Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Party Time

I didn't know if I was going to do a b-day party this year while in Japan. My b-day fell onto a weekday, people were busy, I didn't know any nice places to hit downtown and nearly no one knew that it was my b-day... I let the idea slide for a few days and then decided "what the hell, I'm doing a party and I'm going to do it on Saturday" so on Friday morning and set the date for Saturday evening and started getting things together (I don't know if I'm "good" or "bad" at organization....)

On Friday at noon, I was sending e-mails out (both on the cell and through the computer), by the evening I had 1/2 the food, the perfect excuse to go buy a used blender off another person at the dorm (works like new), a table top electric stove and an extention cord. I'd be doing a dessert party. Crepes, mango pudding and shakes were on the menu and whatever anyone else in the dorm wanted to make and bring. I booked a meeting room for the party and by a stroke of luck 2 people were planning on holding parties on Saturday. One video game party in the evening and a fireworks party in the afternoon. I told the fireworks guy to bring everyone to the party after they were done with their party and told the video game guy that I booked the meeting room with plenty of space for the video game party. What erupted the next day was pretty crazy.

By 6:00 pm, I was told that 3 TVs, one very large flat screen monitor, an Xbox, game cube, Dreamcast and playstation 2 had been setup in the room. As for me, I was frantically getting the crepe mix ready, frying up apples and chopping bananas for crepe toppings. 6:40, friends from the lab arrive and told me they wanted to pitch in and buy snacks and food for the party, 7:00 pm people were gathering... by 7:30 the show was on the road and we had about 20+ people pile in into the room.


Video game consoles... I couldn't take a picture of all of them at once! Just imagine the carnage of all TVs (and extra stereo systems brought out) blaring video game noises. It was preeety sweet!


Crepes in action


Cinnamon apples and chopped bananas anyone?

Diego brought in a Columbian dessert and a friend from Taiwan baked me a totally kick ass cake. The people living at the dorm are short of amazing in so many ways.

11 pm, my lease on the room had run out and it was time to clean up. Cleaning is usually a solitary job for the party host. But nope, I was helped by an army of people that turned what could have been a 2 hour ordeal into a 30 minute cakewalk. Tables were folded, chairs returned. Plates magically washed and returned (we had a reserve of plates for party occasions stored at the dorm), garbage thrown out and all. By the end of the party I gave an ending speech thanking everyone that came out and had a good time (in Japan they're big on team work speaches and giving a round of applause at the end of a large event... which is a very nice touch over here).


The cake which we saved for last and the clean up crew together

I went back to my room and realized I had some cleaning to do:


My room after the party!

Finished cleaning by about 1:30 am and finally off to bed. It was a kick ass evening.

Ps. Thanks to everyone in Canada that wised me a happy b-day. Wish you guys were here :)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad you had such a great birthday celebration. Sounds like you're in great company over there - a friendly bunch. I wish I was there too!

Anonymous said...

I miss your desserts....
Gee

Paladiamors said...

Lily - It was a lot of fun. Living in a dorm is quite the experience with everyone so close by. It gets easier to organize things since you're just a door knock away from other people in the dorms. Well, not entirely true for people that live outside of the dorm but you can get a hold of anyone through e-mail over the phone.

Gee - When I come back to Canada, I'll whip up some Japanese desserts for the gang, how's that sound?

Wrazn said...

Birthdays are kinda strange away from home, eh? Happy belated.

Paladiamors said...

Thanks fiend! (And yes, Gee that's the correct spelling)

yeah it is a little strange having a b-day away from home. Kind of an eye openiner to realize that you're with a new bunch of people. I'm too used to having a long history with people.

Being with new people is an interesting experience.