Friday, August 25, 2006: Trip to Chongqing Zoo

Today was quite an eventful day-- though, as you can see from the photo to the left, it ended with Marcie in a very good mood. . . Every morning my mom goes for a long walk to explore the city. This morning she headed over to this moscow-looking building (I call it that because it has towers that look architecturally like the photos we always see of Russian buildings). She entered through the main doorway, only to notice a sign that told her rooms were availale for 20 yuan. That's the equivalent of less than $3. Pretty seedy. She booked out of there as fast as she could. Then, walking back to the hotel, she sloshed through a big puddle of water gushing out of a building/wall. The smell hit her only after her leg was covered in grime . . . it was, apparently, dark, raw sewage. She couldn't get back to the hotel quickly enough to wash her clothes, her skin, and her shoes (which she ended up throwing away, along with her socks). I asked if she got a photo of it for me, but she was so intent on getting the grossness off her as rapidly as possible, I guess she didn't stop to snap a photo. . . That's okay, because I missed out on two other photo opportunities today.

I like to think of the day as the trifecta of . . . body fluids. You see, after my mom's morning sewage experience, we went down to breakfast. (On a separate note, for those of you rooting for Marcie's bowels to move, we had very limited success when she pooped out four tiny rabbit pellet-looking poops. We don't count that as real pooping, but we are hopeful she's on the right track.) I guess after I changed her, I didn't do a very good job putting the new diaper on because while we were sitting at breakfast, Jason got this pained look on his face and said something like, "Uh, Karen-- I feel something very warm and very wet on my shirt." He was very calm about it. And when I pulled Marcie off, we discovered that he was, in fact, covered in urine. Lovely. He ran off to change before our zoo excursion. So fast forward to around 5:30, maybe 6:00pm tonight. Marcie still hadn't had a real bowel movement. I called our guide Marie to ask if we should do another glycerine suppository. I thought I'd brought a bunch from the U.S. but I can't seem to find them. Fortunately, Lauren (who is here with his wife Elizabeth and now their daughter Catherine, from the same orphanage as Marcie) "loaned" us one (I can't really call it a loaner since he won't be getting it back). I had been napping for about 3 or 4 hours, because, as luck would have it, I have a bad head cold which has filled my sinuses and makes my head feel like it's about to explode. I don't know if I caught it from Marcie, but it figures-- I had a bad head cold when Casey first came into my life, too. Perhaps is something of a parenthood tradition for me. Anyway, Marie showed up to give Marcie the suppository and Jason left the room. He didn't want to listen to Marcie's torturous crying-- Marie commented that this is a common behavior for men in China to leave when their children are in pain, so I guess that's something Jason has inherited from his native culture. So the photo you see a little to the right is me with Marcie during our second glycerine suppository experience. Yes, we both look like hell-- but you didn't think adoption in China would be all roses did'ja?

After Marcie pooped-- about 20 minutes after the suppository (special thanks to Marie again for taking care of that!), I was changing her diaper on our bed. I had the changing pad under Marcie and I had set the diaper to the side, where I'd planned to put the wipes. In an effort to help out, Jason (who had returned by now), decided to pick up the diaper and go throw it away-- but he didn't realize the poop was not sticking to the diaper (my apologies to those of you with queasy stomachs-- you may want to skip the remainider of this paragraph), and as he picked it up, the poop rolled out of the diaper and onto the bed. MY side of the bed. I looked up at Jason, and he looked at me. And we both busted out laughing. After we'd removed the poop and wiped down the sheet to the best of our abilities, I told Jason he had to call housekeeping because there was no way I was sleeping on poop. His comment as he removed this poop? "I don't do poop. You do poop. I do vomit!" (This is true, by the way. I hate puke, but poop clean-up doesn't really bother me.) I made him call housekeeping to have the sheet changed, and he did-- but he initially said, "My wife had an accident on the bed, and we need a new sheet put on it." I could have killed him! But all is well now. Marcie had a nice poop and I got clean sheets. . .

As for the rest of the day, it was relatively uneventful. We did take the girls to the Chongqing Zoo, which was much nicer than I thought it would be. It's no San Diego Zoo or San Diego Wild Animal Park, mind you, but it had a lot of shade, and the enclosures were relatively nice. Here are some photos of our excursion:

This is me and Marcie on the bus on the way to the zoo. She napped a little bit. We passed by the Hilton, where our agency used to have people stay. There is a nice Walmart right near it, but nothing else, really. I think it's great they've moved us to the Golden Resources, especially now that I have had a chance to compare-- I can't imagine being somewhere with no place to walk to. . .

This is me and Kyndra with Marcie and Cassidy outside the red panda enclosure. The red panda looks like a cross between a racoon and a fox. The girls are totally not paying attention, but Kyndra and I look cute, don't we? You'll notice I'm wearing my San Diego [redacted] hat. I got it this summer from the law firm where I worked. I put it on this morning for luck because I've been hoping for an offer for post-graduation employment . . . and guess what? I didn't even have it on for 10 minutes when our cell phone rang. It was [redacted] and [redacted] extending me an offer to work at [redacted] after I graduate, in 2007! I accepted on the spot! I loved working there this summer, and I'm so happy and relieved to have received the offer!!!

This is the panda eating bamboo shoots. I was surprised at how active the panda is. At the San Diego Zoo, they make a really big deal about you staying quiet when you go look at the panda, but these pandas don't seem to mind the noise. Maybe the noise thing is because of the baby panda, though.

This is Marcie looking cute as a button. Who couldn't love that face?!? I made it a little bigger than the other photos-- I hope you don't mind. She's just so darn cute!

This is a picture of me with Marcie, Lisa with Noel, and Natalie with Naomi. In front are two little kids who approached us at the zoo and asked if they could get a picture with the Americans. We, of course obliged. You'll notice we are making a V with our fingers. I have no idea why, but the kids were doing it, so I figured, "What the heck?" Lisa, who is next to me, told me that when we were in Beijing at Tienamen Square, people kept jumping next to her, putting their arm around her and snapping photos with her. She said it freaked her out at first, but then she realized she was an anomoly here in China-- with her blonde hair and her big nose. (For the record, she doesn't really have a big nose, but Chinese people think pretty much all Americans have big noses.)

After the zoo, we visited an art gallery, then we headed back the hotel. I napped. Jason went out for squid on a stick with Gene (like I said, he's quite adventurous). Mom went shopping for replacement tennis shoes. (Bryan, you'll be impressed to learn Mom bought Umbros brand shoes for $20. They are very cool looking, but not velcro, like she prefers when going through airports.)

For dinner, we ate probably the most expensive meal we've had at the Cantonese Restaurant in the hotel. We went with Kyndra and Larry. They are quite a photogenic family, don't you think? I think Cassidy is adorable-- and she is very active.




Tomorrow we plan to do a little shopping, get foot massages (only 50 yuan, or $7 U.S. for an hour and a half, and even though it's called a foot massage, apparently it's really a whole body massage, just with clothes on), and to go on a night tour with the girls. We are all anxious to leave Chongqing and head for Guangzhou. It' s not because Chongqing has been a bad experience at all-- we're just read to get home and back to some normalcy. . . I personally am anxious to see Casey again. We did chat with him on the phone briefly today, and he sounds happy as ever at Grandma and Grandpa's. I think we miss him way more than he misses us. . . and I think that's probably a good thing.

I'll leave you with two final photos of Marcie in her pajamas: