Tell 'em that it's my birthday
Tell 'em that it's my birthday
When I party like that
- Selena Gomez
Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts
Friday, October 23, 2015
Monday, November 4, 2013
TWO AND ONE
Another post in less than 2 days! Ta-daaa... Okay, I swear this is going to be my last post about my birthday, and afterwards, we'll talk about other things. Well, to tell you the truth, other than my birthday, there isn't so much going on: just homework and hanging out with my friends.
Anyway, my birthday was a blast!! I thought it was going to be plain since my life in Art Center isn't as lavish as any other university life, nor my previous life in community college. I was still struggling with my homework on my birthday eve. I worked my butt off past midnight and it took me a while to realize that that day was my birthday. Anyway, here are a couple of highlights from the day I turned legal.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
The perks of being a twenty-oner
Hey blog, I hope you're not dying yet, cos I'm giving you one breath of life in form of a post.
Oh God I feel so discouraged to write posts these days because I feel my English is getting worse. Excuse me for going to an art school where they don't often assign you essays to improve your writing skills.
Hey guys, I'm back, and proudly, as a twenty-one year old. Haha do you hear that? I'm a proud twenty-one year old!! I've been waiting all my life (no, actually I've been waiting for it since three years ago) to actually reach this age. On the other hand, I'm getting older though.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
From L A with ♥ pt. 8: End
Previously: The train that was about to take off once we got to the station was apparently the last train. Good thing we caught it on time, otherwise we needed to wait for...I don't know, tomorrow morning? I guess? Eventually, we spent the rest of the night packing and tried to reassembled all the items we bought in LA and the clothes as well. Phiew, what a night.
Last picture taken in front of the lobby of Kyoto Grand Hotel.
Taken by Super shuttle driver who complimented on how we looked.
We happened to pass Staples Center and got a close look of it. Suddenly the whole SMTown drama emerged in my mind again.
Our trip mascot: Snowball
Snowball and its owner
AYMEE'S BIRTHDAY SURPRISE
On the way home in the shuttle, my friend called me. It hit me that it was the day my friends, Elda, and I were planning to surprise Aymee in the evening. My friend, Poe, called that day, reminding me of the plan and what to do. What a good timing though, because Aymee was sleeping, but still I couldn't talk loudly about the plan. She might be awake at anytime.
Okay, I know this is already beyond expired and even unnecessary to brought up again. But thing is, it came to my realization that I haven't posted the last part!!! *lame*, I know. Anyway, let's just get on with it.
It was our last day to spend in LA before going back in the afternoon.
We woke up a little bit late than days before, seeing how worn and spent we were. Seeing it was our last day in LA, we decided to shop a little more in Japantown. We dropped by at some souvenir shops we'd visited before and see if there was anything else we were interested in buying.
In one of them, three of us decided to buy identical umbrellas with different colors. Mine is pink, Elda's is blue, and Aymee's is red. The umbrella's very worth it for sure, because mine and Elda's have broken off a bit and can no longer be used.
Bidding farewell with Japantown!
The restaurant we had our dinner in after Universal Studios
There should be Koreatown on the sign as well :)
Gonna miss this place
Yeah, we basically strolled around Japantown just to get a glimpse before we departed back to San Jose. Really worth the walk!
Downtown LA from Japantown
My two most favorite pictures among all pictures taken during our LA Trip.
Gotta love it!
Shadow play
While checking out if we left anything behind in the room for the last time, we managed to take some pictures. The lighting was good if you kept the curtain open!!!
It was around midday and we skipped lunch in order to get ready to go to the airport. The shuttle scheduled to pick us up finally arrived at the lobby.
See you Japantown! Looking forward to seeing you again in the future.
See you Japantown! Looking forward to seeing you again in the future.
Last picture taken in front of the lobby of Kyoto Grand Hotel.
Taken by Super shuttle driver who complimented on how we looked.
We happened to pass Staples Center and got a close look of it. Suddenly the whole SMTown drama emerged in my mind again.
The check-in procedure was a bit complicated since we had to self-check-in in order to save more time. The line for the scanning process was unbelievably long, but glad the whole procedures ran smoothly until we reached the gate at the very end on time. Aymee had lunch with a sandwich she bought during the last minutes before boarding.
