Happy birthday to me

Last week I celebrated my 21st birthday and much to my chagrin, there was no binge drinking or bar hopping, but it worked out nonetheless.

Strawberry shortcake from Bijan's, my favorite bakery in San Jose


That's me

Happy birthday wishes came early this year as my friends in Singapore sent theirs 15 hours ahead of time.  It was a nice touch and a great reminder of how far I have come in just a year.  However, despite it being my birthday, I still had to drag myself to work extremely sleep deprived.  I contemplated working at home but decided against it, a good decision resulting in my boss buying me my first legal drink.  On top of that, my first drink was a blank and tan (half Guinness and half pale ale, they form two distinct layers in the glass!), something I had never had or even heard of before.  Then my boss bought me an Irish car bomb (a mixed shot of Bailey's and whiskey, dropped into half a pint of Guinness) which officially signaled the end of the work day.

Back on the train, I had hoped to party with those strangers but that did not happen when I could not find the one person I knew in the group.  I was a bit disappointed, but I already had my drink of the day from my boss so it did not matter too much.


At home, it was dinner with the family and afterwards, cake with a few old high school friends.  They surprised me by getting me a bottle of Johnny Walker gold label, which I promptly made them all sign (another blast from the past moment).  After cake, the drinking started, and even my sister and dad got into it a little.  My dad even pulled out a bottle of Hennessy  XO  out of nowhere, a big surprise because I had thought I had finished all the hard liquor in the house a long time ago.


I swear my mom almost cried asking me to take a picture with the family

The conversation frequently came back to our high school days and all the stupid things we did, though most of the stories seemed to revolve around me.  It was a good reminder how much I had grown.  No longer duct taping or throwing people's backpacks in the mud, or asking someone out with a bowl of goldfish crackers.  I can definitely say that I have changed a lot and even for the better.  Compared to my high school self, I am much nicer, understanding and all around more mature.  This is of course to be expected, however, I still marvel at how much I have changed.

Lighting candles has a particular allure for some people


Only one good high school friend was missing that night

This birthday had even more significance because it marks my last year in college.  It could very well be the last birthday that I spend at home or even with these same friends.  This party closes one chapter of my life and I can already feel a new one opening up.

-muffinman

Jeanni’s surprise birthday dinner

While waiting for my Chinese tutor to hand me back my textbook, I decided to check my mail. I was expecting a very special package from my mom. Nearly a month ago I had told my mom to go to Hicklebee’s, the local children’s bookstore, and get a book for Jeanni’s birthday. After checking for the package, which had not come yet, it suddenly dawned on me that Jeanni’s birthday was just two days away! Suddenly it made sense as to why Jeanni was organizing a dinner for that Friday.

I felt like a terrible brother for forgetting Jeanni’s birthday. Guiltily I thought “she threw you your first surprise party and you could not even remember the date to return the favor?” In addition, Jeanni was going to hold the dinner at a sports bar. There was no way that any sister of mine was going to be celebrating her birthday in such a classless fashion. At that point, I decided that I needed to plan a surprise birthday dinner.

This birthday dinner was especially important because Jeanni had been feeling a little down recently due to all her friends leaving. I saw the dinner as a way to get her to smile again, so it was crucial that things went according to plan. However, from the onset there were problems. While walking back to my apartment, I had thought up the idea of asking the Asia MBA students to send in video birthday wishes for Jeanni. I thought it would be a touching gesture for Jeanni to see her friends wish her a happy birthday. Unfortunately, after sending out the email to all the Asia MBA students requesting videos; Varun, who I had bounced the gift idea off of before sending out the email, talked to Gift and they collectively decided it would be too awkward for Jeanni. Consequently, they were not going to partake in the idea, effectively killing it. This forced me to send out another email, asking people to do the next best thing, which was to call in the birthday wishes during the surprise dinner.

Thankfully, the logistics for the dinner started off more smoothly. I reached out to Akhil and John, to help me plan the dinner since they were both good friends with Jeanni. Finding the restaurant was a breeze once I decided on Italian food. I settled on Bella Napoli, a charming restaurant by the look of the pictures and reviews I found online. Figuring out where to get the cake was a little more difficult and after a little searching on an expat forum, I ended up choosing Mon Reve. I came very close to ordering a cake from Mon Reve online, but at the last minute decided that I wanted to try a slice first before investing in a whole cake. Not to mention, I had not even reserved a table at Bella Napoli yet, so where was I going to have the cake delivered?

The next day, I woke up bright and early at 10am with only two things on my mind; getting a reservation and ordering a cake. Getting off at the Shaanxi Nan Lu subway station, I made my way to 1250 Huahai Lu and to my surprise found that it was the address of Whisk, another cake shop I had read about. Realizing that I had mixed up my addresses, I decided to walk into Whisk anyway because I had made the hour long commute. Initially, my plan was to try out a piece of cake before buying it, but after seeing that one slice was 50RMB, I cheaped out and decided to take the risk of ordering a whole cake. Whisk only makes chocolate cakes, and not the light and fluffy mousse kinds, but the heavy, fudgy, dark chocolate kind that I was not too crazy about. However, I remembered that Jeanni loved dark chocolate and decided to just run with it. Expecting nine people to show up, I ordered their huge 10 inch dark chocolate cake. As a joke, I requested that “Happy 28 25th Birthday Jeanni” be written on the cake, which took a bit of effort because the waiter’s English was a bit lacking. After ordering the cake, I called in a reservation for nine at the Bella Napoli and got it without a hassle. Cake check! Reservation check! It looked like everything was falling into place.

Throughout the entire planning process, I kept John and Akhil informed about my progress, believing that communication was the key in maintaining the element of surprise. I repeatedly stressed that this was a surprise dinner in my texts to them. Everything was going according to plan, I had Jeanni believing that I had made reservations at the Camel at seven o’clock, but then suddenly I get a strange text from her about a venue change to an Italian restaurant and that I should check my email. However, before I received Jeanni’s email, I saw that John had sent me something. John’s email contained a chat log between him and Jeanni, where he told her to change the venue to Bella Napoli! Sure enough, that is exactly what Jeanni did. Incensed, I picked up the phone, called Crystal and ranted about this recent development in very colorful language. When I texted John about why he just ruined the surprise he said that he thought the surprise was the occasion not location. I would like to point out that the “occasion” was Jeanni’s own birthday.

A little table banging and loud cursing later, I went into damage control mode. First, I tried to tell Jeanni to change the venue back to Camel, saying that I had been looking forward to go there. That failed miserably when Jeanni assured me that we would go there after dinner. Next, I called Bella Napoli and told them to cancel Jeanni’s reservation, but the curious thing was that they told me I was the only reservation for that night. Some back and forth questions about cancelling reservations got me the owner’s number because the wait staff could barely speak English. That’s when I called owner and explained to him my situation, where he agreed that if Jeanni were to call in he would tell her that the restaurant was fully booked. I also tried to get him to waive the corkage fee, but he would not budge on that. Excitedly I text John about this new development and unexpectedly he in turn tells Jeanni that the restaurant is fully booked. It was a huge relief when Jeanni sent out another mass text switching the venue back to Camel. My plan was back on track.

On Jeanni’s birthday, I nervously waited for things to unfold. I took the subway back to Whisk, pick up the cake, then realize that I probably wanted to get flowers without dragging a huge cake around. I rush to get flowers, hail a cab back to Whisk, grab the cake and arrive at Bella Napoli a good twenty minutes before the dinner is supposed to begin. I had told everybody to meet up at 6:30pm and instructed John to get Jeanni to the restaurant at 6:45pm, allowing time for the inevitable late people. Crystal had already cancelled earlier in the day so the dinner was down to eight people. Akhil was supposed to be coming with Jeanni’s Chinese tutor and the tutor’s boyfriend, except Akhil arrived late and alone. Turns out the tutor had cancelled at that morning. In his texts, John told me Jeanni would immediately realize the surprise as soon as he told the cab driver what intersection to go to, but I knew better and I told John to just keep telling Jeanni that they were going to Camel. When Jeanni finally arrived, she was shocked to see me and Akhil at the restaurant, the surprise had worked!


I had everything nicely laid out...


...but then I had to move once I realized only six people were coming


The cake came out nicely...


...but much to my chagrin Jeanni had to cut it her way

Dinner ended up being only the four of us, as John’s girlfriend got off work late and a person thought that the dinner was next Friday. The food itself was great, the bottle of wine that Jeanni chose was a good pick and when the cake came out she was absolutely delighted. Everybody loved the cake, especially Jeanni. The owner even gave us four shots of some amazing schnapps on the house! After dinner, we went to Camel where our group doubled in size. It was a lot of fun taking turns buying each other rounds while playing pool and foosball. When we left Camel, things had worked out so well that I even forgave John a little bit.


