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Published: February 8th 2009
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Yesterday was the big birthday party and it was just the best day ever. It has been a real headache for us trying to decide where to have the party inn the first place. As you have probably read, the parties which are thrown here are usually lavish affairs in the lavish locations with lots of food and so on. Unfortunately we are not on a posh expat package out here so our budget was somewhat smaller than those budgets and we spent ages looking for a suitable location. Parties tended to start at about 2500RMB (£250) and didn't include food or cakes and we were not impressed. At the last minute, I thought about our friendly pottery class shop. Now I know you are thinking that we had had a bit of a run in with them, but needs must and it was a promising idea, so I swallowed my pride and went and asked. How pleased am I that I did this!! It has to have been the best party ever and everyone agreed!
William had 6 guests (from Japan, China, Ireland, Australia, USA and Israel) and Sophie had 7 guests (from Korea, China, USA and Sri Lanka)...plus
siblings and Ms Maddi came too! We collected a couple of Sophie's friends to go with us and we arrived at 1pm. We had bought cakes from a local bakery for a reasonable price, but even this had been difficult. It is widely accepted among us foreigners that things that normally take a short amount of time to sort out, take much longer out here, mainly due to communication problems, but also cultural ones. I would have preferred to bake the cakes, but not in the tiny oven we own! And instead of being able to nip to Tesco or M&S for our favourite cartoon character, Ian went on a search and found a bakery which gave us little choice in character but at least a character and for not too much money! William had a pikachu (Pokemon) cake and Sophie had Hello Kitty. They were both black forest gateau inside and covered in masses of cream and fruit to decorate. It's interesting here that when you buy a cake, no matter how big or small, you get given candles, matches, napkins, paper plates and plastic forks for as many people as you need! Bargain!! Sorry to digress, but I
reckon these are interesting little tit-bits of information for you readers!
So, we arrived at 1pm and people slowly arrived after this time. It is not an easy place to find as it is located within the flower market in Hongqiao, which is a maze of shops and stalls, mainly selling flowers (duh!!), but also crafts and has an aquarium section too. We had searched for a Happy Birthday sign with no luck, so had decided to make one instead. I had cut the letters out and Ian and the children had decorated them while Mummy had her last lie in of the holidays! We finally got going at about 1.25pm and the bashing of clay began. This bit went on for ages, we reckon the kids enjoyed this bit the most in fact! At one point, us grown ups found it hard to talk because of the noise of the hammering but the kids had great fun. They had all been given aprons to wear (thankfully!) and there were 2 teachers on hand to direct proceedings. Once the clay was warmed up, they were all given the choice of what they wanted to make - a house, vase,
bowl or trinket box. The boys all made houses and most of the girls went on the potters wheel and made vase/bowls. This was fantastic....we didn't think they would be allowed to go on the wheel, and with 1:1 tuition each time! Slowly we got through all the kids and everyone had written their names on their pieces.
After handwashing time, we had put some snacks and drinks out and the kids got a bit restless. This had been our worrying moment as this place is also a shop which sells hand made pottery. Imagine......a bunch of 5 and 7 year olds running around in a china shop! But no, it was all fine and no breakages!! It was a beautiful day and very warm so Ian took some of them outside for a run around to let off some steam before I went out and ushered them all in again for a game of pass the parcel! Wrapping paper is not in great abundance here, and neither are greetings cards so it was not an easy task, but thank you t all your gifts which, when unwrapped, we reused the paper from!!
A fun game of musical
statues then ensued, to the tunes of Mamma Mia which is both Sophie and William's favourite film at the moment. They love singing along and everyone had a good old bop! By this time the party was nearly over and it was time for the cakes. Both children had requested they were sung Happy Birthday to in both English and Chinese, so their wish was granted, which was really fun. It was pretty much 3pm by this time and parents started arriving. I have to thank my good friend Suzanne at this point, who wonderfully helped me distribute cake and then wrap it for taking home time also. We had decided not to give party bags, but I had designed a little voucher type thing informing each child that they would have the pottery item they had made delivered to them once it had been fired and they seemed happy enough. As if a child is going to tell you otherwise anyway!!
Once all the children had eventually been distributed, Suzanne, Emily and Nathan came back to our house for the grand opening of presents and it was just amazing. Both Sophie and William had lovely presents and it
took quite a while to open them! We were all exhausted and quite hungry so decided to go out for a special tea to our old favourite Blue Frog. The children both chose a few presents to bring with them, and Suzanne went off to drop Nathan at a friend's house for a sleep over. We had a lovely meal and a few glasses of wine before comng home with 2 very pooped children and 2 very pooped grown ups! All in all, a lovely family day and very successful party!
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