Our trip mascot: Snowball
Snowball and its owner
The flight back to San Jose was okay. Nothing special or different than the last flight except I couldn't sleep. Even it was freaking hot inside the cabin!
Touching down at San Jose, I began to realize how San Jose and Los Angeles were two completely different cities in terms of vibe! For the last four days, I've been indulged too much with nice sights, crowded places, tall, colorful buildings, and San Jose was just the opposite of it. Somehow the Silicon Valley atmosphere I felt when I walked out of the arrival hall made me miss Los Angeles, despite the fact that we just went there for the last four days lol.
AYMEE'S BIRTHDAY SURPRISE
On the way home in the shuttle, my friend called me. It hit me that it was the day my friends, Elda, and I were planning to surprise Aymee in the evening. My friend, Poe, called that day, reminding me of the plan and what to do. What a good timing though, because Aymee was sleeping, but still I couldn't talk loudly about the plan. She might be awake at anytime.
After arriving at Elda's and my apartment, the shuttle was off to drop Aymee at hers. Elda and I dropped our luggages at our apartment first before we headed off to Pho for late lunch (it was around 5 o'clock, or maybe I should call it as early dinner), also to talk about our surprise plan for Aymee.
We took a bus to the restaurant, which was located across my campus. Poe, who called earlier, caught up with us to discuss about our plan. He bought with him some snacks and games just in case we wanted to stay a little longer at Aymee's place after the surprise.
Elda, Poe, and I went to my apartment to wrap the present and to prepare the cake. Another friend of ours that we invited, Kevin, arrived at my apartment as well to proceed the surprise. After everything was set, we took off to Aymee's without telling her.
Anyway, we already told her cousin Nancy about the surprise so that she could keep it a secret from Aymee.
Here came the moment of surprise....
Aymee, the Happy Birthday girl :)
Unwrapping the presents
Don't cut yourself!
We munched on our snacks although we didn't get to play games on the projector Kevin had brought. But still it was fun though! We laughed and saw each other dance to celebrate Aymee's birthday.
What an exhausting yet a long day! XD
E N D
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N O T E : Aymee's birthday marks the end of our whole LA trip. Overall, it was a very impressive and memorable vacation. Actually this is the second vacation I had after Denver trip for Thanksgiving 2010. Huge thanks for Elda and Aymee for making it all happen. Thanks for all readers to keep up with the reading even though there was a huge gap between part 6 and part 7, but I somehow managed to finish it. Hope you guys enjoyed the whole story and I'll make sure to come up with more exciting stories!
<< Part 7
Friday, October 29, 2010
I'm Legal now!
Wow, it's been over a month since the last time I updated this blog. I have a good excuse for this, and it's not a surprise that college has pretty much kept me away from blogging. Shortly after Fall quarter started, hardly no more exciting, flip-flopping things going on, unlike before. Things went as just as normal hang outs and stuff.
I even haven't got to share some stories that I've been planning to post. No promises that I'm going to post them soon. But I'm going to post them for sure, just don't know when. If time allows though.
Anyway, I'm just going to start from the most recent yet exciting event of the month. Just a week before my birthday, October 15, my friends and I were throwing a surprise for our friend Patricia at midnight. It was rather or considered brutal since they were throwing stuff (mostly food ingredients) to the birthday girl, but it was epic though. Too bad I missed the start since I had to wait for the bus for quite a long time).
After the surprise, we went for a late dinner in Sunnyvale with Pho noodle.
It's a video of 8 seconds with us posing at the camera like we were about to take a picture. It came to a realization that the application wasn't set on Camera mode. It took a while for us (especially Elda) to realize that it was set on Video mode.
Her reaction simply LOL-ed me. We watched the video over and over again and decided to do some editing with it (like making it a slow motion that her voice sounds superficially like a groaning Godzilla, reversing it, etc)
The night ended at 3 am when we all had our stomachs aching out of LOL-ing at the video. We actually made out some of other videos as well. But there were too many of them. The video above was probably the funniest that I decided to put up here. Hope you don't mind about it, Elda. *peace*
The same day (of course it was the same day), I woke up quite late in the afternoon, and rushed to take a shower, preparing to go to the Pizza Hut, where I have made a reservation for my birthday lunch with my friends two days before. On the bus to the restaurant, I even met Amira.
