Day 17 and 18 - Thursday and Friday

First tractor is successfully through the test cell and really only needs the tires/rims installed. The assemblers have made pretty good progress with the other tractors as well; I'm hoping by the time I leave we have at least three tractors off the assembly line.

Thursday night, a new "visitor" came in from the Gosselies, Belgium facility. We decided to keep it local and ended-up at Zapata's for Mexican. I got the same thing I always get at Mexican restaurants; taco's. It was really hot at the restaurant...we sat upstairs and it didn't appear that they had the AC on up there. Then the power went out...luckily we were done with dinner. Still a nice time.

Friday we got back from work about 6:30pm, got cleaned up, and headed back to RainboWalk for hot pot at 789. We weren't with any locals which made it a little more difficult to order. Luckily after they realized we didn't speak Chinese, they gave us an English menu. We still weren't exactly sure how to order, but figured it out pretty well. Unlike the other hot pot we went to which had a communal pot, at this place everyone had their own. We ordered a mix of food; beef, pork, ribs, whole shrimp, cheesy-beef balls, veggies, pasta, ... We had a few different cooking "soups" as well and you get to mix your own dipping sauce from a sauce bar. It was extremely hot in the restaurant with all the pots going....we were all sweating.

After dinner we split-up; a few people went to get massages and grab a drink, and a few of us went to "bar" street to walk around and shop. We spent a few hours walking around and stopped in a few random stores; I bought a few DVD's and other things. We took a cab back to the hotel about 10:00 and called it a night. Saturday morning bright and early for Wuxi.