My first China Experience!

Lynar and I left Chicago on Wednesday October 21st at 10:30 am.  This is my first time on a "big" airplane and loved that every seat had it's own tv that had movies and tv shows to choose from.  You could also play music and watch the flight path of the plane.  (The only problem is that my tv was not working right and about 3/4 into each movie I watched it would freeze up, then you would have to start the movie over.) I have a few movies that I need to finish at some time.  They gave us 3 meals plus snacks, so the 14 hour flight seemed to go a lot faster than I had planned.  With some sleeping mixed in it wasn't bad at all!  We arrived in Shanghi China sometime Thursday afternoon and then went through customs, got our luggage, then checked onto another airline to fly to Shenzhen China.  We arrived in Shenzhen late Thursday night (my timing was really messed up by this time and never got right). 

When we arrived in Shenzhen, I went to use the restroom in the airport, thinking nothing, knowing nothing different (a slight problem Lynar forgot to warn me about!).  I walked in and noticed their was a step up into all but one stall.  All stalls were closed, except for the first one...so I went in, nothing really different with this toilet, except for the lock really didn't work and I tried to make it work.... finally getting it to work and then positioned myself.  I always like to put toilet paper down on the seat before I sit down and I looked around.....looked around.....looked around, no toilet paper.  Hmmmm I thought, no toilet paper holder, but someone must have taken the toilet paper.  So, I unlocked my nicely rigged up lock that I had maneuvered to lock and then waited for another stall to open up that had toilet paper.  When one opened up I started up the step to go in and saw the above picture!  What was this????  How do you use this???  I walked right back out.  By this time other stalls were open and I looked in other stalls.....same thing.  Ok, so no toilet paper, or you have to squat....never knew about this or was trained to use it!  I'm sure all those Chinese women were wondering what in the world was that American doing???  

I walked out of the bathroom, still needing to go, and Lynar just waiting for me, wondering why it had taken so long, I said, "Did you forget to tell me something very important?"  He started laughing and said "oops, I forgot".  I asked him if he had toilet paper or any napkins.  He said, "all that time and you still didn't go?"  Between the two of us we found enough that would work.  When I walked back into the restroom I noticed that nicely enough there was a toilet paper holder on the wall by the sinks, so I grabbed a lot of that and stuck it in my purse.  I waited until the "normal" toilet was open and rigged up the lock again.

Many places had a normal toilet, but there were some places that I realized that I had to learn the Chinese way if I really wanted to go.  I got by with only a few times, but I don't recommend it. I am now prepared for out in nature when there aren't any toilets.  From this time on, I kept my purse with me with a roll of toilet paper (stollen from the hotel of course) on me at all times.  None of the restrooms had toilet paper.  Interesting thing! 

Note....I downloaded this picture because I forgot to take a picture of the fabulous toilets.