Birthday fun!

I know I kept this on the down low, but yesterday was in fact my birthday!

Happy Birthday to me!!

Basically I woke up yesterday morning and my boyfriend made me some pancakes and some hot chocolate for Breakfast.

Then we went out for a walk and decided we would try climbing Bray Head again but go a different route this time, but unfortunately... As we were nearing the sea front a big huge black cloud appeared

so then we decided to call in and visit some friends. We had some Chinese Jelly there. It's weird it comes in a tube like a cool pop. Actually it comes in all different shapes, like Cats, Sea horses, mice fruit. Etc and they come in all different flavours such as Strawberry, Mango, Lychee, Pineapple & Banana

If you want to see more check this website Zuozuo Jelly

 My friends son Yi Bing

Here is me and my friends daughter Yi Han

Then we went for a walk down the sea front and walked around the harbour looked at the incredibly noisy swans,

We went back to the apartment and freshened up then my boyfriend said he wanted to find the best Chinese restaurant in Bray for us to go to. We went into about 4 different ones. The first one was incredibly overpriced.  we would be better off going to an Irish restaurant, if we had to pay that much, Then we looked in a Chinese restaurant that we had never been in and they didn't have a "Chinese" menu. It was purely take away style.

Then we looked in another restaurant the food was reasonably priced but all the tables were on top of each other my boyfriend said he didn't want us eating in a canteen. Then finally we found the perfect one. Ying Yang Chinese Restaurant.

Most people will know this already but it your finding trying to find a good Chinese restaurant outside of China of course, A key indicator of a restaurant being good is if they have a Chinese version of the menu (written in Chinese)

Secondly if there are actually Chinese or even Asian people eating in the restaurant.

Thirdly this is not always true, but if the restaurant looks quite shabby with quite old mismatched furniture, its likely to be family run and will have quite traditional food. and traditional food is always better than Chinese Take away style food.

Sweet and sour chicken is not traditional, The best place to find traditional Chinese food in Ireland is in Parnell street and Capell street  in Dublin, City centre, Some restaurants in my hometown Bray have traditional food if you inquire such as China Kitchen.

Anyway back to the dinner, I let my boyfriend order because sadly most restaurants don't translate the Chinese version of the menu into English and a lot of dishes are left out in the English menu what a pity!

We had Prawn Wonton Soup.

Crispy Ribs 

Sweet and Sour Sea bass

Yummy!!! My favourite was the Sea Bass, Most Irish people don't like fish but I usually love it!

and my Birthday Celebrations are continuing today. Its a tradition in my family that the Birthday Girl or Boy gets to choose which restaurant they want to go to for their Birthday dinner. So we are having my Birthday dinner today because.... Its mothers day and my dad wanted to include my Grandma, which I was fine with. So I am thinking Italian today!!

 

A Chinese Feast

On Saturday I was invited to a Chinese Dinner Party, 4 Chinese friends from my college thought it would be nice to invite some of their non Irish friends to come and have a traditional Chinese Banquet. Oh my god their was so much food, you would think they were planing to feed an army! But you know thats what makes it traditional lol.

Can anyone spot me? look in the far left corner

Anyway alll the food was really delicious and we all had a great night :) and went home with a very full belly lol

Here is a picture of the 4 chefs

Jia Qi, Nancy, Ma Jin & Xiao Ji

Here are some pictures of the guests

 The German Twins JKs (Katherina & Frederika)

 Amaury, Nancy & Niamh (My boyfriend says I look a bit like Niamh what do you think?)

Finally Me & Ma Jin

Strangely even though I use chopsticks all the time when I am staying at my boyfriend's house, I still felt really uneasy and uncomfortable and clumsy using them at the dinner party. I just don't like people watching me eat lol! I even ended up droping them on the floor at one point in the night. I felt like such a newbie lol! That has never happened to me before.

One special thing at the party was using red chopsticks,  which is kind of rare. I really want to get a pair of Pink chopsticks instead of the boring wooden ones I use all the time.

Ooh! I really want to go chopstick shoping now! The last time I went chopstick shoping was way back In April, when my boyfriend moved to Kilkenny, and when he got there he realised he hadn't brought any chopsticks and he had nowhere to buy them. So I went to the Chinese Supermarket to buy them and when I picked up a packet of about 10 sets of chopsticks they all fell on the ground! :O

OOOPS!!

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Yesterday was really crappy and depressing when my boyfriend returned from his friend's snooker club Xin Yue Entertainment, We had a huge big dinner of pig ear (believe it or not it actually tastes surprisingly good and is also surprisingly big @.@) and a pink Chinese fish, We still haven't found out what the fish is called all he could tell me was it was a very expensive Chinese fish... Does anyone have any ideas?

 How cute!! I don't want to eat them

After the dinner I watched a Korean Drama that I am glued to these days, My Princess. My boyfriend says Korean dramas are hopeless there all about unrealistic and unbelievable love stories.... Its never going to happen...I thought we could try watching some taiwanese romantic dramas instead but....  He prefers to watch Chinese dramas about the war or ancient times.... so we both sit together watching separate shows lol.

