Today was also an early start: we got up at around 8 and went to grab breakfast at a little hole in the wall wonton soup and dumplings place, which were pretty good except for all the flies around. We were then driven in a Honda Odyssey (a few years newer than my Dad’s) to Li’s uncle’s house, which is under construction. I’m not really sure where we were next except that the person was quite important and was later responsible for hosting us aboard a very nice boat (apparently a replica of an ancient emperor’s boat). He escorted us in his Sonata to the lakefront outside the city (Lake Tai, third largest freshwater lake in China). We boarded the boat at Guangfu. They had a full banquet on board the boat, with lots of seafood from the local lake, including raw shrimp (yuck!). We also sang lots of karaoke (American and Chinese songs) with our group, Jia Ming and girlfriend, and two other girls. Our group was kind of like a miniature United Nations composed of US people - Li’s Chinese-American, Irene is Korean-American, Nancy is Vietnamese-American, and I’m white. I don’t get any cool label, unfortunately. When we we got back from the boat, we went to a temple (Lingyan) which was way up a hill that had a very steep grade and was covered by stairs. Everyone was already exhausted and some old ladies offered to carry Irene up the hill (she’s the lightest). We then went to a very fancy hotel with some very rich industrial friends of Li’s dad, who is apparently well known in Suzhou. Their children (including a really nice guy named Fan who is apparently studying chemistry at CSUF) spoke very good English. They enjoyed hearing about working at Google. One woman had apparently read in an industrial study that we had to wear the propeller caps we got at orientation to keep our spirits up. In Chinese tradition, every group of people had to toast every other at dinner, forming a complete graph. Apparently the Chinese word for cheers is “ganbei”, which is apparently the sound of glasses clinking. After we left dinner, we went shopping at Suzhou’s main shopping street. Suzhou is apparently well known for its silk. Some small children wanted to take pictures with the big white guy so I obliged them. It is definitely nice sometimes to be able to see over all the crowds, but on the other hand sometimes a lot of people do stare at you. On the shopping street, we found a) many pretty girls, b) some boba (Li was doubtful that we’d find any outside of the largest cities as it’s a thing of Taiwanese origin), and c) lots of Engrish shirts and fake athletic wear. The Houston Rockets (Yao Ming), Cleveland Cavaliers (LeBron James), and LA Lakers (Kobe) are all really popular. Eventually we got home and talked about Li and Yvonne (Li’s love!) before going to sleep.