Two birthdays at once

Saturday, 16.06.2018

It's my wife's birthday! 'Happy birthday' in Chinese is 'Zhù nǐ shēngrì kuàilè'. She never would have imagined celebrating a birthday in China. 😱 But she bravely takes on the challenge and is doing great.

The indoor playground is located in one of the countless giant shopping malls here in Suzhou. These malls are filled with stores selling Western goods, but there are hardly any people around. But that's a different topic. The play area, with climbing, sliding, jumping, and a ball pit, as well as a room for birthday parties, spans two floors and is already quite busy this afternoon.

When Philipp's Chinese classmates see him, they are visibly happy and Philipp immediately starts running around. It's nice to see that he has friends during the day.

To reduce the risk in the playground, everyone except Jule has to wear non-slip socks to enter. In the streets, everyone rides their electric bicycles without helmets or lights, and sometimes they even have a child with them, even if the child is just learning to sit. But of course, those who have managed to arrive here alive should not slip on the already non-slip mats and break their necks just to save 5 RMB on socks.

Before we are allowed to pass through the strictly guarded sock gate, Philipp hands the gift to the little whirlwind 'Jaqueline'. She excitedly tears it open and disappears into the crowd with 50% of it. 'Jaqueline's' mom collects everything and leads us inside. Philipp didn't want to miss out and couldn't be found for a while. Meanwhile, the other parents and I introduced ourselves in the birthday room. Every now and then, a child would come by and play here and there.

In the corner of the room, a clown was already there to entertain the children. He was a tall Chinese man with a red nose, which we found funny. Judging by his expression, he could use a drink to endure the children's noise. Anyway, soon it was time for food – chicken wings, sausages, pizza, and later, cake. The clown also did some amazing balloon tricks and didn't look sad anymore.

While the children were playing and the birthday girl was crawling on me, the moms made contacts and invited us to a barbecue the next day. Awesome! We're in!

After two and a half hours, the children's birthday party came to an end and it was time for the moms to have their own celebration. Conveniently located on the ground floor of '188' is our new favorite Italian restaurant, 'DaMario', which serves very good Italian cuisine with an authentic Italian chef and drinkable wines. We met up with two other German families and enjoyed 60cm pizzas (no typo!). Jule is slowly starting to develop a taste for pizza and prefers a nice pizza crust over baby food or a bottle.

While France and Australia were playing on the screen, we had a great evening at the tables outside the restaurant, enjoying the mild temperatures. Katrin will surely remember her birthday for a long time👍