

Saturday night we had a party for him. i went to Holiland, a very famous expensive bakery, to get Q a custom made cake. It had this lattice like, weave design in it and it had a bunh of cranes on it. Cranes are a symbol of longevity FYI. So at the bottom it says "Happy First Birthday Quinlon." It was beautiful. When I went to teh city to order it, i went with my Shu Fa teacher to get supplies for that. Shu Fa, once again, is calligraphy. It feels good to be learning something new that I have no clue about. It's fun and refreshing and is a great compliment to my aggressive martial side. So we put the order in for the cake, get the calligraphy supplies and then go pick up the cake. This bakery is unreal. They had the cake done in 45 minutes. You have to see it. You walk in and people greet you and and are dressed nice to help you out and you look towards the back where the bakers are and BAM. It's like Iron Chef back there. They are dressed like everyone came out of "Le Cordon Bleu" and they wear face masks and stuff. It's nuts. There is around 6-7 of them crammed in this little kitchen and they bake their asses off. So we get the cake and come home. We don't know why, but it also happened on Earth day. Our campus had no electricity for the entire day. So we bought some candles and had Quinlon's birthday party in the dark. it was really beautiful. We had six of our friends come by and it was a blast. I bought Quinlon his own little cake for him to tear into and he did just that. It was cute. After everyone left, the lights came back on. glad to see luck is still on my side. This reminds me of something said by one of the greatest sages of our time... that's right. Old Ben Kenobi. "there's no such thing as luck."

<---- This is Yuan Jie. He is Quinlons best friend. We have known him since we moved here and he is absolutely amazing and loves Quinlon. Every where we go he holds and carries Q and it's quite amazing to see the two of them interact. Q loves him.

So anyway... Sunday comes and I start my big day at my new job. Teaching part time at a prestigious English school. I miss my first class becasue the asshole taxi driver takes me to the right vicinity... a few blocks down, but tell s me the wrong building and location. So by the time I get to my class, there is only four minutes left. Thans cabby.. you cost me 120 kwai.

O_o

So I go to my other classes and the day goes by. not much to talk about. Some kids want to learn and some do not. Oh well... I get paid regardless.
But it is nice to see some kids who are really bright that pay attention.

So Monday comes and it's Q's oficial Birthday. Xi Lan and I wake up and give him his first gift in bed. A pair of Addibas shoes. that's right. no typo there. Addibas. Total knock offs, but they are cute and made by a company called "Pretty Duck." Anyway... I can get you a camera made by Nike or a car built by Puma. Shit... I can get you anything you want made by whomever you want. That's just how we roll in the middle kingdom. :D

So we go out at 6:00 p.m. to a fancy restaurant right near the campus to meet my boss. :O

I was not expecting anything of this caliber. She brought us to a hot pot restaurant. Each seat at the table has their own hot plate built into the table. The waitreses bring you a pot with water and random stuff like garlic, dates, vegetables, etc. and spices according to how spicy you want your food. I keep mine to no spice and Xi Lan rocks it like she's in Sichuan. After you cook your food by boiling it, you then dip it into a small bowl of an oil of your choice. I got sesame oil and peanut. It tasted like a mild peanut butter sauce with that "oh-so-delicious" sesame flavor.

I wish I had pics of what we ate. First it started with cake for Q while the kitchen prepared our feast. The cake was awesome and from the same place we got his Saturday party cake from . holiland. This cake had a pink liquid coating with fruit on top. Pineapples, apples, dragon fruit, oranges, etc. It was yummy. So then the food gets there. Thinly sliced pieces of raw beef and mutton. Let me tell you... this was freakin' delicious. I can't explainhow good it was. Then the rest of the food starts getting placed on the table. Ducks's blood, cow stomach, cow marrow, mushrooms (thin sliced and thick), sweet potato, ink fish/coddle fish, two different kinds of Dou fu (tofu) one which is regular and one which is made with balck bean..Me and Q appreciated this one a lot. Ummm... some essence of wheat... it's notbread but it might have well been... ??? I dunno. we had a discussion how it wasn't bread... yet Xi Lan and I are like... "It's bread." There were two different types of noodles. One made from vegetables and another made from... damn.. I forget. I enjoyed the Duck's blood, and the various cow parts. I ate everything and enjoyed it all. thanks Anthony Bourdain for keeping my mind open. i don't know if I could have gone as far as eaten the duck's blood. it was fairly thick squares of congealed blood. but it was yummy. and even beter in fermented bean curd. That stuff is great and was reminiscient of bleu cheese. F U dairyl I don't need you anymore. I got fermented bean curd.

::crowd cheers::

So Xi Lan was not a fan of the Cow Marrow and wouldn't think to try the duck's blood. It's a texture thing. I can understand. i thought I might have to choke it down, but I liked it. I haven't relaly found anything in life I can't eat or like... except tha fucking soup from Da Wang village that gave me poisoned me. Bastards.

O_o

So the night was great and my bosses daughter Angela is adorable. She was walking with Quin and is shy. Everyone was great and we had a very memorable night. i am truly grateful for our life here and our new friends.