More friends joined the party at the Camel

We ended up at the tutor’s apartment, drinking and playing silly little category games. Jeanni fell asleep on the couch and we finally decided to call it a night at 3am. I walked Jeanni back to her apartment and she thanked me warmly for everything. Her genuine smile, which I had missed these last few days, told me that despite all that went wrong, I had succeeded in making her birthday special. And that is really all that I was aiming for.


And Jeanni ended the night laughing

-muffinman

First Surprise Birthday Ever

Last week Jeanni planned a wonderful surprise party complete with cake, hats, poppers, masks and lots of alcohol. Only after the party ended and had some time to reflect on it did I realize that this party in Shanghai was actually the first surprise party I ever had.

The day before my birthday, I knew that there was a party planned because it was Varun’s birthday and the MBA students had talked about throwing a joint party. What puzzled me was that as the hours dragged on that day, I still had not heard from anybody about a party or a time to meet up. At around 9pm, Jeanni texted me asking me if I could check out the powerpoint that she and the Indians were making to present their club at 10pm. I agreed and when 10pm rolled around I proceeded to make my way to Sandeep’s place. Now Jeanni had been acting suspicious earlier in the day, so I had suspicions while walking over that this might be the surprise party. When I called her earlier in the day, she told me she was at Wujiaochang, the local shopping plaza, which was not out of the ordinary. However, when I asked her what she was doing there, Jeanni replied with an “I don’t know,” this was really suspicious to me because how can you not know what you are doing at a shopping plaza? Expecting a surprise party I approached Sandeep’s door with extreme caution.

Except when Akhil opened the door, nothing happened. There Jeanni was with Sandeep and Varun working on their powerpoint just like she said she was. Feeling a bit dejected, I looked over their powerpoint, made a few suggestions and resigned myself to spending another birthday in obscurity. Around an hour later, Jeanni announced that we were going back to my apartment because there was a kick back scheduled or something. Strangely enough, this act did not arouse any suspicion in me, probably because I was feeling too dejected at that point.

As we all walked back to the apartment, I noticed that Jeanni had been texting furiously all night. I wondered in my mind who she could be texting since the large majority of her texts go to me. Once again thinking nothing much of this out of the ordinary behavior, I made my way to the apartment. At my apartment door, I stumbled upon a pair of woman’s shoes, neatly placed right outside the door. Thinking that maybe the other Jonathan had finally managed to bring a girl over, I was cautious in opening the door. Interestingly, Varun pointed out that the shoes were an Indian brand, which just made the whole situation even stranger.

When Varun opened the door, we were both greeted with “Happy Birthday” and two cakes with lighted candles. In my moment of shock, everything fell into place in my mind. I quickly turned around and gave Jeanni a big hug, because I just knew that she had planned it all. After all, who else would have the heart?


The cake says 24.5 because it is the average of Varun and my age, except that Varun was turning 28 not 29 that day.

A whole lot of MBA students had come, as well as a few people who roommates of MBA students. “Happy Birthday” was sung and then I got caked for the first time. At midnight, I was expecting to get kicked in the butt by the Indians, something which they had been talking about all week, twenty times for my age and because it was some Indian tradition (still not sure if this is true). As Varun was lining up to kick, I braced myself because he was really winding up, but he just laughed and gave me a light kick and told me the Indians were just messing with me. Relieved, I laughed too, but felt a little dumb for believing them in the first place.


Varun and I celebrating our birthdays


Getting caked for the first time

Throughout the night, there were many cheers and toasts done by Duke who brought baijiu, Chinese rice wine, a drink which nobody enjoyed besides me and Duke. In my own toast, I thanked everybody for coming and for being my “family away from family,” something which I had come to realize a couple of days before while reflecting on my experience in Shanghai. After the bai jiu was finished, I pulled out the bottle of Black Label, which brought back memories of the army for Duke. Jeanni was adamant that I should have no more alcohol, but I had other ideas and thankfully so did Duke because he just kept refilling my cup every time I asked.


Duke (orange shirt) calling another toast


There was a lot of this going on, that is actually Jeanni's hand in the picture

When everything was done, I said my goodbyes to everybody and hugged the ones that I was closest too. Duke reaffirmed me to be his nephew and told me for the billionth time that night that I had now become a man. After everyone had left, Varun and I surveyed the damage. Our living room was entirely trashed, there were a billion beer bottles on the table, wrappers on the floor and even cake on the floor. However, none of this mattered to me at that moment because I was just so happy to have discovered people who cared about me in Shanghai.

That night was definitely the most memorable night to date in Shanghai and one to be remembered for the rest of my life.


Thanks for everything Jeanni (left)

-muffinman

Surprise Birthday Part Pictures