The scheduled lunch was supposed to be at 2 pm but the host (aka me) arrived around fifteen minutes late. Terry, Agnes, and Jocelyn (my international friends who I also invited) had arrived there already.
At that point, you know, I felt a bit embarrassed since as the host of the event, I even got there late. So basically I didn't know where to put my face in front of my punctual friends.
From left to right: Agnes, Terry, Amira, Rebecca, Patricia, Inez, Kathleen, Idel, Kezia, me, Jocelyn, and Astha
The lunch went really well. The good thing was I got to introduce my international friends to my Indonesian friends).
There was a bit awkward moment between my Indonesian friends and my international friends though. But each of them got along very well during the lunch, especially some of my international friends hadn't got to meet each other before.
Did I forget to mention that it was a rainy day? The fact is, it was a rainy day. It'd been raining since I woke up and even until after lunch. The sky was terribly dark gray-ish. Scary, in short, like it was going to rain again. We called it a day though, and some of my Indonesian friends left the venue and so were I and my international friends.
Before getting picked up by their relatives, my international friends and I dropped by Staples, this small office depot located right next to Pizza Hut, to take a look around and see if anything's interesting. But soon, they had to say goodbye because their relatives had arrived to pick them up, leaving me and Elda the ones that were left.
Anyway, Elda ended up buying a small white board and a journal for herself. At first, I was like "Why the heck do you buy that white board for?" and she was like "It's freaking $1.00." Well turns out that the purpose she bought it was its price. But in the end, it was pretty useful since we put it up in the fridge and used it to leave notes to each other on weekdays.
Not bad huh? Nice choice Elda, although I knew the first reason why you bought it is because of the price. Low price, useful, pretty much it's worth it.
Anyway, from Staples, we went across the street to Target. Pretty much we didn't buy anything there, just seeking for some shelter since the wind outside blew kind of hard and it looked like it was going to rain. We looked up at the prices of beanbag chairs we were planning to buy for the apartment and even took a look at books (always the favorite section)
We decided to go home shortly before the weather worsened.
At home, I made a special dinner. I'm usually lazy at cooking, not to mention I'm not the best chef in the house, but well, I did my best.
I don't know what I should call this, but it's basically a mixed fried tofu and mushroom with a sesame oil
And also, the moment I'd been waiting for: unveiling the presents from my friends :)
The greeting card from my friends who came to surprise me the night before
From Astha!
She knew I really wanted to read these books! Thank you sooo much!!
Kezia and Idel gave me this cute Totoro frame. I couldn't resist to put it on display!
There's another greeting card from my friend Hang but I haven't got the chance to take a picture of it. Perhaps some time :)
Wow, what one heck of a post! This is what happens if I haven't posted for so long. But since this is also a special post featuring my friends' birthday and mine as well, I guess it's quite worth it. I hope you guys enjoyed reading this post!
P.S: My English's getting sucks. Another effect for not posting for a while.
I even haven't got to share some stories that I've been planning to post. No promises that I'm going to post them soon. But I'm going to post them for sure, just don't know when. If time allows though.
Anyway, I'm just going to start from the most recent yet exciting event of the month. Just a week before my birthday, October 15, my friends and I were throwing a surprise for our friend Patricia at midnight. It was rather or considered brutal since they were throwing stuff (mostly food ingredients) to the birthday girl, but it was epic though. Too bad I missed the start since I had to wait for the bus for quite a long time).
After the surprise, we went for a late dinner in Sunnyvale with Pho noodle.
It was a nice midnight craving and I ended up returning to my apartment at approximately 1 pm. That was the latest time I'd ever got my butt home. I knew my parents were going to yell at me if they found out I got home that late *stuck out tongue*. But things were going just fine and I didn't (luckily) get yelled at.
Moving on to the next week, my 18th birthday was approaching and my mom suggested me tothrow a party invite my friends for a birthday lunch. Good thing about this year's birthday, it fell right on Saturday. Saturday = weekend = friend's hangout time.
The funny thing actually happened on the turning night from the 22nd to the 23rd. My friend Dian was coming over at 10pm, which had to be questioned because it was peculiar for a friend to drop by so late.
But she just said "I'm bored at home." I stupidly believed in her cunning reason. Anyway, right at 11.30pm, she told me and my roommate Elda that it was time for her to go home because it was already late (I even offered her for an overnight stay at our apartment) and beckoned Elda to accompany her until she reached the bus stop.
