fancy time and baby time.

Last night I remembered that I am just in my 20's (and not the old lady I often feel like) and put on my fancy pants for a night out with my fave dorm girls.

We attended a wine tasting event at an Italian restaurant - 100rmb (18 bucks) for 4 (small) glasses of wine. Yum. And because we are good smoozers and all speak Chin.ese - we chatted up a table of two Chin.ese dudes in suits who left early and gave us all their drink coupons! 6 glasses each - glad I saved calories for the evening!

I met some interesting and nice people and just enjoyed the evening with mah girls.

After 6 glasses of wine, we needed to dance it off - so off we went to a lame Chin.ese club where something hilarious happened. A ran into an old Chin.ese acquaintance, Dan Dan, whom I have not seen in a long time. After hugs and small Chin.ese talk, she leaned to my friend Yemi (below) and asked her what my name was. Yemi was like, "Um, that's Jessica." And Dan Dan was like, "What! That's Jessica? She got smaller!" (In Chin.ese she said, 她瘦了！- I'm not sure of the exact translation to English, nothing really translates perfectly, but the meaning is that I got smaller.)

Homegirl did not recognize me.

That. Is. Awesome. And strange. I'm a 5'10" redhead in Chi.na. Losing 25 el-bees should not make me unrecognizable, but for sweet Dan Dan, I was a stranger.

hahahahaha. That was great motivation to go to the gym this morning while battling a wine headache. Gotta work it.

Later this morning, regretting my decision to stay out late the night before I had to get up early, I took Hannah and her mom who is visiting from Wisconsin to the orphan hospital.

A group of 6 of us went to see Lin and the babies. I love telling people about the mission and work and about how awesome Lin is. They gave a gift of diapers and we played for about an hour - even getting to see some therapy sessions going on.

And of course the boys loved playing with the little people.

It was great to introduce some of my friends to my heart here in Ch.ina. None of the group except Hannah had been to see the babies before. It was a meaningful morning.

Then I hit the gym, did some errands, took a nap with my kitty cat, and now I'm off to a friend's birthday celebration! I promise I'll work tomorrow. :)

walk slow. xoxo.