Anniversary

Kevin called me from work. "Hey, I got invited to an event on Friday. It's a formal dinner, and we'll have to find a sitter. Do you want to go?"

"I think that would be fun! Plus, it's our anniversary."

Long pause. "Yes. Ahem. I knew that. That's why I'm inviting you."

Originally, I didn't think we'd go out for our anniversary. It's a pain getting a babysitter, especially when your kid is 2 months old, doesn't take a bottle, and prefers to cry all evening even when you're home taking care of her.

Once we found a sitter for each kid (I wasn't about to ask someone to hold my crying baby AND chase my toddler around all evening!), I still had to find an outfit. For some people this would sound fun, but I'm not that big into shopping. But for a couple evenings, I ran downstairs right after the kids were sleeping and shopped for a dress fancy enough.

In the US, I'm about a medium-large size. But in China, I'm gargantuan-size! I feel like I'm shopping in the children's section, because the average size is probably a 2 or 4. If I see a size 6, it looks big on the rack. But I'd need about two size-6 dresses to cover my booty, so it's a little frustrating.

Thankfully, though, we have H&M and Zara, which are both international clothing stores and occasionally carry clothes my size. I found my dress at H&M and found shoes at Zara. I may try and find a belt to go with my dress in the future, because while it is super cute and I love it, I think a waistline might improve the shape.

So here we are in all our glory:

We had place cards and were assigned seats at the center table, right in the very front of the room.

I've been to fancy weddings, but I think this may be the first formal dinner I've been to with so much silverware and so many courses. The food was fantastic!

While we ate, there was a program, and these were our MC's:

Our first course. I took a picture not only because the food was lovely, but because I love that they wrote Chinese characters on the plate. At first I thought it was the name of the dish (what?! they could have a salad named Fragrant Palace!), but as the courses continued, we figured out they were the names of each restaurant in the hotel, where the dish was from.

One of the benefits of our front-row seats was the clear view of the entertainment. This woman had a beautiful voice and sang a beautiful Chinese song, apparently about waterfalls and hydroelectric power, if I'm to believe the slideshow they played behind her as she sang. But the volume was cranked all the way up until my teeth rattled. Her singing brought tears to my eyes, but the throbbing eardrums were from the volume.

Then my favorite piece was this woman playing the... um... gu-zheng, I think. It's like a zither or a harp but sounds way more Chinese. It's one of the most beautiful and peaceful instruments, and I would love it if Penny wanted to learn to play it someday. If I remember years from now, I'll be sure to give her a push and a shove in that direction.

It's not very often you have to show a video of your food, but this sorbet palate cleanser was pretty much the coolest thing I've ever seen.

It was an awesome evening. I am thrilled that the hotel arranged this amazing banquet just for our anniversary!

We actually left before dessert, and I'm glad we did. We missed dessert (Belgian waffles with fruit), and the hotel General Manager actually got up to see us to the elevator and give us a box of mooncakes. I feel incredibly awkward about that, but Naomi had actually been crying for quite a while at that point, and we needed to go.

It was a great evening, and it will be hard to top that next year!