JOLÍN: Rather tardy...

Sumin's Tuna Creation

Today is the eve of the one monthiversary of my birthday. I never posted any pictures about that event (or, events), so here we go before any more time passes, and I look even more self-glorifying than I fear I do right now.

I have a sinking feeling that I've related this story already, but after a quick search on Blogger I am reassured that I haven't and that I must be losing my mind. That's not particularly comforting. Anywho...to the story.

Friday night before my birthday was the usual--a run with Sujin followed by a super-quick shower and nibble before heading to the Friday French Movie. Afterwards, Nadeige and I shared some chatter. It was a late night and Sujin and I had a date for yoga at 8 am so I wasn't really looking forward to getting up early. I needn't have worried, however. The aforementioned run was a bit strenuous so I had taken a Chinese painkiller a few hours before preparing to sleep. I don't know what it was (but it was sold to me by what appeared to be a legitimate drug store...operative word being "drug," I suppose). From the way I felt, I am assuming it had something aking to speed in it (not that I've taken this drug...basing this assumption on the stories I've heard/movies I've seen). I found myself completely unable to sleep, and worse, in the mood to clean and rearrange my appartment. So, from 2 am until 4.30 am, I swept, mopped, moved all my furniture, prepped dishes for the upcoming party, and listened to some new French cds I had just purchased. I fell asleep sometime after that, with difficulty and was up and roaring to go at 7.30 am. Sujin backed out, and I had that glorious feeling of an extra couple of hours. I used them to accompany Nadeige to Da Fu Yuan and purchase goodies for my birthday gig that evening. We actually made several trips to the store: Da Fu Yuan (for imported goods and French bread), LiQun (for some candies, rice, etc.), open-air vegetable market (for, duh, fruit and veggies) and the open-air fish market (for fish). Between each trip we had a sit-down with a snack and some coffee. haha.

Then began the task of cooking all this food. Nadeige kindly offered her kitchen so that my clean apartment could remain so. We prepared vegatable and fruit sushi, steamed fish, a cheese plate, and some veggie dishes. Meanwhile, Neal was hard at work preparing chicken and pineapple. All arrived around 7 pm and we were eating around 8. It was a crazy scene--Neal and I had moved Nadeige's coffee table and sofa into my apartment to create a dinner table. I also had my two armchairs plus desk chair in the room. Stuff that full with lots of food (mysteriously, everyone showed up with food as well...what can I say, they are Korean and Japanese...they cannot come empty-handed) and 14 people and whew!!

We had some cake--I was asked to bite it, hence the smashed cake-face picture. Shared some champagne. In true Chinese-style, I was asked to make a speech. That was nothing to write home about. After some conversation, the party trickled to an end. Fabulous time!

The spread: