It's Not New York City

I have never seen anything like the traffic here. It makes New York City look tame.

First, crosswalks mean nothing. Cars always have the right of way. If for some reason they have to stop because you are in the way, they will wait until the last minute to do so. Then, you will hear them beep repeatedly at you. So, you cross wherever and whenever you can. If you can only get half way across the road do it. You may not have another chance. One day, must be that it was during rush hour, John, Gabby and I, were able to make it to the double yellow lines in the middle of the road, but had to wait awhile while tens of cars passed in front of us and behind us until we could get the rest of the way.

Second, if you need a taxi, get what you can. Our guide, Simon, told us to use the blue and yellow taxis if we could because they were new vehicles. That was easier said than done. There are hundreds of taxis here, but most of them are occupied. Leaving from the hotel is easy because they have a steady stream of taxis, but if you are anywhere else, the first one that stops you take. It may not be the nicest one, but it'll get you there. Our second taxi had no air conditioning, no handles on the inside of the doors, and no seat belts. Also, I could see the road through the bottom of the door when it was closed. It reminded me of some of the cars we had when I was growing up.

As far as riding in taxis here, it is best not to look where you are going. Taxi drivers as well as all other drivers, don't stop until the last possible minute no matter what the obstacle. There are other cars, scooters, bicycles, and pedestrians everywhere. We were within inches of other vehicles constantly. There are no manners when driving. You cut in wherever you can. No apologies are necessary. It's the norm here. No one seems to get upset.

There's Safety In Numbers

We have a safe in our room. This is great because most everything has to be paid in cash, but you don't want to carry all your cash with you all the time. We also kept our adoption documents and passports in it. It is programable with any four digit code that you want. John and I decided to use our anniversary for the number. We never said the number out loud, we just said let's use our anniversary. John programmed it in.

I didn't use the safe the first couple of days, but one day John is busy, so I try to open it. I put in our anniversary date, but the digital readout says, "ERROR". I try again. Again I get, "ERROR". I read the instructions then call to John whose in the other room. He says, "It's not that hard." So, I try again and get an error message. He says, "I'll come and help you in a minute."

He comes and watches me put the code in. All of a sudden he backs away, smiles, and says, "Oh". I said, "What? You didn't put in our anniversary?" He says, "No" and smiles. He ended up using the wrong month. Just the day before he had to tell the government officials what our date of marriage was and he got it right. What's funny is the number he used is Joe and Gail's, John's brother and sister-in-law's, anniversary.

Hey June

June now has an offical song, "Hey June" It's to the tune, "Hey Jude" by the Beatles. John just started singing it to her one day and it's stuck. Even Gabby hums it to her. I don't know how John's head works, but it is cool that he's always coming up with this stuff.

Firsts

Gabby and June have experienced a couple of firsts. Today Gabby did her first diaper change. No poop, just number one, but it was still impressive. She put it on the right was the first time.

June had her first ice cream yesterday. Up until then, she would not eat anything other than congee or her bottle. She saw me eating it and opened her mouth, so I let her have a taste and she loved it.

For the last couple of days, June has been doing high five with us. It only took one day for her to learn it. At first she would only put her hand up, now she is trying to slap our hands. She's definitely smart.

Pancakes, Hot Fudge Sundaes, and Toothpaste

We're finally getting the food thing down. We know exactly where to get what. We've eaten at McDonalds a couple of times. We've found that it's the only place that you can get real pancakes and real hamburgers. It's also the only place around here that you can get real ice cream for under $4 per scoop. Gabby had a strawberry sundae and I had a hot fudge sundae. There is also a choice of a green gelatin like topping. We haven't figured out what it is yet.

There are some alternative choices also. I'm not sure if this golden arches had apple pie, but they did have green bean pie, yum. Also, the happy meal toys are a little different. Gabby's toy was bamboo salt toothpaste.

Thank For All The Comments

Thank you everyone for the wonderful comments. It means so much to hear from you all, especially as we, mostly me and Gabby, are a bit homesick already. We cannot see our blog site from the hotel room, but it must be working because your wonderful comments are forwarded to our email account. Since we cannot respond directly to the comments on the blog, we wanted everyone to know that they are greatly appreciated and to keep them coming.

Stares & Photos

When we first arrived, Gabby, John and I got a few strange looks from people. Now that we have June, we're getting more than stares. At one of the grocery stores, a young girl went to get her coworkers and pointed at us. We just waved and smiled. They smiled back. We've found that especially elderly women will smile and sometimes wave. Many of them will also come up and touch Junie's face and head gently while talking to her in chinese. Then they will smile at us. We always smile and wave back.

A couple of days ago when we were at the mountain, a young woman, her sister and a friend came up and asked us if they could get their picture with us. We said sure. A couple of other people joined us, then the young woman put her arm around me as another person took the picture. They all seemed so excited to have us there and to get a picture with us. It was fun for us too.