So there I was, sitting in the turning night all by myself and skype-ing with my other friend Aymee. An hour passed and Elda still hadn't got back yet (where was I thinking that moment? Nothing but worries ><). I complained and whined to Aymee how I was going to spend my countdown to birthday all by myself, without knowing that Aymee actually knew all the surprise plans! I even screencapped our Skype conversation.
Look at that face concealing all the lies. Haha, kidding Aymee
It was already 12.15 am, October 23, 2010 and Elda still hadn't returned yet. Worried, I profusely texted her when she was going back since sure it didn't take long for someone to take a friend to the bus stop (especially the bus stop wasn't that far from the apartment). Elda told me she was accompanying Dian at Ihop buying a pancake for her brother, who was having a midnight craving, and that Elda might be coming home late. She even suggested me to sleep first.
There was actually this feeling in me where I felt I should stay up until she came up, and that was exactly what I did.
I went on believing them. Stupid stupid stupid. My dad called me through Skype and wished me a Happy Birthday, and at that moment, there was a ding sound at the door and I went up to open it. You would've figured what I found behind that door.
From left to right: Me, Inez, Patricia, Kathleen, Dian, Rebecca.
Together we munched on the super duper yummy Oreo chocolate cake (and the best cake I've ever tasted since I'm very much into chocolates). The whip cream and the chocolate was just so yummy (writing this makes me having this midnight crave, off for a second to grab the remainder slice of the cake).
Moving on to the next week, my 18th birthday was approaching and my mom suggested me to
The funny thing actually happened on the turning night from the 22nd to the 23rd. My friend Dian was coming over at 10pm, which had to be questioned because it was peculiar for a friend to drop by so late.
But she just said "I'm bored at home." I stupidly believed in her cunning reason. Anyway, right at 11.30pm, she told me and my roommate Elda that it was time for her to go home because it was already late (I even offered her for an overnight stay at our apartment) and beckoned Elda to accompany her until she reached the bus stop.
So there I was, sitting in the turning night all by myself and skype-ing with my other friend Aymee. An hour passed and Elda still hadn't got back yet (where was I thinking that moment? Nothing but worries ><). I complained and whined to Aymee how I was going to spend my countdown to birthday all by myself, without knowing that Aymee actually knew all the surprise plans! I even screencapped our Skype conversation.
Look at that face concealing all the lies. Haha, kidding Aymee
It was already 12.15 am, October 23, 2010 and Elda still hadn't returned yet. Worried, I profusely texted her when she was going back since sure it didn't take long for someone to take a friend to the bus stop (especially the bus stop wasn't that far from the apartment). Elda told me she was accompanying Dian at Ihop buying a pancake for her brother, who was having a midnight craving, and that Elda might be coming home late. She even suggested me to sleep first.
There was actually this feeling in me where I felt I should stay up until she came up, and that was exactly what I did.
I went on believing them. Stupid stupid stupid. My dad called me through Skype and wished me a Happy Birthday, and at that moment, there was a ding sound at the door and I went up to open it. You would've figured what I found behind that door.
To be honest, I really didn't expect my friends popping up at the door, especially since Elda was the first to enter and since she had the key to get in. Apparently Elda and Dian were involved in the plan, and so was Aymee but she couldn't join, so that's the reason why she still had a conversation with me through Skype. Perhaps, it's better to call her a bait then?
I was utterly speechless and that moment was like priceless.
It was my first time being surprised for like, officially.
We had a midnight time together for a while. Seeing my laptop was on, my friends were experimenting with its webcam (Photobooth application to be exact).
I was utterly speechless and that moment was like priceless.
It was my first time being surprised for like, officially.
We had a midnight time together for a while. Seeing my laptop was on, my friends were experimenting with its webcam (Photobooth application to be exact).
From left to right: Me, Inez, Patricia, Kathleen, Dian, Rebecca.
Together we munched on the super duper yummy Oreo chocolate cake (and the best cake I've ever tasted since I'm very much into chocolates). The whip cream and the chocolate was just so yummy (writing this makes me having this midnight crave, off for a second to grab the remainder slice of the cake).
Looks yummy eh?
We talked for a moment about the dance class Inez and I had earlier in the afternoon. My other friends simply asked us to demonstrate the recent dancing piece we had that afternoon. It was a bit awkward and the spacious living room became a sudden stage.
