Sand Storm = Pajama Day (Sort Of)

So one feature of Shenyang that isn't mentioned in the brochures is the sand/dust storms.  It turns out that China has a lot of desert areas (who knew?) and they are mostly to the northwest of the country.  What that means for those of us in the northeast is that we occassionally, or more often than that, have sand and dust storms that, combined with the pollution, make the air quality and visibility very bad.  This picture was taken when things had gotten a bit better.  Next time I will be more on the ball and take a picture as soon as I get up in the morning.

When I first got up I could barely see the large apartment buildings on either side of the picture.

So the endless possibilities I dreamed of yesterday quickly turned into one possibility for today: a pajama day.  Really, I still could have called our driver and had him take us somewhere indoors, but I had a headache and didn't feel like going through the hassle so I just did laundry, cleaned and let the kids play at home.  We also tried out our new printer and they watched the iPods.

By about 1:30 we were starting to go shack whacky.  We had already watched tv and Marmaduke, a cute movie that I made it halfway through before I couldn't sit still anymore.  The air appeared to be looking better so I decided we would make a run for the Carrefour and Happy City.  We tried to get there quickly since I could feel the gritty sand in my teeth on the way.  I didn't want the kids to run though because then they end up inhaling more of it.  We really should have face masks to keep out the dust but I don't have any yet.  I thought I had seen some at Carrefour on a previous trip but when I looked today I couldn't find them.  I will get some to have on hand.

We made it to Happy City by about 2:15 and except for one little girl whose mother worked there, the boys had the place to themselves.  They played for about an hour then Nick was absolutely starving so we went into Carrefour to grab some snacks.  We were sitting on a bench outside the grocery store eating our bananas, tomato (ketchup) chips and sushi while a lady from the shoe store kept coming out walking back and forth in front of us, staring.  It was really getting irritating to me, usually I can just ignore it but I guess not when I have a headache, when another woman came by and stopped right in front of us and stood.  She started talking at least and once she did the shoe store lady came over too.  They tried to ask me something but I didn't know what they were saying until a man and another woman joined them and he said "boy or girl" about Ryan.  I hadn't really thought that Ryan looked like a girl, especially when wearing a blue truck shirt, gray pants, and Spiderman sneakers, but whatever.  Maybe he needs a haircut.  Anyway, once that was figured out they started asking more questions like was I an english teacher and if not, what are we doing here.  We answered what we could then decided it was time to break away so we packed up our food and said goodbye. 

I was going to go back home at this point but the kids really wanted to play some more so it was back to Happy City.  After a bit I took Ryan for a bathroom break and while I was washing my hands after doing his, the lady who cleans the bathroom decided to help him dry them.  Wearing her rubber gloves that she uses to clean the toilets, she lifted him up to stand on the counter and stuck his hands in the dryer.  Ewwww!  Then, as I tried to wrestle him from her, she kissed him on the cheek and smiled, showing her semi-rotten teeth.  Double ew!  I quickly got him out of there and poured hand sanitizer on his hands.  I wanted to smear it all over his face and arms but figured that might not be a good idea since it is loaded with alcohol.

We ended up staying at Happy City for another two and a half hours until Tim and Mr You picked us up on their way by.  It's too bad that the air quality was so low but in spite of it we did have a good, energy draining afternoon.  The good thing (or perhaps bad, I'm not really sure) is that Shenyang used to be one of the most polluted cities in the world until the Chinese government began trying to make it their greenest city.  There are now a lot more parks and projects aimed at cleaning up the air and water.  So, things have improved.  But, I guess there isn't much they can do about a sand storm.

Well, that's it for tonight.  For those of you that read but never write, drop me a note.  I'd love to hear from you.  Have a great day/night!