The world loves us....

Last night we were invited to a wine tasting dinner, by friends who own Temptations, a wine and coffee shop. It was held at the Xianglu Grand Hotel, which according to the locals here is the largest hotel in China. Need to verify that statement.

It was a lovely evening, where we tried different wines from smaller vineyards in Australia. It also gave us a chance to meet other laowais that are living here in Xiamen. The one thing we enjoy doing is meeting people, and swapping stories, and especially with a nice glass/bottle of wine. Now that my friends, is life.

The people that we met were mainly from the U.S originally with a few other countries sprinkled in the mix. One couple we met has been living here for the past 5 years, teaching children. They had taught in a the rural areas of China, Bangledash, and Honduras. They're hope is to move to Eastern Europe, such as Bucharest or Budapest. They have a young daughter,who, except for one year, has spent her life travelling all over the world. Now that's an expat. We also met a young lady who had been living in Brazil for the past 4 years, in some remote place in the mountains. You always learn of the new and exciting hotspots to go to and hope you get there before the rest of the world catches on. Unfortunately, the world is becoming smaller place, so this is becoming more difficult to do. According to a couple of people that we have spoken to, the new hot spot appears to be Laos, so now we have to figure out how to squeeze this little adventure into our 2008 vacation time.

Later that evening there was a draw for a bottle of wine, with some of the accessories that go with drinking wine, corkscrew, the wine topper, etc etc...Guess who won? Dad, Karen, Barb, I can hear it already, so you can save your breath because Mark coined it already, "Baby, I keep telling you, the world loves us."