Tuesday (sorry, this one got long)

Last night was the first "normal" sleep I've had in China. It only took twelve days. Considering the norm of one day per hour of time change, I'm an overachiever at two days ahead!

People spit a lot here. This morning I saw a man hacking into a decorative bowl that held a floating flower. (And now a loogie.) Randy witnessed someone spitting sideways into a trash can slot. Tonight I narrowly avoided stepping on a spit wad on an indoor staircase. I'm beginning to understand why Asians remove their shoes at home.

Poor translations are everywhere here. We chuckle at the sign that warns us against "striding" in the fountain. A certain flower's name was translated as the "drunken smell wine". And perhaps the passerby was intending to look cool, but unfortunately her t-shirt read, "Believe me, I am asshole." Don't worry, we believed her.

Another adopting family invited us to visit White Cloud Mountain with them. Once I figured out that it had nothing to do with toilet paper, we were good to go.

The first part of our excursion included a gorgeous area called the Yuntai Garden. Its entrance had a sign that read, "Customers first, happily served, friendly words, active and patience neat appearance, warm and polite effective and convenient, satisfaction guaranteed." And if that wasn't enough, visitors could register a grievance in the garden's complaint box. They definitely aimed to please.

I have never been so hot in my life. The humidity was insane and the sun was intense. The Chinese take sun protection seriously, and we see more umbrellas on sunny days than on rainy ones. Pale skin is the cultural preference here, and skin color is used to distinguish the privileged who work indoors from the poor who labor in the sun. Some will even go as far as wearing ski masks to the beach. And to think that I've longed for easily tannable skin for my entire life.

After the garden we rode a ski lift up the mountain. The views were great, and from above we could see what appeared to be an ancient temple and a former Olympic training center. We reached the top and expected to find something historic, or traditional, or even nature related. Instead, a great big McDonald's sign greeted us when we exited the lift area. We followed the arches solely for the air conditioning, but were surprised to find that the Chinese McD's sells bubble tea. Yum!

We also saw a group doing karaoke while another couple waltzed nearby, a foursome playing Chinese hackie sack, and a couple practicing badminton. All seemingly odd activities for the top of a mountain - at least to us.

The only potty was a squatty, so I held my nose, took a photo, and went right back out in favor of waiting for a western one. Oddly enough, the squatty toilet's brand was American Standard; little do they know that these torturous pee holes are sooo not standard anywhere in America. Thankfully.

At night we went with several friends to a Japanese steakhouse. We decided against the fried squid head and boiled ox tongue (yes, those were totally on the menu) and instead ate a fairly normal hibachi style dinner. I bravely ignored the fact that my shrimp still had heads. And eyes.

We'd been told that our daughter's orphanage never used chopsticks, but she grabbed them right up and went to town. So cute.

She had a fairly good day with only one noodle throwing disobedient incident and a bit of stubbornness. One big breakthrough was when I gave her a kiss, and she leaned in for another. Heaven!

Bedtime again involved slightly less screaming. Either things are improving, or she sampled the saki when we weren't looking...

We heard that our seven year old lost a tooth today, which made me nearly burst into tears to have missed it. Hopefully the tooth fairy still knows what to do when parents are out of town.

We are missing our boys terribly, but know that they have been well cared for by grandma. Plus, a few special people have been taking care of grandma too, by dropping off meals, offering play dates to our boys, sending fun games and activities, and stopping by to visit. We are incredibly grateful for everyone who has made this journey to our daughter possible.

From the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU for the prayers, comments, messages, play dates, meals, hugs, rides, and love. We couldn't be here, with her, without you.

(Once again, insert cheesy heart icon ♥)