Day 3 (Continued) - Day 5

Continue from Day 3 (Friday, March 17)

Yankee picked Chelsie and I up from the hotel around 3:30pm. We went to the Eclipse office in Suzhou. It took us nearly an hour to get there from our hotel. The office is located in the new Suzhou Industrial Park where a lot of new businesses are locating. I found it just incredible at how much they are expanding. SIP is about 10 miles of new businesses. My mom said that the whole land in SIP is sold, but they are just waiting for them to build everything. After touring my mom's plant, Chelsie and I played ping-pong in the shop. All the guys that work there were watching us play and probably thinking that we are horrible (which I am). After spending time at the plant, we went to Mike & Virginia's house. Mike is the head of the Suzhou office. He is originally from England, but has lived in Florida, Rockford, and now Suzhou.

When arriving at their house, it seemed just like an American house. It is a gated community and they said all families in the community are English speaking and most from America. Virginia said once she enters her house, it feels like she is in America again. After talking for a while and meeting their dog (Foster), we headed off to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. Even though Mike and Virginia live in China, they don't like Chinese food. This is good for me since I don't either. Also, one thing about China is their spicy food. After eating at KFC one day, we know how spicy their chicken can be and any other food you can imagine. Pretty much everyone asked for their food as non-spicy. Yankee of course likes the spicy food and at the end of the meal he was wiping the sweat off of his forehead. It was so funny. The meal was good and we headed back to our hotel and rested up for a big weekend ahead.

Day 4 (Saturday, March 18)

Saturday started off in Suzhou at the pearl market. If you look at the pictures, it is the building with the gorgeous sphere at the front of the building. Inside are just tables full of pearls and any other jewerly you could look for. I bought some necklaces and other jewerly as well. My mom had a huge list of white pearl sets (earrings, necklaces, bracelets) for other people. After the pearl market, walking street was next. Walking street is known for its shops and restaurants. We ate at Southern Cross, an Australian Restaurant, and headed for the shops. We shopped at a watch shop that had a lot of brand name watches (Rolex, Cartier, etc.) for about $5 or $10. We then went into a tailor shop because Chelsie is wanting a prom dress made for her prom this year. She was able to pick out the fabric and the style she wanted. While I was there, I decided to have a shirt made as well. I hope it will turn out. Most shirts I find here are very small for me. Chelsie only paid about $50 for the dress! We pick these up on Wednesday so hopefully they will be okay.

We then wanted to take a boat tour so we tried to get a taxi to the boat place but had so much trouble getting a taxi. After walking for about 30 minutes, we finally found an empty taxi and headed over to the boat. The boat tour lasted about 1:15 and was very pretty. I tried to take a lot of pictures, but most didn't turn out because it was at night and the boat was moving very fast. After eating dinner, we went back to our hotel for the night.

Day 5 (Sunday, March 19)

Sunday we headed to Shanghai. Shanghai is about an hour and a half away from Suzhou. First, we went to the "Fake Market". This place sells Gucci, Prada, Ralph Lauren, etc. for really cheap. These are brand name items that are basically rip offs. Some people say that they have bought watches or purses here that workers in the real store can't tell that they are fakes. The others that went with me bought alot of things, but I only came out with a pair of Diesel jeans and a Ralph Lauren sweater. We are going back on Thursday so I hope I can find more things for me. This place is huge and I was probably asked 300 times if I wanted to buy a watch. If you like something and ask how much it is, they expect you to buy the item in the end. You have to bargain pretty hard with them to get the item at a good price because they will put on a sympathy show for you.

We then went to the Bund in Shanghai. We previously visited the Bund on Thursday but Kim and his daughter didn't get to see it. The buildings are so wonderful and I have a lot of pictures of them. With these pictures you might see a few of some little kids on the walkway. One in particular was of a little boy and he had a slit in his pants. The Chinese use this as a method to potty train the little kids. I was able to get a picture of his little behind which I thought was so cute. All of us were hungary and we ate at a very nice Italian restaurant. I have heard from two people that it is the best lasagna that they have ever had was from this restaurant. Its funny to know that in China you have great lasagna. After a full stomach, we headed back to our hotels.

My mom and I wanted to go to drinking street in Suzhou. I've heard of some great shops down there including a DVD and CD store. We proceeded into this shop and was amazed at how many recent DVDs were there and how cheap they were. Most discs were 6RMB which is about $0.75. I bought 40 Year Old Virgin, Edison (with Justin Timberlake), and the boxed set of The Office (from the UK). At these prices, you can't pass them up. I'm sure we are going to come back to this shop so I will have to research more movies that I would like to see.

Later,

Jennifer Neese