On 5-16, after our tour of the Humble Administrator's Garden, we had lunch and then toured a silk factory. We had lunch at the Happy Hotel. It wasn't as high class as the other Chinese Restaurants we've been to, but it was good. I showed the guide my gluten free paper and he did a great job taking over and figuring out what Leah and I could eat. They only had chopsticks - and one of the things we ordered was rice noodles. We're all doing good picking up chunks of meat and veggies with chopsticks (especially Leah), but eating slippery [View Full Entry]

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On Saturday, 5-16, we took a tour of the Humble Administrator's Garden in Suzhou, one of the top four gardens in China. The azaleas were finished blooming, and the Lotus hadn't started yet, but it was still very beautiful! We had a guide named Danny who was fantastic. He spoke very good English and made everything very entertaining, not just dry facts. The Gardens are 500 years old and cover almost 13 acres. The four main elements of an ancient Chinese garden are the water, rocks, plants and buildings, and this garden had plenty of them all! He started the tour [View Full Entry]

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On Friday, 5-15, we were driven to Suzhou in about 1 1/2 hours. Suzhou is a much bigger city than Nanqiao, and is more modern but also has many more traditional Chinese sights. We went through some countryside on the way, there were many farms and greenhouses along the side of the freeway. This entry will be about Friday. We went first to Tyco China where Jim used to spent much time. It had been arranged for Leah and I to spend the morning with Amy, who is from Winston-Salem, her husband is working at Tyco China for 2 yrs. The [View Full Entry]

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We are living in an apartment building within the guarded gates of the company Jim is working for. Looking out the front of the apartment, we see the business building. We can look to the right and see Jim's office windows. To the left is a river behind the fence, and between the fence and river are gardens. They may grow some of the food that they serve the workers in the cafeteria. Between the apartments and the business is a soccer field, a basketball court and some gardens. Nearer to the business is the "parking garage" for all of the [View Full Entry]

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Monday, May 11th was the day for Jim to start his position here in China. Leah and I were invited to join him in the morning, we thought just for a tour - WRONG! Horton took us to Jim's office first. Jim is excited to have an office of his own, and it's big! I thought our "tour" would be fairly quick, so I hadn't brought my purse or anything, so while Jim talked to people, etc, Leah and I played tic-tac-toe, hangman, drawing games, a couple computer games, etc to keep ourselves occupied. There was a welcome meeting planned - [View Full Entry]

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For our first full day in China, we were celebrating Mother's Day and our 29th Anniversary. Horton had said the night before that he would like to take us to the Sentosa Hotel for their breakfast buffet. This is the hotel where Jim used to stay when he was working for Tyco. Although it had been almost a year since he was last there, one of the waiters recognized him. We enjoyed breakfast, which had traditional Chinese items as well as some American things, including an omelet bar. Leah and I tried Congee, which I would describe as a watery rice [View Full Entry]

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Upon arriving at our apartment, all three of us could have gone straight to bed, but there was a reception dinner planned - and since we were the guests of honor, we kind of had to be there! The Management Team for Ace Mold was there as well as the General Manager’s family. The restaurant we went to was 100% Chinese, not even an English name I can write! We started in a big room where they had all of the available dishes made up for you to look at, and the waitress followed you around and wrote down what you [View Full Entry]

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We are now into our full 2nd day here in China, but some people have asked about the flight etc, so I will go back to that first. We left home at 5:15AM on May 8th, after having almost 4 hrs of sleep. Katelin dropped us off at the Greensboro Airport and our flight was on time with no problems. Upon arriving at Chicago O'Hare Airport, we had time to spare and were next to the food court, so got something to eat. We boarded the plane on time, but then sat and sat and sat - leaving more than an [View Full Entry]

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We will be in Nanqiao, Fengxian District, China. The actual location is 45 mins to 1 hr south of Shanghai and north of "downtown" Nanqiao. [View Full Entry]

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