birthday nuttiness.

there was a period of time when i wanted to fly back to taipei for my birthday because i was convinced shanghai would be the dumps. however, thanks to circumstance, i found myself miserably awaiting the arrival of my inescapable mortality in shanghai.

i had no idea what to expect.

i invited basically every i knew in shanghai, expecting a low turnout because a) i dont know that many people and b) it was a monday night. the location was at a restaurant chain called the blue frog. i reserved for 20 ppl with the restaurant folk being assholes about it. well, 30 ppl ended up coming, virtually overflowing the restaurant, and they had no choice but to give us the third floor. ALL of the third floor. so we basically got an entire floor of the restaurant for no additional cost. and rest of the night went as follows....


cassius, who has been sleeping on my floor like any good friend would, and her friend eric, who is now also my friend, except for when he remembers that i have OH.


amy, my first friend at fudan/gary, my first male friend at fudan/serenity, my first non-Asian friend at fudan.


man-love, from wenzhou.


albert the ozzie, gary the confused one, qiongsi the norwegian, and monison (monica+jason) the new yawkers


monica, myself, my korean sister soo, and anna, my bodyguard


ruyi, braydee, lori and jane, my fellow fulbrights (sans lori, she works for EF). look at jane's face. she's about to faint from exhaustion. man that fulbright program really works you to the bone.



fudan crew


aileen, my party planner and the mama of the group


i got to be an honorary wenzhou-er for a night


andi, tina belgium and harvard tina. they raised the average IQ of our party a couple points


the third floor came complete with a deejay booth, and we used this opportunity to mix it up. because it was my birthday i got to be DJ DLin. mwahahahaha


one of my two cakes (cassie's chocolate on chocolate was devoured before i even got a chance to take a pictures). this cake - bought by the wenzhou brothers - was so ridiculous we werent sure at first if it was edible, or just a sculpture.


then the gift-giving began


i think the expression on my face says it all.

we followed dinner with a big KTV romp, but my camera ran out of batts....wait till i hunt down whoever has the other pictures. still...good memories - fergalicious, commentaries and dennis throwing up in the bathroom, on the couches, in his own hair, and having to be carried out by jack and gary. and it wasn't even his birthday....


soo will have her first kiss soon. very soon.


the wenzhou kids


poor cass does not look happy to be in the proximity of so much man-love


wen bie. the ultimate chinese song by none other than the legendary jacky cheung.


i want to give a good description of this picture, but all i see is gary trying to eat his mic


wayyyyy too much going on in this picture.


a little better. poor amy.


5 am in my room, just me n cass. finally.

it's been a long night, as can be told by the smears of makeup around my eyes...


but nothing can diminish the joy of getting ALL THESE PRESENTS!!!!


MINE!!! ALL MINE!!!!!!!!!!


and then i got this the next day...

//video unavailable//

everyone is so freaking adorable! chris's elbow-ass (not the oral herpes joke? i'm surprised, hahaha), helen warning me not to be buttfucked, karina reminiscing, marco giving me the heads up abt diarrhea (no problems there, must have been all the nightmarket food in taibei that i grew up on hahahha), jae & stebboz blazed off their asses, anne all the way from maryland, krystal, doug, hannli, yulree, and cathy all giggley. and of course my boyfriend, the only one who knew just how happy this would make me, esp with the my sassy girl song =D

along with pages of facebook well-wishes, emails, and texts....

if there's one thing i've learned during this time away from home and all that is good and familiar, it's that enough love can get you through anything.

thank you all.

♥