Wednesday 5th October
My 21st birthday was one for the books! Five British students celebrating on a quiet Wednesday night in Taipei...what could go wrong!
After class, where my classmates surprised me with Oreos (my fave), I get the bus into the city – and this time, I didn't do anything wrong! In fact – we took such a sharp turn at one point that a girl standing behind me fell face first and slammed into me at full force. I wasn't bothered in the slightest – just ecstatic that it wasn't me!
We decided to go to Cé La Vi – a cool rooftop bar that overlooks the city – an excellent idea. However, the torrential rain put a slight dampener on our spirits. It also didn't help at all that it took us approximately 30 minutes to find out how to get into the building.
The lift was pretty terrifying – we reached the 48th floor within seconds, everyone's ears popped and we could all feel the Gs from the lightning speed with which it shot up the building. Needless to say, by the time we get to the bar, we've had a whole rollercoaster of emotions already.
We get an incredibly overpriced drink and wander outside to sit beneath an umbrella that is doing precious little to protect us from the downpour. But the drinks taste so good we can barely notice, and get swept up in our riveting conversation about the ups and downs of learning Chinese!
As we near the point of being soaked, we decide to go to a KTV bar (karaoke), even though it is midnight and Yasmin and I have class the next day at 8am (plus an hour commute).
Angus refuses to accept an early night and leads the march towards the bar. We have our own private karaoke room for an hour and begin to sing our hearts out to the classic cringey karaoke songs – e.g., Baby by Justin Bieber and Chandelier by Sia (luckily the rooms are soundproofed).
I am mid-ballad when we get interrupted by an employee – we decide to our extend our time for another hour. As we are arranging another hour, a Chinese rap song comes up and we try our best to read the lyrics but its too fast. This man sees that we are struggling and gestures for the microphone – he puts it to his mouth and proceeds to fluently rap the entire song to perfection. I have the other microphone so I chime in with the last word of each sentence because I can't read the characters as fast as him.
Our night ends at 2.30am and we stumble home – exhausted and sore-throated.
Even though I know I will only get 4 hours of sleep and my tomorrow-self will hate me, it was a fantastic birthday :)
