Monday morning, Dec 9, 2013

Todd and I both woke up at about 3:30 unable to sleep . The day before as we had wandered through the busy shopping street , in a fit of calmness and common sense, I began to think what would happen if the three of us were all out on the street , I let go of her hand and Maylia got lost. Of course every worse possible case scenario then came to mind and I went quickly through the scenes of calling her name in a crowd to triggering an international incident where Canadians were no longer allowed to adopt from China. Needless to say, such sane thinking unfolded into ridiculous nightmares, and all night I dreamt we kept losing her over and over and over again. As one could imagine, by the time I got out of bed my anxiety was at a pretty high level. 

But just like the Ridikulus spell in Harry Potter, Todd disarmed my fears with kind and comforting words. by making fun of me and pointing out how truly insane my thinking was. I was finally able to laugh and relax over breakfast and since we had more than a few hours to kill we decided to head off and explore further the streets beyond our hotel.

There are times in a romantic and emotional state I would say I was lost without my husband, but without a doubt in a completely literal sense I Would Be Lost Without My Husband. Whether it’s navigating the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul or the back roads of Alberta, Todd has been blessed with a simply inhuman sense of direction. He’s the Global Positioning Shipley if you will. 

As we wandered away from our hotel ( okay, I wandered, he methodically walked) we began to wind our way into more interesting, and dare I say more fragrant streets. We quickly went from store fronts selling clothing and toys, to streets with spices, pets and plants and every other exotic offering one might want. 

Eventually we found our way into a multi-floored building FULL of stall after stall after stall-- there must have been 150 of them -- carrying the most extraordinary things we’d ever seen.

 Each stall seemed to carry one type of item, and there were multiple stalls carrying the same items. We walked past roots and rhizomes , display cases and apothecary bottles some full of ginseng and others with more sinister looking specimens. There were mushrooms and fungus, taxidermied deer and bags and bags of horns and antler slices. There were dried silkworms, dried plants but the ones that surprised me the most were the ones that had stacks and stacks and bags and bags...and more bags of seahorses -- yes, sea horses. This past winter when Todd and I were scuba diving in Mexico we were thrilled when our dive guide pointed out ONE seahorse, hiding amongst the coral. Now I know why it was hiding...and why there was only one! 

It was truly an unbelievable sight. What seemed even more interesting is that there was a shopkeeper in every place, tons and tons of inventory, yet no one seemed to be shopping. I wondered what they could possible do with all of it and then, as we walked out of the building and down the street  I answered at least part of the question. The largest building on the block was a hospital -- a hospital of traditional Chinese medicine. That, at least in part, explained what much of the items were used for. 

After a few further streets of electronics, hardware and even some hanging goat carcasses we returned to our own , now uneventful street and opted for more traditional fare for our lunch-- McDonalds. Though I have to say there is something disturbing that the food can taste exactly the same as it does anywhere else in the world, at that point, after goat carcasses and squid on a stick, we found One World One Taste rather comforting. Just as we were finishing up an American father sat down with his three sons, two of whom were Chinese, one of whom they had just adopted days before. 

Todd and I looked at each other. In less than an hour it would be our turn.