I23

So, Wednesday was my 23rd birthday. But you could have fooled me. There were a few birthday-esque things about it, but as a rule I'd probably put it down as my loneliest birthday so far. Not that lots of people who know me didn't try really hard to make it special, which I was really grateful for.

My day started at 3.45, when I woke up and called Mum to mumble semi-conscious thanks for bringing me into the world and not bringe-drinking while pregnant so as I could grow up to have this Spartan physique and eloquent vocabulary. I don't think I used as many words or overexaggerations as that, but oh well - artistic license.

Back to bed, only to wake up at 6.40 to go pick up members of Nintendo. Amid a busy day touring one of our supplier's factories, we were invited out to lunch by the factory's VP. 5-Star restaurant on your birthday? Yes please. Having said that, noone knew (or else didn't remember). What made this all the more laughable is that when our manager mentioned it was his birthday on Sunday, everyone gave him hearty congratulations. Fair enough, and I wasn't about to say anything out of the blue. But then, someone happened to say to me "you're 22 right Tim?". Oh HO I'm not thank you very much, was my triumphant reply; it's my birthday today, I'll have you know I'm 23 (of course I didn't say it like a pompous English ass, rather I said it in Japanese, but it makes for better reading if I flower up the dialogue, don't you think?)
What kind of response would you expect? "Oh, Happy Birthday" might be standard. "Really?" would be fair enough. But what did I get, from almost all members at the table? "You're lying." Why would I lie about being 23? I don't necessarily WANT to be older (maybe it would get me more respect at the company, but I'm not that desparate). Even though I continued to claim my honest, noone believed me. I cracked out my driver's license, but they were more interested in my 15-year-old picture than in the evidence. What's with that? I mean, I make jokes, but since when am I not to be trusted on my own birthdate?

NB: When we got in the car to leave, I was sitting next to a manager from Nintendo, who asked me again how old I was, and when I told him it really happened to be my birthday, he offered me congratulations. Good on him.

Complaining about the company aside, it was a pretty decent birthday lunch (and gratis too), including: Peanuts & cashews, sweet&sour pork, fish, tofu, goose (I was surprised too) and of course, combination fried rice. Or the 5-star equivalent. All that was missing was wine, but we had coke and I can't say I was disappointed. Just wondering where the chippies were (and why we didn't play pass-the-parcel).

Got home pretty late, to find the hotel had left me a gift in my room: an extravagantly decorated cake. If only it wasn't as tasteless as it was garnished. Still, it's the thought (and the customer goodwill) that counts. Check out how many forks they gave me to eat it with! 10 in total. They make the gross assumption that I actually KNOW 10 people here. And no, Takeya staff don't count. They wouldn't eat cake with me if I paid them.

Mio sent me a present with an awesome watch, complete with a button the function of which is just to change the style in which the seconds count on it. She also gave me my very first "voice message card", which I guess is only a few steps removed from a singing telegram. Honest, awesome idea - you can record a short message built into the card body, which the lucky so&so who gets it can play back to their heart's content. Wish I'd designed that. It's the kind of thing I've had dreams about.

Also, for some odd reason, the housekeeping staff left me the daily newspaper for the 6th of June. I guess some people like to save the front page of the newspaper on their birthday. But usually they probably like to save a newspaper that is published in a language they can actually read. Even if my Mandarin was top notch, to be honest this article looks more boring than watching Prince Charles sleep. Besides - where's my picture? Under the headline "Kiwi boy enters country, raises national height average by over a foot".

All in all it was a pretty average birthday - the lowlight was eating my first birthday dinner alone (I passed up eating with my colleagues as we would have been out all night, and not in the "man, we were out all night, it was off the hook" kind of way.
But thanks heaps to everyone who mailed me, you rock my cyber-world. If you're a little patient, I'll give you your 15 mins... but for now that's all from me.

Happy My-Birth-Week!