Guy has arrivied!

Yeah! He's finally here! Our apartment.
Dad, Sky and Yue Li plus Gwi Gwi and May May
Trev, this one is for you. Dad took it and said it's to make you feel better about your wires????
We take a trip to get dog food. Which turns out to be the pet section of Chong Ching, or rather, a pet section. The kids say there's a bigger one.
Puppies for sale.
...with its ears dyed yellow and its tail dyed pink, how much is that doggy for sale...
These two poodles were actually putting on a show, barking and strutting across the stage.
The pet, um, area? Section? Part of town, continues. Here are birds, I'm sorry I don't know what kind, they dart back and forth, very high energy, about the size and form of a small blackbird, and are trained with flags to do tricks in the air. Sky says he sees the "old people" (probably my age) with these pets in the parks in the early mornings. (No, they're not tethered, apparently they also return to their owners when signaled with a flag motion.)
We descend and descend, still in the pet section of town.

We continue descending, now passing through the an outdoor area providing services for folks. Here you can get dental work done.
Get your shoes repaired.
Or get your hair cut.
The people are consumed with curiosity about Star Star. However, they politely do not come to look unless we stop. Here Guy is watching the shoppers watch baby Star.
And two minutes later she gets more admirers.
We continue to descend. Here is what Skyler calls a "wet" market. We try to pass it by but Guy will not let us. His curiosity is all-consuming and he needs to stop every few steps to examine things.
So many vegetables and greens in China the variety is mind-boggling. I absolutely cannot identify half of them. Here are some I recognize.
Ok. I just had to take these photos of the egg selection.
We i.d. the ones on the left as pigeon eggs. (we think) The wrapped ones are duck eggs. The ones in the center that look like they are covered with dry mud, are, we think, covered in dry mud. This is a mystery that even Yue Li cannot explain. So, Guy buys one of each. Later we will watch him eat them. Sky will too, he eats EVERYTHING. He's amazing.
Yes, it's every concievable part of the pig. Note the nostrils in the front left, tounge in the middle front. Um, sorry, I wasn't really listening too closely to what Sky was telling Guy about all the other parts. Really, I just wanted to move on.

Random photos

Oh whoops! How did this one show up in my China blog? Oh well, guess I have to show off my other three beautiful daughters... L to R: Olivia, Lizzy, Kari taken just before I left - Easter
So I go to buy Guy two pillows and I get one bag not even the width of a pillow. Yes, there's two in there, I'm assured. (The package is not see-through) So, I get home, and they're shrink-wrapped. The one on the left, not yet released from it's vacuum pack. The one on the right, liberated.
Not everything in China is inexpensive. Here we visit an upscale grocery store with imports from around the world. Skyler shows me an imported apple from Japan - priced at $8.00 U.S.
We were trying to flag down a taxi with no success. Yue Li decides she's hungry so we take a break here to get a bowl of Chong Chinqs signature noodle bowl.

Daily living concerns

Check out the door thresholds here. These things are three inches high. If I sound resentful, I am, as it's the first thing I tripped on in China and they continue to challenge me. I spent some time mulling over the purpose of them - keeping out floods from the neighbors, keeping out the cold, keeping out the bugs (which I haven't seen many of by the way), and so on. Maybe even something to do with containing a fire.

I think I surprised the kids with my enthusiastic aha when I noticed this threshold at the Belgium waffle cafe. Here was a decorative, and functioning door set-up fashioned after ancient Chinese architecture (assumably) wherein the door slides open and shut on these runners. Or thresholds.

That's my floor of my apartment, by the way, which is another housekeeping skill I'm trying to get a grasp on. Floors are to be kept very clean - whenever the landlord comes to my apartment (with the workers) he spot cleans my floor. Truly. He goes about with a damp rag and looks for smudges. It's a race for me when they call to say they're coming to get there first and mop the floor - it's become a point of pride for me that he only finds a few places to get fussy about.

It's all achieved through the skill of shoe changing. You change your shoes when you come in, but you also have shower shoes you put on before going in the bathroom because that floor is usually wet and when you come out you will get footprints on the floor so you have to change back into your house shoes before you leave the bathroom. I haven't figured out the laundry balcony protocol - unless I mop out there twice a day I can't keep it clean enough for my house shoes so I've taken to going barefoot or just leaning out to put clothes in and out of the washer.

The building's matriarch

I keep forgetting to introduce you to the apartment building's matriarch. She was the one who helped Yue Li and Sky find my apartment here on the 17th floor. The real estate here works like this: Individual people buy square footage in these new buildings and it comes to them as a shell. They then go in and divide it up as they wish - in the case of the kid's apartment and mine, making them two bedrooms, one bath with kitchen and laundry balcony. Both apartments are remarkably different from one another, both owned and designed by two different landlords.

