Bonne Fete Et Nicole!!

Last Saturday we celebrated Nicole's birthday by having a huge party in Incheon. I woke-up rather early to get ready and meet up with Lindsay to go shopping for her birthday present. We met mid-afternoon and bought her some pretty great stuff from CD's and DVD's to socks, slippers, soju, etc. Then we bought her a giant 35,000 won birthday cake from Paris Baguette with enough candles for how old she was turning. Afterward, Lindsay had to meet someone, so I headed to Holly's and hung out for a bit before heading to Tracy's to hang out with her for a bit. When Lindsay finally got home I dropped my bag off at her house, touched up and we headed down to get Tracy and then headed to the BYC to meet up with Nicole and friends to head to our first event on her birthday evening, bowling. There were 14 of us for bowling, which was a lot of fun.

Here is the birthday girl taking her turn bowling. Glad she was on my team, 'Team Kick Ass.' This ball was my ball of choice the entire time we bowled and it led to me two great scores and a team win in game 2.

We played to games and turned it into a competition. Nick, Julian and Damien's team won the first game, but Nicole, Andrea and I won the second game. Nicole won as indivdual then Julian and I was third or fourth, so not a bad day. After bowling we headed to the famous ribs place that all of us love. Since there were so many of us and the restaurant was very tiny we ended up having to wait about 10 - 15 minutes before we could eat. We decided to stick it out and wait because the ribs are so delicious.

Andrea (back), Carolina and I at the rib place enjoying each others company, the drinks and of course, the ribs.

Lindsay and I snuck out of dinner to head to Paris Baguette to pick up the cake and to head over to Mad Max to decorate the bar for her birthday. Since we are really good friends with the owner and employees he let us decorate the ice bar area for her birthday with a sign and some balloons.

The awesome job Lindsay, Tracy and I did of decorating at Mad Max for Nicole.The huge cake we bought Nicole for her birthday. It is apparently custom to serve every table in the bar a piece of cake if it is your birthday, so this cake was not wasted.

We surprised Nicole when she walked through the doors of Mad Max with the traditional Korean birthday song, the candles on her cake lit and all her friends (and the patrons in the bar) singing and clapping to her. She was a bit embarassed, but said she was glad it was done right away and not mid-way through being at Mad Max. She ended up getting about 24 roses as a gift from her old tennis coach who happened to be there Saturday night and he also bought her two buckets of beer with 5 beer each in them. Here is Nicole posing with the pink tiara Lindsay and I bought her to wear and the roses her ex-tennis coach bought her.

Once we had all had enough of Mad Max we headed to Guwol-dong (Rodeo Square) to do some more drinking and then head to Diana nightclub. We started at Miller Time, but Nicole, Lindsay and I didn't drink anything there. We were just meeting more friends there, but some of the people we were with drank and hung out there for a bit. Holly and I decided to have a mini phot shoot of typical Korean poses, so here is the cutest one we took together at Miller Time. We were both definitely drunk by this point.

Nicole, Lindsay, Kyu (our Korean friend), Mike and I headed over to Rio's for some drinking. Once we got to Rio's it was quite crowded. I actually ended up bumping into the other foreign teacher that works at my school in the After school English room. We've been trying to hang out since he got here in August, but it had yet to happen, so randomly bumping into each other was nice. All of the friends that had come out for Nicole's birthday ended up meeting us at Rio's. They made it in time to see the owner, Rio who knows Nicole, make her a birthday shot.

This was just about the end of the shot being made. The employees did a little dance show and then Rio danced and blew fire, which lit the shot on fire and was really entertaining to watch. It also helps that Rio is insanely good looking and fun to watch...lol! Then just to make sure Nicole did the shot properly he brought her behind the bar where everyone could see her and he sang her 'Happy Birthday' before letting her do the shot. Then it was time for the fire shot. Rio held the straw for Nicole while she took the shot.

After Rio's, around 2:00 a.m. we headed to Diana nightclub. Nicole is a huge fan of nightclubs because she likes to dance and that is the only place you can go to do that in Incheon is a nightclub. Diana is the best and most expensive nightclub in Incheon, so obviously we want to go there. Nicole, Kyu, Lindsay, Mike and I headed there first and got a table before we were joined by Nick, Carolina, Duncan and Damien. We ordered lot's of beer and got the usual fruit platter that comes with the package. Then May, Natalie and Subong (Natalie's Korean boyfriend) showed up, so there were 12 of us there rocking the nightclub until the wee hours of the morning. Around 4:30 a.m. we decided to leave the nightclub and Nicole wanted food, so Mike, Kyu and I joined her. She really wanted McDonald's, but hates McDonald's breakfast, so her and I hopped in a cab and headed back our way while Kyu and Mike headed to their homes. We grabbed some food and one more beer in ajushi alley before getting in a dodgy taxi and heading home.