Thanks for the birthday wishes! I was in Hong Kong at the time; visited Japan a couple weeks later.
I did get to do something cool! I wanted to be in Hong Kong for my birthday, because Chinese New Year fell two days before it, and the celebrations go on for several weeks. So I got a parade as a pre-birthday thing (and stood around for three hours to make sure I had a good spot on the route, haha) and then on my actual birthday I went to a well-wishing festival, the centerpiece of which is writing a wish on a piece of paper tied to an orange and throwing it into a tree. If your wish catches on a branch, it'll come true!
These days they use plastic oranges instead of real ones, and you're not allowed to throw them at the actual wishing tree, because so many people attend these days that the tree would get damaged. They set up a fake tree for people to use:
It turns out it's prett hard to throw a hollow plastic orange up into a tree, but I did eventually get mine to stick! Aside from the tree there was a market, lots of stalls with new year's decorations, good luck charms, that kind of thing, and best of all traditional new year's food! Most of it considered to be lucky one way or another. I got to try souffle pancakes for the first time (admittedly not a traditional food) which are basically the best thing ever and I'm sad now that you can't get them around here. I also bought some yellow rice treats thinking they were mango flavored, and they turned out to be durian flavored instead, which was a surprise! Aside from food and gifts there was a shrine where people could pay their respects and wish for good luck, lion dancers going through the crowds periodically, and performances from some of the groups that had participated in the parade. Some of the parade floats were parked there, too. I spent the whole day there and had a fantastic time!
What's up with you? I saw in the mafia thread that you got a new job. Congrats! How's that going?