Tuesday, October 28, 2008

We love a good BM.... don't you????

Remember back when we first moved to Korea and we were talking about our awesome heated toilets? I mentioned that surely this topic would be revisited....well, I keep my promises.

This blog will not contain gross pictures...because I just can't bring myself to to that...but it will be vividly detailed so those with a weak constitution may want to stop reading NOW.



Seriously....there is no turning back from here......

Did you know that there are "No Pooping" signs in Beijing? Yep, people have been known to just drop trou and squat and unload on the side of the street. I'm NOT making this up. In fact we personally witnessed a small boy doing just that....right across the street from the Forbidden City. He hung his little behind over the street grate and let her rip! I guess the government is really trying to crack down on this problem ...especially in the big cities. But "IT" happens folks!





Also, we saw this cute little toddler with his parents (this was in Shanghai) all dressed up in this sweet little baby outfit. When he turned his back to us his whole complete bare bottom was exposed to the world. Yep, these babies don't wear diapers....they wear bottom-less chaps and I guess they just "go" whenever they need to.

We take Chicane for a walk when she wants to do her "business" and I suppose the Chinese just take their kids for a walk in much the same manner.

So I might have mentioned that the Chinese may have 1 public restroom for every 500,000 people. These "restrooms" are literally just holes in the ground and that's about it. You would be lucky to find a clean one. We weren't that lucky. In fact, I spent most of my vacation just holding it.

There was this one occasion where we were visiting the Olympic village and we were far far away from home... Both of us needed to use a restroom. So after walking about 20 miles (yes....Olympic village is HUGE!) we find a LONG line of people, some with wads of TP in their hands (obviously savvy foreigners, and we were like EUREKA! So we get in our respective long lines. I have my treasured wad of TP in my hand. The closer I get to the bathroom door the more assaulted my sense of smell becomes. I stood in line a good 15 minutes before gaining view of the bathroom door entrance. With excitement and trepidation mounting I start my little "don't pee my pants" dance when all of the sudden 5 little old Asian ladies completely cut in line right in front of me. .......I'll pause here to share Andy's story which is going on simultaneously to this one.....

Andy in his own words....


Ever tried to use a urinal with 25 dudes trying to be next in line to the point they are on your back and looking over your shoulder? No? Me either. I walked in to the WC saw the gaggle at the urinal and decided a stall would be a better choice. The first stall was open a few inches so I slowly pushed on the door to open it and the entire door fell off it's hinges and slammed into a Chinese man inside. When angry words started roaring out from behind the collapsed stall door, I decided to promptly leave without using the bathroom.

Back to Sherry: I got four of those sneaky old Asian ladies to find somewhere else to wreak havoc, but the last one was really stubborn and she dug her heals in. So I said "HEY!" and I heard an echo of "heys" in line behind me....apparently I wasn't the only one who didn't appreciate this lapse in courtesy.
The smell was really getting to me and I was peeved so I made a hasty decision to get the goob out of there and so abandoned my precious well-earned spot, much to the delight of the 50 people in line behind me.

I met Andy and we shared our stories and laughed (sort of) because neither of us accomplished our mission. We took a taxi back to the hotel and raced down our hallway to see who got to use the potty first.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Girl! You guys had me laughing hysterically over this blog! What an adventure!

Unknown said...

That would be an example of a "low moment" that you mentioned in an earlier post on another blog, I'm assuming, LOL! WOW! I am stranglely no longer envious of your trip to China!

Sue said...

So, I guess there are some downfalls to "seeing the world." Haha, what an experience...

The Hussy Housewife said...

DEAR GOD!! I can't do it sheri..can't..never..will..go..there! Thanks for the laugh!