After a while, my friends bid farewell and left me and Elda alone. That wasn't the end of the night though. In fact, what we did was resuming the experiment with Photobooth. There was a funny clip made quite incidentally, which you can take a peek below.
After a while, my friends bid farewell and left me and Elda alone. That wasn't the end of the night though. In fact, what we did was resuming the experiment with Photobooth. There was a funny clip made quite incidentally, which you can take a peek below.
It's a video of 8 seconds with us posing at the camera like we were about to take a picture. It came to a realization that the application wasn't set on Camera mode. It took a while for us (especially Elda) to realize that it was set on Video mode.
Her reaction simply LOL-ed me. We watched the video over and over again and decided to do some editing with it (like making it a slow motion that her voice sounds superficially like a groaning Godzilla, reversing it, etc)
The night ended at 3 am when we all had our stomachs aching out of LOL-ing at the video. We actually made out some of other videos as well. But there were too many of them. The video above was probably the funniest that I decided to put up here. Hope you don't mind about it, Elda. *peace*
The same day (of course it was the same day), I woke up quite late in the afternoon, and rushed to take a shower, preparing to go to the Pizza Hut, where I have made a reservation for my birthday lunch with my friends two days before. On the bus to the restaurant, I even met Amira.
The scheduled lunch was supposed to be at 2 pm but the host (aka me) arrived around fifteen minutes late. Terry, Agnes, and Jocelyn (my international friends who I also invited) had arrived there already.
At that point, you know, I felt a bit embarrassed since as the host of the event, I even got there late. So basically I didn't know where to put my face in front of my punctual friends.
From left to right: Agnes, Terry, Amira, Rebecca, Patricia, Inez, Kathleen, Idel, Kezia, me, Jocelyn, and Astha
The lunch went really well. The good thing was I got to introduce my international friends to my Indonesian friends).
There was a bit awkward moment between my Indonesian friends and my international friends though. But each of them got along very well during the lunch, especially some of my international friends hadn't got to meet each other before.
Did I forget to mention that it was a rainy day? The fact is, it was a rainy day. It'd been raining since I woke up and even until after lunch. The sky was terribly dark gray-ish. Scary, in short, like it was going to rain again. We called it a day though, and some of my Indonesian friends left the venue and so were I and my international friends.
Before getting picked up by their relatives, my international friends and I dropped by Staples, this small office depot located right next to Pizza Hut, to take a look around and see if anything's interesting. But soon, they had to say goodbye because their relatives had arrived to pick them up, leaving me and Elda the ones that were left.
Anyway, Elda ended up buying a small white board and a journal for herself. At first, I was like "Why the heck do you buy that white board for?" and she was like "It's freaking $1.00." Well turns out that the purpose she bought it was its price. But in the end, it was pretty useful since we put it up in the fridge and used it to leave notes to each other on weekdays.
Not bad huh? Nice choice Elda, although I knew the first reason why you bought it is because of the price. Low price, useful, pretty much it's worth it.
Anyway, from Staples, we went across the street to Target. Pretty much we didn't buy anything there, just seeking for some shelter since the wind outside blew kind of hard and it looked like it was going to rain. We looked up at the prices of beanbag chairs we were planning to buy for the apartment and even took a look at books (always the favorite section)
We decided to go home shortly before the weather worsened.
At home, I made a special dinner. I'm usually lazy at cooking, not to mention I'm not the best chef in the house, but well, I did my best.
I don't know what I should call this, but it's basically a mixed fried tofu and mushroom with a sesame oil
And also, the moment I'd been waiting for: unveiling the presents from my friends :)
The greeting card from my friends who came to surprise me the night before
From Astha!
She knew I really wanted to read these books! Thank you sooo much!!
Kezia and Idel gave me this cute Totoro frame. I couldn't resist to put it on display!
There's another greeting card from my friend Hang but I haven't got the chance to take a picture of it. Perhaps some time :)
Wow, what one heck of a post! This is what happens if I haven't posted for so long. But since this is also a special post featuring my friends' birthday and mine as well, I guess it's quite worth it. I hope you guys enjoyed reading this post!
P.S: My English's getting sucks. Another effect for not posting for a while.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Trip to Taiwan - Part 10 (Special Monika's Birthday)
Seventeenth day: July 7th, 2010 (Puli - Taichung)
It's Monika's birthday today!
