Birthday Celebrations!

 My birthday is tomorrow (Jan. 17th) and I have already received 2 birthday cakes!  I was out to dinner with my Taekwondo instructor just over a week ago with his wife and a couple of their friends.  I have met their friends a couple times, and the guy is usually really nice and friendly to me, though he doesn't speak any English.  They took me out to a very nice Chinese restaurant in our neighborhood just to be nice (we had such a great time the first time we went out to dinner, so we'd been planning on going out again sometime).

This is a traditional Chinese liquor that is 50% alcohol!  I tried it, but opted to not drink more than a little shot.  (It didn't taste very good anyways.)  Also that is Master Lee's wife in the photo.

We were having a nice dinner, which was actually like 4 full dinners, and Master Lee's wife asked me how old I was.  I told them that I am 25 according to the international (or Korean) aging system, but 23 in the US.  Then I added that I would be turning 24 in ten days.  They all got very excited and exclaimed that we needed to celebrate!  Master Lee's friend ran out and bought a cake immediately!  I think they will be doing something for me tomorrow night at Taekwondo, though I'm not sure what.  We didn't eat the cake then, since we had all eaten to the point of no return (4 large courses), so I took home a whole cake, haha.  I shared a couple pieces with my neighbor/co-teacher Eunji, and there are maybe 2 pieces left that are probably ready for the trash by now.

This is Master Lee's friend who went and got me the cake!  The woman sitting was our server.  She and her husband both own the restaurant, and they are all friends.  It was not very busy so she sat with us most of the time.

The candles: I <3 YOU; 24

My cake at home.  A great breakfast ;)

My second cake came last night, when I had a very small celebration with my closest friends here.  We met in Samsondong, or "New Downtown" around 4pm, and walked around until 6.  Then we met a couple others at an amazing Indian restaurant called Namaskar.  Everyone (except for me) had been there multiple times, and I had just never made it until last night.  I have been MISSING OUT!  Oh it was amazing food with a very cool server.  My friend Julia bought my meal, and at the end my friend Katherine brought out a delicious blueberry cake!  I think everyone in the restaurant chimed in when they sang me happy birthday, it was really great :D

Here's Katherine bustin' out the cake!

It was really good!

Julia lighting the candles.  That's Howard next to me.

I was really happy about all of this :D

After dinner about half of the group went home and the other half went to a norebang with me.  I've described norebangs before, but they're basically a private karaoke room which are EVERYWHERE in Korea.  We stayed there for 2 hours and then went home.  Julia paid for me there as well!

A quick glimpse at the norebang.

Tomorrow I will probably have some kind of celebration at Taekwondo which will be nice.  My grandma Ehrman has sent me a card and is sending me more delicious cookies for my birthday as well!  I really don't ever expect anything for my birthday, unless I'm throwing myself a party (college years), so these have been really great surprises!