Brendan’s Tattoo from Emily Minor on Vimeo.

On Sunday, we met at Crystal Jade for lunch to celebrate Brendan’s 40th birthday.

Johnna told Brendan about the tattoo she’d had designed in a song… and then told him the appointment was in 30 minutes! He didn’t back out and a group of us hung out while he was getting it done.  This is a time lapse video of Ting from Shanghai Tattoo.

This is what Brendan had to say about the day:

I turned 40 on the 25th of July.  With help from a lot of friends, and particularly Paul and Suzy, Johnna had been planning my 40th for many months. I had absolutely no clue what she had planned for me!

We started the day with a Dimsum brunch at Crystal Jade in Xintiandi, and then had a wonderful banana birthday cake made and decorated by Suzy.  At the end of brunch Johnna sang a song about me set to the tune of a Sonic Youth song!  The last verse was about my present; a tattoo!  I was pretty cool, calm and collected at that point because I had been talking about getting a tattoo for years.  That’s when Johnna told me the tattooing was starting in 30 minutes and had already been designed!  At that point all of the blood drained from my face.

Luckily, I loved the design and the whole story behind it.  In Chinese, a set of boy and girl twins is called “龍鳳胎”, or in English; a dragon and a phoenix.  This means the dragon/taniwha in the design represents Finn and the phoenix represents Jade.  Neve’s Chinese name is 白星， or “White Star” in English, so she is represented by the star.  The background is a traditional Maori Koru pattern.

At 2:30PM I sat down and Ting, the tattoo artist, got started.  All our friends sat around in the tattoo parlour drinking wine and beer and periodically coming over to check out the progress.  Jon provided some great advice on how to cope with the pain, and Mike provided cans of cold diet coke and a human fan whenever it looked like I was getting too hot!

It was all done two and a half hours later so we went downstairs and had a couple of quiet drinks.  The guys all performed a haka to bless the tattoo, and then we moved on to dinner at 1221 – a Chinese restaurant that has been our favourite over many, many years.  It was a great meal and a great way to end a huge day!

Nishant and Sandhya repatriated on July 1st, and Corinna and Andrew moved to Australia.  Jon and I also left for the US on July 1st, so we had a farewell party before we all left for different continents.  I set up my camera and laptop so everyone could take photo booth photos.

We ate at the Kurrawa Surf Club.  It was awesome to sit outside, have a beer and enjoy the view!

I was holding a sleepy Alex while Wendy ate (and the girls at the next table oohh and ahhed all over).

He was not so thrilled when I shifted positions on him.  (Notice his little finger.)

We had a bottle of wine and some drinks at the bar on the top floor.  There was a nice roof top bar that would be amazing in the summer.  (We all are wearing the new glasses we’d gotten that day.)

Hanna mentioned something about singing, and we decided to go to karaoke around 2 AM.  Really, it is a totally Chinese cultural experience!   Here they are rocking out to Queen.

Hanna’s post about the week:

They went on a shopping tour I lead, along with 3 people from Spain.

We’re really stylin’ at the glasses market.

Jon finally bought a remote control helicopter like he’s wanted for 2 years (which is now broken.)

Thanksgiving dinner – a cold oyster, turkey, potatoes, broccoli, and “stuffing” which was a bit of gravy with chunks of things like nuts in it.  Stuffing?  Really?

“Pumpkin Pie” – everyone was disappointed in this and hardly ate any.  It taste like pureed nothing.  And it wasn’t even a PIE!!!

After the meal, we stuck around for quiz night.  We didn’t do too bad – the bonus round question was “What is this a picture of and where is it?”  It was Carhenge in Nebraska!!  We got it right, but even doubling our points didn’t let us win.

I also showed the non-American’s how to draw a turkey using your hand and what a Turducken is.

A highlight of the trip was Brad and Sarah’s wedding!  They held a big reception, buffet and dance in Brad’s parents’ huge machine shed.  It was a lot of fun!  (As you can see from the above photo)  I was their photographer. All photos can be seen here.

(Just because I hardly have any photos of myself here!)

Jon was talking to someone who was shocked to hear he was from Nisland. (Local town, population about 150.)  She said he was the last person at the reception that she thought would be from there.  I guess it must be his dashing good looks, tailored cashmere coat and scarf that makes him look so urban?  When she found out he lived in China, she said, “Oh, I’m sorry.”

Sorry for what?  Getting out of the state to see the world a bit?  I’m sorry for people that don’t realize that there is something outside of their own little bubble.