But since we were preparing for a surprise for her, almost no one congratulated her in the morning. So the morning started off the same like any other mornings, especially for Monika. I could see sparks of disappointment on her face.
The first destination we'd go to was a rice paper factory, where we were going to make a colorful handprint printed on rice paper. Mine is quite messy, especially I didn't get to decorate it and it even took me ages to arrange my name. Aside from making a colorful handprint, making a fan is another activity using the stamp method. I don't want to show my fan since it looks like a joke. Really, it was even more messed up than the rice paper artwork.
Shortly afterwards, we headed out for lunch, and then next activity was followed with cycling! This is, again, one of the most anticipated activities in the program. As for me, I'd rather find cycling a very seldom activity to do, so doing it after ages would be a great experience.
Midway to the "finish line" we stopped to have a bite of cold fruit ice bar, in a hot day. Cold fruit ice + hot day = paradise.
We also snapped some pictures in some spots, but too bad the pictures hadn't been uploaded yet.
Later on, we went straight to the hotel before the dark, and this, is where the whole Monika's birthday plan started. She was with me when we got off the bus and headed towards the storage which kept our luggages. I found mine, but she didn't find hers. Her luggage was one with moss green color and her Chinese name on it. I was certain she put the luggage near to mine.
Until that moment, I hadn't realized that it was actually part of the plan.
My roommate who witnessed her looking for her luggage, immediately took me to our room and told me that it was part of the plan, and that I didn't need to be worried, because the luggage had been taken in the first place (by Audrey) and possibly kept in her room. After the short briefing, my friend and I emerged and started acting.
"Maybe it got swapped with another group's luggage." I told her, but now Monika's expression had drastically changed, now pale and worried.
Luckily, she said, she didn't keep anything precious such as money, passport, or valuable items in her luggage, but still she kept most of her clothes in there.
At the same time, all of my friends from Group 4 wanted to go shopping the mall we visited on Sunday. I was about to come with them when Monika hesitated, forcing herself to look for her luggage. I decided to accompany her though, since she was my cousin and I wouldn't dare to leave her alone in such a crucial time like this (not that crucial though, she had no idea). I came up with the idea to distract her by knocking each rooms in the fifth floor corridor (where our room was located) and asked every residents if they saw a moss green luggage or if their luggage got swapped with it.
But the result was none, of course. I already knew where the luggage was ;).
Carissa, you're a great actress ^^ (self-appraisal)
Monika already looked desperate and we decided to stay in our friend's room (who decided not to go shopping with the others). Once all of our friends returned, we gathered in Audrey's room to practice singing for tomorrow's farewell party. There were more than twenty people inside the tiny room. LOL. We went on singing without even paying attention to the stressed out Monika who sat at the corner.
Just about time, the door bell rang. Turned out it was the fu dao yuans who came to summon Monika. As she went outside to be "judged", all of us stopped singing and put out the hidden cake to prepare the surprise. But the so called missing luggage stayed where it was, which was in the closed closet.
After the candles were lit, we emerged out of the room and...
"Monika, we got a present for you." We told her to close her eyes while the missing luggage was dragged out of the room. When she opened her eyes... "It's your present!" Haha, you should've really seen her face. ^__^
Anyway, we got back to the room and it seemed like now, everyone including Monika, sang the song excitedly. LOL
It's Monika's birthday today!
But since we were preparing for a surprise for her, almost no one congratulated her in the morning. So the morning started off the same like any other mornings, especially for Monika. I could see sparks of disappointment on her face.
The first destination we'd go to was a rice paper factory, where we were going to make a colorful handprint printed on rice paper. Mine is quite messy, especially I didn't get to decorate it and it even took me ages to arrange my name. Aside from making a colorful handprint, making a fan is another activity using the stamp method. I don't want to show my fan since it looks like a joke. Really, it was even more messed up than the rice paper artwork.
Shortly afterwards, we headed out for lunch, and then next activity was followed with cycling! This is, again, one of the most anticipated activities in the program. As for me, I'd rather find cycling a very seldom activity to do, so doing it after ages would be a great experience.
Midway to the "finish line" we stopped to have a bite of cold fruit ice bar, in a hot day. Cold fruit ice + hot day = paradise.
