Suplise!

Tired and late for class. This is how my Thursday started. Still I decided to start the day slowly so I took my time getting ready to face the sunlight. I arrived in the classroom more than 10 minutes late. To my big surprise I was met by smiles and applauses. "What have I've done?", I was thinking, but when my dear class started to sing Happy birthday in Chinese it came back to me: It was my birthday. With a smile on my face I took a seat and enjoyed the singing. It turned out they had practiced the song in Chinese before I arrived at class. I felt surprised, happy and appreciated.
After class my friends joined me for lunch at a restaurant of my choice and it was my job to order the dishes. I tried to order to satisfy everyone around the table but failed. The restaurant is specialized in spicy food and the French girls are not so fund about hot spices. Anyway we enjoyed nice company during the meal. Time for coffee and we moved out business to a cafe near by. This was especially nice, because normally only Armin and I drink coffee after lunch. We played a game of "Fia" and once again I totally dominated the board game! OK maybe not dominated but I left the cafe with another win in my record.

Pleased with my friends attention this day I took a taxi to the center of Ningbo for shopping before my teaching class later that evening. My plan was to buy for new clothes for the dinner Friday night. I've booked a table at a Brazilian restaurant to celebrate my birthday and to have a good time with my friends, and for this event I needed a new outfit. I did not find anything to buy that afternoon, but I received a present from a friend who is manager of a store down town, a new belt. This was very welcome because I wanted to buy a new one for some time. 

For a few weeks I wanted to buy a new wrist watch and I found just the one I want. Two weeks earlier Emilie and Armin helped me pick a watch I really like but I wasn't sure I could spend the money so I decided to wait. This Thursday I went back to the store to see the watch again and my opinion had not changed, this was the watch for me. I checked the watch for a few minutes but asked the owner to keep it for me for a few more days, until Sunday at the latest. It is not that often a man buys a new watch so I wanted another opinion and maybe some help with the bargain. It was now time for me to head towards work. The office is located 15min of walk away from the city center. I put on Daniel Merriweather in my earphones and started to cruise the avenue in the sunlight. Even though it was rush hour in this huge city and everyone was looking at the foreigner, I felt swallowed by the music and atmosphere and had a nice feeling of being alone for a moment.

My class turned out great and everyone was happy with the evenings agenda. Armin called me during the break. He told me that he and Benson was shopping down town and wanted me to join them for a beer after my class. Not a bad idea, even though I was a bit tired. Benson, who is Chinese, could help me bargain for the watch. We decided to meet at the big Starbucks after my work and one of my students offered me a ride which I accepted.

At Starbucks I found Armin to be alone. Benson left to see a friend so no watch for me. Armin suggested that we should have a quick coffee and then head down to Lao Waitan for beers. This made me a bit worried because I talked with Céline the day before about doing something back at campus. We ordered coffee and when I asked Armin about the others he told me that they are back at campus doing nothing and he looked a bit nervous. I became a bit suspicious and Armin looked over my shoulder. I turned around and to my big surprise I see Céline, Emilie and Vincent walking down the stairs from the second floor, carrying a cake with burning candles singing Happy birthday! I was stunned and it was to impossible to hide my joy. After blowing out the candles I hugged them all, obviously happy, and they handed me a present. We went upstairs, sat down and cut the cake. I was extremely curious about the present and was ordered to open it.
I could not believe my eyes! They bought the watch! Just one hour after I left the store they arrived to buy it. A perfect gift, because apparently I really wanted that watch. They, along with Helen, Charles, Viyaleta and Fredrik, have truncated money to buy the watch for me.

We ate the delicious cake and I felt surprised, chocked and mostly appreciated. This was a great ending of a great birthday! I went to bed that night with a big smile on my face and I am not sure that I ever felt so appreciated. I am grateful for my wonderful friends who paid lots of effort to show it to me!

I will soon update the post with more info about the dinner party we had last Friday.