And now they're gone.

So, this past week whilst I was working down in Dongguan, China (not a beautiful place), Tina was filling her time with showing Edlin a great final week in Xiamen.

Friday afternoon Tina gathered a lot of Edlin's friends and gave her a nice farewell lunch.
I flew back up to Xiamen Friday evening, and then Tina, Edlin, Jose, and I met for dinner at a local Chinese restaurant - the Mao Restaurant. Good food, and from there we head where? That's right Temptations. Jose and Edlin had bought a couple cases of wine from them earlier in the year when they thought they would be staying longer, so we offered to try and help them finish some of them. It was fun an relaxing evening, for as we knew the big farewell party would be the next night - Saturday.

So, Saturday was another full day of running around and having fun. Tina took Edlin to get her hair washed....Jose and I toured around the city on the new BRT bus line, wandered the alleys, and stumbled upon a Chinese fashion show.
Then it was off to Portofino for a nice Italian dinner before heading out for the night.
Over at You & Me 2 we had quite the group of friends for their farewell party. Good music, drinks and just laughing over all that they we able to see and enjoy in their time over here. Jose even got up and sang with the band...

From You & Me 2 over to The Key, a newer nightclub that has a pretty good live band. We had some good seats upstairs where we could enjoy ourselves while most of the group headed down to the dance floor...It was a good night, nothing too crazy - we were home and in bed by 02:00, but we think that it was a good sendoff for our friends. They were up and out first thing this morning, returning to the states where they too now need to move from their old home base of St. Louis up to Seattle.

We will miss them, they were good friends and Edlin was invaluable in her knowledge of where to get anything you could ever need in Xiamen. I wouldn't be surprised if Tina ends up having to put a call into her sometime in the near future when she's looking for something.....