We also snapped some pictures in some spots, but too bad the pictures hadn't been uploaded yet.
Later on, we went straight to the hotel before the dark, and this, is where the whole Monika's birthday plan started. She was with me when we got off the bus and headed towards the storage which kept our luggages. I found mine, but she didn't find hers. Her luggage was one with moss green color and her Chinese name on it. I was certain she put the luggage near to mine.
Until that moment, I hadn't realized that it was actually part of the plan.
My roommate who witnessed her looking for her luggage, immediately took me to our room and told me that it was part of the plan, and that I didn't need to be worried, because the luggage had been taken in the first place (by Audrey) and possibly kept in her room. After the short briefing, my friend and I emerged and started acting.
"Maybe it got swapped with another group's luggage." I told her, but now Monika's expression had drastically changed, now pale and worried.
Luckily, she said, she didn't keep anything precious such as money, passport, or valuable items in her luggage, but still she kept most of her clothes in there.
At the same time, all of my friends from Group 4 wanted to go shopping the mall we visited on Sunday. I was about to come with them when Monika hesitated, forcing herself to look for her luggage. I decided to accompany her though, since she was my cousin and I wouldn't dare to leave her alone in such a crucial time like this (not that crucial though, she had no idea). I came up with the idea to distract her by knocking each rooms in the fifth floor corridor (where our room was located) and asked every residents if they saw a moss green luggage or if their luggage got swapped with it.
But the result was none, of course. I already knew where the luggage was ;).
Carissa, you're a great actress ^^ (self-appraisal)
Monika already looked desperate and we decided to stay in our friend's room (who decided not to go shopping with the others). Once all of our friends returned, we gathered in Audrey's room to practice singing for tomorrow's farewell party. There were more than twenty people inside the tiny room. LOL. We went on singing without even paying attention to the stressed out Monika who sat at the corner.
Just about time, the door bell rang. Turned out it was the fu dao yuans who came to summon Monika. As she went outside to be "judged", all of us stopped singing and put out the hidden cake to prepare the surprise. But the so called missing luggage stayed where it was, which was in the closed closet.
After the candles were lit, we emerged out of the room and...
SURPRISE!!!
We all sang Happy Birthday.
Aww...Monika was struck and stunned at the same time that she was speechless.
We all sang Happy Birthday.
Aww...Monika was struck and stunned at the same time that she was speechless.
"Monika, we got a present for you." We told her to close her eyes while the missing luggage was dragged out of the room. When she opened her eyes... "It's your present!" Haha, you should've really seen her face. ^__^
Anyway, we got back to the room and it seemed like now, everyone including Monika, sang the song excitedly. LOL
Friday, July 23, 2010
Trip to Taiwan - Part 5 (Special: Celine's Birthday!)
As promised, this time I'm going to post about Celine's birthday surprise which was on July 1st, but celebrated earlier on the last mass birthday surprise. We're going to surprise her once more this time, and it's going to be EPIC.
Approaching 12 am, we got out of the cottage together, heading to the steep road that headed towards the courtyard of the restaurant. We gathered first and Celine came up still with her eyes half closed since she was already asleep. She went like "What's going on here?" But of course nobody answered and instead, we put on the same annoyed and curious faces (we were only acting).
We went like "Yeah, what's going on? Why did we have to wake up and gather here?". Instead, the fu dao yuan said "Everybody line up! Liang pai! Two lines!!" Lao Shi also acted as if he was angry (the fact is, he's never angry, but he did because we asked him to act as if he is).
"We're so disappointed with you guys because you won't stay silent..." the fu dao yuans continued with their blabbering with their annoyed faces on. "Now put the blindfolds on."
Everybody quickly did what was told. But in fact, we didn't have blindfolds. We pretended we had and put blindfolds to each other. But the real one was put on Celine. Before she could check whether we really did blindfolding each other, she had already been blindfolded, possibly convincing her that everybody DID blindfolding each other for real. Coincidentally, Celine got this quite loud voice. So among our group, she kept whining while being blindfolded.
"Everyone put on their blindfolds already? Now, in two lines, holding to your front's shoulders, climb up." ordered the fu dao yuans.
