Sabrina's Birthday Today

Today (1st August) is Sabrina's birthday!

To celebrate I did all the usual western birthday customs to make her feel special for the day:

First of all in the morning I made her favorite breakfast - pancakes with bananas and maple syrup (not very Chinese I know, but she loves them).
During breakfast I gave her two birthday presents. The first was gift certificates for the Bridgeclimb (climb over the Sydney Harbour Bridge). So we can both go do the climb over the Harbour Bridge and admire the view of Sydney for one last time before we head over to Shanghai.

Then after a cup of tea, I gave her another present which was a lovely delicate gold bracelet which sits nicely on her slim wrist.

I came home at lunch time with a big tray of fresh Salmon Sashimi, oysters and a bread stick. We ate this sitting in the sun in the back yard with a glass of semillion from Tamburlaine (our favorite winery) - can it get better than this?

For the evening we went out to Wagamama, one of our favorite easy to eat at places and also had a drink at a bar in Sydney.

When we came home, I put some candles on a birthday cake and sang happy birthday to her and then ate cake and drank some more wine.

That was the western way of celebrating a birthday - we make it a special day where you try to spoil the ones you love and really make it their most special day in the year. From the moment they wake up to the moment they go to bed, the whole day revolves around them. Everything they like and want to do is done.

This is in a bit of contrast to the Chinese way of celebrating a birthday. Once we came home from dinner and drinks, Sabrina's first and most important task was to call her mum. When she  called her mum, Sabrina was told that her mum had been expecting the call all day.  This was to recognise that it is an important day for her, where in the west we wait for our parents to call us and wish us a happy birthday.