Day 4

Last day of the first work week. The build is going a little better; it is still slow going, but the first tractor is making progress.

After work, we met up with a couple from Madison, WI (Cliff and Tina) that are staying at the same hotel. Cliff works for a company that distributes HVAC type components and he was just promoted to work at their facility here in Suzhou. They have only been here a week, but will be staying at least five months (he's not sure if he will continue to stay here full-time or not). We went to a restaurant they had previously been, Tomato Kitchen Cafe, in the restaurant district, Rainbow Walk. Really big menu with a lot of western type food offerings. I had fried rice with beef; it was very good. After that, we went to "bar" street in downtown Suzhou. We started at Dream Hollywood; kind of a trendy, modern bar. There was a Philippino band that sang American pop songs. They were pretty good, but we only stayed for a few drinks. We stopped by a store that sold DVDs for 15-20 RMB (~$2-3); I didn't buy any. Then we headed to another bar down the block, an Aussie bar. It was a little quieter and was open to the outside which was nice. We called it a night after that.