We quickly un-blindfolded-ly lined up in two and started holding our front's shoulders, while climbing up the steep road. Since I was in front of Celine from the very first place, she had to hold on to my shoulders as I led the path and everybody around me went giggling (turns out they didn't hold on to their front's shoulders and instead, scattered away). I'm telling you it's rather hard to lead Celine since the path was quite dark, almost with no lighting around.
While climbing up, we kept on saying. "AAH! Who's in front of me??!! Aah! Who's touching me?? What am I stepping on? Where are we going?" to convince Celine that we were all blindfolded just like her.
As we arrived at the restaurant's courtyard, with Celine having no idea where she was taken. My friend told me to let go of Celine's hold. So I did, and now, Celine was left all by herself, surrounding by her giggling, prankster friends. She kept whining and occassionally screamed when my friend poked her arms and legs. When it came to the moment she was completely surrounded by us, someone opened her blindfolds. And we went...
"Happy birthday to youu!!"
Celine was...of course, overwhelmed that she cried and Karin hugged her. Probably you'd feel the same if you experienced this kind of unexpected event. Later we put out our switched-on mini flashlights as candles (we had no candles, so flashlights were the alternatives) and lined up. Celine blew the "candle" one by one. Once she already "blew up" the candle, we switched off as if the candle went out.
Some of our friends appeared with a "cake". Actually it wasn't a cake, but cookie bars that were piled up to make it look like a cake). LOL
After a briefing of all group 4 inside Jeje, Audrey, Shelly, Felicia, and Didi's cottage, even we invited our fu dao yuans, lao shi, and the Makassar girls and boys at 11 pm, we came up with an idea to prank her. Coincidentally, she had already slept and didn't join the briefing (much to our relief). But a bait was needed, so her best friend, Karin, who was still awake and happened to join the briefing, decided to be one.
Approaching 12 am, we got out of the cottage together, heading to the steep road that headed towards the courtyard of the restaurant. We gathered first and Celine came up still with her eyes half closed since she was already asleep. She went like "What's going on here?" But of course nobody answered and instead, we put on the same annoyed and curious faces (we were only acting).
We went like "Yeah, what's going on? Why did we have to wake up and gather here?". Instead, the fu dao yuan said "Everybody line up! Liang pai! Two lines!!" Lao Shi also acted as if he was angry (the fact is, he's never angry, but he did because we asked him to act as if he is).
"We're so disappointed with you guys because you won't stay silent..." the fu dao yuans continued with their blabbering with their annoyed faces on. "Now put the blindfolds on."
Everybody quickly did what was told. But in fact, we didn't have blindfolds. We pretended we had and put blindfolds to each other. But the real one was put on Celine. Before she could check whether we really did blindfolding each other, she had already been blindfolded, possibly convincing her that everybody DID blindfolding each other for real. Coincidentally, Celine got this quite loud voice. So among our group, she kept whining while being blindfolded.
"Everyone put on their blindfolds already? Now, in two lines, holding to your front's shoulders, climb up." ordered the fu dao yuans.
We quickly un-blindfolded-ly lined up in two and started holding our front's shoulders, while climbing up the steep road. Since I was in front of Celine from the very first place, she had to hold on to my shoulders as I led the path and everybody around me went giggling (turns out they didn't hold on to their front's shoulders and instead, scattered away). I'm telling you it's rather hard to lead Celine since the path was quite dark, almost with no lighting around.
While climbing up, we kept on saying. "AAH! Who's in front of me??!! Aah! Who's touching me?? What am I stepping on? Where are we going?" to convince Celine that we were all blindfolded just like her.
As we arrived at the restaurant's courtyard, with Celine having no idea where she was taken. My friend told me to let go of Celine's hold. So I did, and now, Celine was left all by herself, surrounding by her giggling, prankster friends. She kept whining and occassionally screamed when my friend poked her arms and legs. When it came to the moment she was completely surrounded by us, someone opened her blindfolds. And we went...
"Happy birthday to youu!!"
Celine was...of course, overwhelmed that she cried and Karin hugged her. Probably you'd feel the same if you experienced this kind of unexpected event. Later we put out our switched-on mini flashlights as candles (we had no candles, so flashlights were the alternatives) and lined up. Celine blew the "candle" one by one. Once she already "blew up" the candle, we switched off as if the candle went out.
Some of our friends appeared with a "cake". Actually it wasn't a cake, but cookie bars that were piled up to make it look like a cake). LOL
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