The matriarch keeps an eye on everyone and knows the building's resources and gossip. I say resources because commercial is mixed in with residential - for example - an estitition has a shop on the 6th floor. Our woman in the photo, whose name I obviously don't remember or I would use it, lives on the same floor as I do and is the full time caretaker of her 10 month old grandson. Her son-in-law was recently transferred to Beijing to work and her daughter flys back and forth to live with him and here with her son.

It is important to note that she has the best drying spot on our floor for her laundry. It is from her hanging laundry that I first saw the gigantic hangar they use to dry blankets and sheet. I immediately went out and got myself one also.

My landlord recently brought up a brand new washing machine. Apparently these apartments are expected to come furnished with washing machines, televisions, and air conditioners. I got my air conditioners installed last week, and I was fascinated to see that the workers wore disposable booties and not only swept after themselves but mopped also. Skyler says this is normal.

When I asked Sky how these landlords can then turn around and rent these places for 200.00 to 400.00 dollars a month he said they are looking to just offset their mortgage payments. Sounds familiar....

A visit to "The Cave".

After two weeks of entering into and descending down through the sides of hills and under the ground I have this aha - These people have a burrowing mentality. Entire malls, business centers and most of the "outdoor" market (only part of which is outdoor - the rest is underground or carved out of the side of a cliff) is the result of burrowing. Skyler furrows his brows when I share this epiphany with him then says, "Well, yeah. They needed the room. Before they went up (the high rises, all less than 18 years old, remember) they went down." He explains it's unique to Chong Ching, the rest of China being relatively flat. Then he takes me to "The Cave".

"The Cave" is new - Skyler watched it being built, and it crystallizes the building habits of the Chong Chingers (haha, I made that up, don't know if it's used or not) in one large structure. The face of this eleven story, multi-purpose structure is nearly flush with the cliff it is built into - and the top of it emerges onto the top of the cliff where an existing road and other businesses are. The Cave, as they call it, houses stores, businesses, a performing arts theater, restaurants and a hotel, and is graced with patios and balconies overlooking the river.

This day we go we shop for some sunglasses and shoes for Sky. He is on a never-ending quest for a pair of dress shoes to replace the ones he has. (Somewhat frayed from chewing dogs). I say never-ending because he wears a size 11, or 12, I can't remember, I just remember the shop keepers laughing when he asks them if they have his size.

We stop at a small restaurant owned by an acquaintance of Sky's, a Belgium. Who has, very appropriately, opened up a Belgium waffle place. The kids enjoy their rare treat while I get the world's smallest cappuccino, well at least in my world it's the smallest.

A visit to "The Cave"

Looking from the 6th level to the 4th.
































Standing on the fourth level looking up to the top, or 11th level, which is also the top of the cliff.








Views of the river Chang Jiang, Yellow Flower river. (Looking to the left) Sixth and seventh photo down, Sky and Yue Li's apartment building is located at the end of the bridge, same side.






Looking to the right where the sky car is, the river joins the Yangtze. In the upper left corner of the same photo is the new symphony hall, not yet open.
Here we are at the top level of "The Cave", resting while baby is admired. Below is one of the many food booths in The Cave's "food court" area, and below that the theater which is located on the 4th level. Yue Li was performing here (as the opening act to a play) when she and Sky first met. He said he got to sit in on the rehersals as well as the performances.

Smiles from baby Star

Baby Star gets her first shots.

Waiting our turn. The medical care the kids got for the birth of the baby was not free, but government subsidised. The pre-natal visits, the c-section plus the three days Yue Li was in the hospital cost around $1300.00, as I understand it. Yue Li's father paid for this, she tells me that is customary for the woman's parents to do that.









Daddy stands in line with the paper work.













One of four sets of daddy-mommy-baby-grandmas that I saw, not including us. With the one child per couple policy here, each baby here in China is cherished.














Daddy reassures baby - it'll be over in a flash...










Check out Skyler's face - YOU'D BETTER NOT HURT MY BABY!

I don't take the final picture for fear the flash will make the nurse jerk - you all know the ending to this story. Baby wails, parents console.

Visiting Skyler at work.

1. The school Sky teaches at, Web International English School,
is located in the New York, New York building of downtown
Chongquing. (A smaller replica of the Sears Tower) Here we are in
the lobby of the building.
2. The school is located on the 19th floor. The reception area.
3. Staff and students flock around Xing Xing.
4. Sky teaching one of his small classes. He also teaches
in a classroom which holds 30+ students as well as one
on one sessions.