Happy Surprises...

One nice thing about being overseas for your birthday is that you get to celebrate it over several days, as the timezones and International Date Line and such make it nearly impossible to figure out what day it really is in, say, Canada or South Africa.

Yesterday, my friend Alex came to my school (where he was treated like a rock star by the students) for a class I was doing on table manners ~ a valiant attempt to get the kids to eat properly with forks and knives while avoiding the inevitable Korean SLUUUUURP. About 5 minutes into class, my head teacher decided that she really needed to speak to me.... And took me out into the parking lot of the school to admire the sky. Then, we went back to class, where Alex had prepared the kids with exploding streamers and a birthday cake. What a great surprise! He'd arrived earlier at my school to plan it all out with the head teacher. It was just awesome so ~ thanks Alex!

The kids displayed marvelous table manners, by the way.

That evening, a bunch of us got together to celebrate Ty's birthday at a great Vietnamese restaurant. This weekend, our friend Wim is hosting a big bash for me, Ty and Fallon (Wim's girlfriend) as we are all celebrating this week.... we're all really looking forward to it!