Because my trip is short and our production schedule tight, it’s a six-day week at Tatung.  The factory was very quiet today, which was actually helpful for the work we were doing.

 

The restaurants at the hotel have been quite good so far.  I have not yet visited the Chinese restaurant, since I’ll be having Chinese food at lunch every day.  Max and I ate at the Japanese restaurant (Idori Ya) Thursday night, and chose the buffet.  This is a great deal.  I think it was about $20US (160RMB) for all you could eat.  There was a small selection of sashimi, nigiri and vegetarian sushi (the asparagus hand roll and the burdock hand roll were both fabulous!), as well as soup, tempura, seafood and so forth.  We ate a lot.

 

Last night, Max, Urs and I went into Suzhou City and visited the preserved historic area.  This is an area with centuries-old Chinese buildings and cobblestone streets, that is now lined with shops and restaurants.  Many of the shops were closed by the time we got there (7:30 or so), but some were open and it was still a pleasant stroll.  

 

We had intended to eat at the Taiwanese restaurant, but they were closed until June (!), so we instead ate at the Vietnamese place.  This was pretty good, but nothing like the typical Pho places in California – they did have a few soup offerings, but mostly entrees.  I had spring rolls (yummy), “French-style beef” (decent), and a little of the seafood pho (not my favorite, because it was sweet).  I started with a strawberry smoothie, but apparently some piece of plastic made it into the blender.  I switched to Sprite.

 

After dinner, we proceeded to a different area, to the Suzhou Sheraton.  They have a nice area where you can have tea and scones, and there’s a very pretty walk down by the river (see the photo at the top of this page).

 

This evening, it was back to the Japanese restaurant.  Max was not feeling well, so I went alone.  This time, I chose to go to the teppan yaki.  This was a bit more spendy (280RMB), but the food was delicious.  This is the Japanese style of cooking that is rather bastardized by Benihana – many people sit around a central griddle, and the chef makes your order while you watch.  No shrimp were thrown and no onions converted into volcanos, but the presentation was elegant and the food delicious.  I was extremely full and satisfied.

 

Smell of the day.

Third verse, same as the second and first.  We started out the day more or less like Friday, with a faint smell of sewage in the air out by the factories.  But, by the end of the day we were back to that heavy-industry burnt-plastic thing again.