Today I turned twenty five!I was woken by Happy Birthday text messages from about 6am.I didn't mind though, it was my birthday!!!I skipped breakfast at the Genius Baby and made myself a coffee and had some cake for breakfast instead (you must treat yourself on your birthday, it's the rules!).My grandparents had given me a birthday card back in August and I was finally able to open it.Inside I found they had enclosed several photographs from our family trip to Paris which was a nice surprise.

My lessons in morning went well; I think my good mood helped me teach the children with more energy.I was bouncing around the classroom like I was one of the five year olds, not a twenty five year old!I went to join the children for their morning exercises in the playground.The first half is Chinese songs so I sat there and watched.Some of the parents come to watch too and lean over the fence to see their kids dance.The second half is songs with English lyrics so I jumped up and joined in the dancing.The kids were really excited to be dancing with me and the teachers thought it was good, probably because the parents could watch the Laowai girl dance that they are paying for!

As I was walking back to my apartment I heard someone shouting.I turned around and my lovely friendly post lady was chasing me on her electric bike.She jabbered at me and the rooted around in her bag and pulled out a big parcel.She pointed at my apartment and said some things and then I could understand she asked if I was a teacher at the Genius Baby so I said yes, signed for my parcel and rushed home to open it.When I got to my front door there was a note saying the parcel had been undelivered, that must have been what she was trying to tell me- she had tried to deliver the parcel but when she saw me she chased after me to make sure I got it.Now that is customer service!

I opened my birthday parcel and there were lots of nice goodies inside from Mum, Christina and Ricky.I had to be quick because I was going to meet Echo.I got the bus and met her outside her school.She said she had a present for me, and pulled out of her bag a giant pair of bright pink bunny mittens.I kept a straight face and asked her to take my photo.Ruth arrived soon after and Echo bought some fruit things on sticks, they reminded me of toffee apples but much smaller and I'm not sure what they were.We went to find somewhere to have longevity noodles.There is a tradition in China that eating noodles on your birthday is good luck and symbolises a long life.Echo sang Happy Birthday to me before she left to go back to school even though she had a sore throat.

After lunch I taught my afternoon classes and then went to Ruth's college for English Corner.They sang 'Happy Birthday' in Chinese and the tune was identical, just the words were different.They all wanted to take my photo again.We themed the evening around differences between English and Chinese birthday traditions.It turned out that most of what we do is just the same in both cultures.The biggest difference was that the Chinese eat noodles and the English get drunk!I took some English sweets (Jelly Babies and Magic Stars) for the students to try.There was absolute mayhem as I passed the sweets around the classroom.They were more excited than my kindergarten kids!One of the girls told me she collects wrappers so I let her keep the empty sweet packaging.

Ruth and I left the English Corner to go to Lilly Coffee.When we arrived some of our Chinese student friends were already there.They gave me gifts of a photo frame (which will be perfect for one of the photo's I got from my Grandparents!) and a cross stitch.Mohamed took me to one side and informed me that in line with Chinese traditions, they would be expecting me to pay for the food and drink because I had invited them.I started to panic as I hadn't brought enough money out with me but Mohamed told me to take it easy and I could pay another day.He said he would get his girlfriend to go and pick up some soft drinks from another shop where it would be cheaper and offered to pick up cheaper food from outside too.I just asked him to make me a selection of meat and vegetarian pizzas for everyone to share.He made the pizzas larger than normal and I was so grateful for him rescuing me from a potentially embarrassing (and expensive) situation!Mohamed had also prepared me a little cake and played Happy Birthday music for me, I thanked him for helping me to have a good evening and he said "that is what friends are for, please don't thank me"

Chinese John and Yvon arrived and joined is with the pizzas and soft drinks.After we had finished eating, Dean, Shush, Darren, Julie, Jack, Lilly and the other Jack plus his date turned up.A bit later Kasey also came along.The Chinese students had to leave quite early because they have a curfew.We started drinking beer.I had only brought two bottles with the intention of avoiding teaching tomorrow with a hangover, but everyone was in good spirits and the drinks went down too easily.A couple of the guys disappeared and came back with two more cases of beer. Gradually everyone left until it was only Me, Dean and Mohamed left, and we were drinking beer and talking until 2am.All in all it was a pretty cool twenty fifth birthday, with a great mix of Chinese and English traditions!