"The Land of Rice and Stench"

The title of this post comes from an email one of my oldest friends (and occassional blog reader pd) received from his brother when he was on a temporary assignment in another part of China. He obviously didn't like where he was, and while I haven't been there, I did notice they have a Starbucks there, so how bad could it be (joke)?
Randy thought that is what I would find here, too, and hate it. Well, I haven't eaten any rice here, except for the dumpling on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival. And I haven't experienced "stench," or at least nothing worse than I get in Pittsburgh or Philly or New York. Of course, I spend a lot of time in Shekou, which I have said to other people might as well be someplace like San Diego, but even when I have been in Sui Wen Tou, or out in Fuyong where it really is nothing to see people squat their children in the middle of the street to go to the bathroom I haven't felt overwhelmed with disgust. As Amy (chicken street post below) pointed out when we were shopping, they all think we're disgusting for using diapers.
It has been a fascinating, fun, frustrating few weeks. and I have loved it. This isn't Pittsburgh, or Bucks County, or E-town, or any place on my shorlist of places I would like to live because I liked living there before. But this is where Randy lives now. Despite how busy I've kept myself and ourselves while we haven't been living together, I couldn't believe how much I missed Randy. Myles thanks Jesus during his night prayers for "Daddy-Mommy."
Today was to be our day to leave to return to the states. Since our Visas don't expire until later this month, we are staying another two weeks. We've gotten to the point that we can't imagine living apart again. We have no idea why we thought we could do it in the first place.