 Every girl dreams of being a princess....

Omg this is why girls watch Korean dramas lol!!! If there were semi naked girls I bet my boyfriend would be enticed lol.

Then just before I was about to go to sleep he dropped a new bombshell on me... He is planing to move to the countryside to work in a Chinese restaurant as a kitchen porter, because he isn't making any money in his current job because his hours keep fluctuating :(

After that I couldn't sleep a wink I know technically its probably the best way for him to make money since in a Chinese restaurant they don't pay you per hour but, more so by week so regardless of whether the restaurant closes because its not busy you still get paid the same amount and often they provide you with accommodation and food so it eliminates a lot of expenses. However when you average out the wages by day, its often below minimum wage. Also the workers have a reputation of being Illegal, No English, and over worked and not paying taxes.

Ultimately I am trying to encourage him not to go, purely because its a bad environment to enter. and maybe because I'm selfish. I just don't want him to go. I want him to just persist at trying to find a new better job in my town. Also I strongly believe that all restaurants go through a lull period in January and February because people have no money after Christmas... But come spring everyone will be out drinking eating and being merry! and his working hours will go back to normal! Anyway for now I have to prepare for the worst...

There will be light at the end of the tunnel!

No room at the inn!

I usually have pretty lousy luck with Hotels. For instance as much as I loved my trip to China, We did make a few foolish mistakes when traveling.... Who would of thought a foreigner ought to bring her passport with her when she is traveling around China? I suppose most foreigners who are not traveling around with their local Chinese boyfriend or girlfriend, Anyway I remember my ex boyfriend's family telling my ex boyfriend, don't let her bring her passport with her as it might get stolen... So I duly left it behind and off we went on our travels. No sooner had we got off the train in Shanghai did we realize Oops! We went into the first hotel and they said "sorry we don't accept foreigners" end of story..

Suddenly we thought hmmm this could be tricky... We got in a taxi and he drove us too our next Hotel, By the way we didn't try to get a room in any 5 or even 4 star hotels. In fact I don't even know if the ones we tried had any rating at all. We were on a low cost budget so the Ritz Carlton was out completely.

The second hotel we tried, we had a bit more luck, My boyfriend at the time started filling out the paperwork while I just stood there mute. Then they were just about to give us our room key, when they asked for my passport =.=;;;;; "Sorry we can't accept any foreigners without a passport"

We had a repeat situation at the third hotel. However by the fourth hotel we were both losing patience. So we tried a new tactic my boyfriend went into the hotel and filled out the forms while I waited outside then once he had filled them out and I saw he was on the way up to see the room... I came in and attempted to go up... and be a separate costumer... Total Fail!! We were basically forced to leave. At this stage my then boyfriend was furious! He even called the police!  We were convinced we were going to spend our first night in Shanghai on the streets lol.

The police did absolutely nothing. Then my then boyfriend called his dad, who luckily knew a guy in Shanghai who hopefully would be able to help us. But we had to sit tight and wait. We couldn't enjoy or relax all day because we had to heave around our heavy luggage bag all day until 11 at night. Also we had the stress of worrying about whether or not we were going to be able to get a hotel room. In the end his dad's friend saved the day! Hallelujah!

Anyway since then I haven't had many mishaps with hotels other than perhaps missing the included Breakfast. or Eating what we thought was the included Breakfast which actually turned out not to be included and we had to pay 17 euro for!

Anyway this week I experienced an all new mishap. The question is "How do you tell your boyfriend you may have to share a room with a male classmate at the college ball?" Obviously you don't. My college has it's annual Ball on the 3rd of March. It's supposed to be the highlight of the academic year.. and you only study in UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School:for one year so you must grab this chance when you get it..

Last week the annual Smurfit Ball was the talk of the college. Who's going? How much for a ticket? Who wants to book a hotel room? Naturally going to a College ball requires booking a hotel room because the Ball ends late and there's no way of getting home. I asked my friend Nancy whether she wants to share a room and she was all for it... Then on Monday I contacted the class rep who was organizing the discounted student rooms (60 euro) and she told me all rooms had been fully booked however Jia Qi doesn't have anyone to share with..... My boyfriend saw the message and was like "NO WAY!! are you sharing a hotel room with another guy!! Why can't I go??"

Then I went to college and thought about it... Why can't he go? then I decided of course he should go. I rang him and told him he should go. I felt really happy because me and him have never done anything all dressed up and in suits and fancy dresses. I haven t done anything like that since my (Debs) Debutant Ball at the end of secondary school.  This time it would be special and with a boyfriend.....My Debs was with some random friend I barely knew...

 Me and Daragh (2007) Debutant ball 1

Me and Daragh (2007) Debutant ball 2

But that dream came crashing down.... because of you guessed it.... Money..
Ball tickets : 70 euro per person = 140 euro
Hotel room : 89 euro
Hire a suit: possibly 100 euro
Drinks : 50 euro

As you can see it would cost a hell of a lot for both of us to go. :( I guess sometimes Cinderella can't go to the Ball....