fuzhou: day 4 (women's day)

Today is Women's Day in China.  A day to celebrate women.  I think we should bring this holiday back to America with us!  :)

I could write an entire blog post around this one photo.  

This (four scoops of ice cream) is the result of three phone conversations and two trips to our room by room service.  The language barrier is quite a challenge.  Very few hotel staff people speak English.  JD was determined to order a banana split through room service.  It was on the dinner menu at the restaurant in our hotel, but we wanted to wait a while and order it to our room.  You should've heard JD trying to convey to the person on the other end of the line that he wanted a banana split.

'Yes, I'd like to order a banana split, please.'

'Buh-nan-uh split.'

'Yes.'

'Vanilla.'

15 minutes later, a knock at our door.

'Uh.'

'No, I wanted a banana split.'

'How 'bout this.  Never mind the banana split.  How 'bout just four bowls of vanilla ice cream.  Two scoops each.'

'Four bowls.  Two scoops.'

He comes back in the room and we are cracking up so we ask what happened.  He says the man had one scoop of ice cream.  With sprinkles.  

We roar.   

Long story short and a lot of laughter later (and our phone ringing a few more times), there was another knock at our door.  

The above photo is what we got.  And James had his first taste of ice cream!

Here's our overcomer!  He pulled up all by himself. 

Such a honey.

Our hotel lobby.

The restaurant's Women's Day event.

The restaurant from which we've received all our sustenance from since Sunday.  And we're seating at the same table every time!

We went to the Buddhist temple today.  It was probably the neatest thing we've done yet in Fuzhou.  Just in that the weather was somewhat clear (the weather here is the pits) and the temple itself is beautiful.  The architecture is traditional so this was the closest thing we've seen to what we expected China to be.  Of course, China is modern too, but you do see this kind of architecture here and there.  Beautiful.

This may very well be the first time we captured a smile!

James' first shoulder ride!  I don't know if you can tell, but he gets the sweetest little smirk on his face right before he smiles.  You can barely see it here.  He gets a little twinkle in his eyes.

According to Penny, the banyan tree is Fuzhou's tree.  Breathtaking.

A few giggles under the banyan tree.

The temple tuckered him out.  The fact that he fell asleep in my arms during our ride home is a good thing.  He felt safe and secure enough to let go and fall asleep.  This should prove to be very helpful when we travel a lot over the next week.  

And for lunch, we went with very traditional (and healthy!) American fare.  Ahhh.  We've tried to be adventurous and try some new things, but the flavors and tastes are quite, quite different.  We ordered wonton soup the other day and it was full of cilantro and all kinds of other herbs.  Just not tasty.  

Tomorrow we're off to Guangzhou.  This is where the US Embassy is.  We'll have James' medical exam on Saturday and our embassy appointment (to get his visa) on Tuesday.

We've been here one week.  And have one week to go!  We love you, Avery, Brooks and Jackson and cannot wait to get our arms around you!  Mwah!