20021208 - Landed in China

An email i sent while in China:
Wow,
what a day!
I left Friday morning at 7am.
I arrived Saturday at 12 Midnight to the hotel, that is 11am Ohio time
At 9am this morning I was greeted by Wang Shu Wu and Zhang Rouo Yun, two Celestica guys.
They first took me to 'Tiger Hill' (the attached photo, there is a 1000 yr old pagoda in the picture, hard to see, but I have taken many other pictures with our good camera).  Tiger Hill is the most famous garden in Suzhou, and it was amazing!!!


From there we went to Guan Qian Street, Suzhou's most famous shopping area.
It was several city blocks where no cars or bikes are allowed, just thousands of people.
We ate at a famous restaurant Song He Lou, the name means restaurant of the king.  the king actually ate there some 200 years ago and liked it so much that he gave it it's name.  A funny story, while we were eating a man came towards our table with what I thought was a six foot long sword, he pointed it in my direction and amazingly steaming hot water leapt from the end into my tea cup.  It was fascinated and watched him go around the restaurant filling the glasses of others (of course he filled mine first, due to the odd appearance of me.)  The food was quite good, hard to eat with chop sticks though, no forks or knives, not even an option...
I find I am just as fascinating to see by them as I am to see there cultural things.   There were quit a few picture taken of me, and lots of staring... hahahaha!
We searched the little shops that line all of the streets and I got tons of Christmas shopping done...
Low, I have gifts for all of the grandmothers and fathers, our parents, and of course you and Howdy.
I bought Howdy an adorable 'Prince's shirt', is navy blue silk with gold embroidered symbols and buttons.  I looked for a soccer shirt and they didn't have any his size, so they asked me how big he was and called the factory and will have a special one made for him in 3 days!!! $10 for a one of a kind custom made shirt!!  I would describe what the other gifts were but then everyone would know what they are getting, so....


After much walking and shopping and seeing thing that stunned as well as thrilled me it was time for dinner.
We ate at a very famous restaurant for Beijing Hot Pot, a pot of boiling something was placed in the middle of the table and then TONS of food, raw meats, vegetables, and things that I could not recognize, we put the stuff in the water/spice and let it cook, then ate.  Not as good as lunch but very nice.  Everyone at the restaurant was watching me eat with my chop sticks and listening to us talk with much laughter from all around at the mess I was making of it.
Back to the hotel about 8pm and getting ready for a nice long night...
I would have been frozen stiff had it not been for my new coat!
More later,
Love
matt