Enjoying Callie, Fuzhou

We want to thank everyone who has posted comments or emailed us. Your messages have been an encouragement to us. We have a lot of free time, so we're online every day.

Our normal routine in Fuzhou is: out and about with our guide Isabel in the morning; on our own from lunch on.

We had a great day with Callie today. She napped some this morning, so she was awake in our hotel room all afternoon, and she played and played and played. She has finally taken some interest in Anna, much to Anna's delight--Anna's been patient--and the two played together quite a bit. Callie likes to have fun, it seems, and enjoys the games Sara and I play with her to get her to laugh. For instance, Sara slowly goes after her and then tickles her. She does this repeatedly, to the point where Callie is squealing with laughter before Sara even gets near her.

This evening I did "This Little Piggie" with her toes for the first time. She liked it so much, each time I finished she grabbed my hand and placed it on her foot to do it again.

One of her clearest phrases is pronounced, "byow byow," which means "no no." Sometimes when we take her to sit on the potty, her face drops, and she starts moaning "byow byow, byow byow, byow byow." She cries while she sits on the potty, but instantly stops and stares into the toilet when it's time to flush.

This morning Isabel took us to the museum about the city of Fuzhou (pronounced "fooGOH" [soft, soft "g", as the "j" in bonjour]). The city is 2200 years old. Of particular interest were two mummies, unbound, lying in clear containers of formaldehyde (?).

Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian province. The province's pop. is 13 million, 6 million of which live in Fuzhou. The weather is somewhat tropical. We've experienced high 70s and low 80s, and a couple days have been pretty muggy. We've had a good deal of precipitation, too, though rarely heavy.

From the museum we went to a mall, at least four layers of shops. Now it was my face that dropped; Jim's, too. But we managed to get out in under an hour. We then went searching for an instrument store for Jim. Found one where he purchased a traditional Chinese instrument, a horn of some sort, for 70 RMB ($10).

This evening, our wives felt adventuresome and hungry, so with the hotel's help, we hailed taxis, went to KFC set in the bustling nightlife of downtown Fuzhou, ate as we were conspicuously the center of attention, and took taxis back to the hotel. (My chicken sandwich was more than chicken, as cooked into the meat were what appeared to be soybeans, corn, and carrots. It tasted good.)

We were planning on going downtown to see the Olympic torch run through here tomorrow, but Isabel doesn't think it's a good idea. Most of the downtown streets will be closed (so we'd have to walk), and crowds of over half a million are expected.

One of the side effects of toddler adoption is back pain. Jim has a black belt in Shaolin, and I have a few rather large black belts myself; nonetheless, due to clinging toddlers, we have both discovered underdeveloped back muscles.

We've two and a half days left in Fuzhou . . .