Day 16 Tuesday March 14th - Shanghai

Yachin and slept way too late. We had to be on the bus at 8am and we woke up
at 7:30. We were able to get ready in record time and make the bus.We were
headed to Suzhou for the day. It takes about an hour to get to Suzhou from
Shanghai, distance-wise it really isn't that far but traffic is horrible
here. Once in Suzhou we visited the Garden of the Humble Administrator. This
is a very nice garden, supposedly one of the 4 nicest in all of China. Some
of the trees were starting to blossom, I bet in 1-2 weeks the place is
amazing.

After the garden we had lunch with Tracy Granda who is the GM for Benchmark
in Suzhou. She is the first female GM for Benchmark and the first (maybe
still the only) female GM in the Suzhou Industrial Park. One of her Program
Managers sat at our table of 7, so we had a chance to quiz him.

After lunch we headed to the Bosideng down and clothing factory. Turns out
this factory is the largest Apparel exporter in all of China. It was great
to see the process for making clothes the cutting of the material (with a
basically jig saws, a huge machine that lays the fabric out, the sewing
room, and all of the rest --- Not to mention the down in the workers hair as
they sewed away). Not only does Bosideng manufacture for many multi national
brands like Nike, Columbia, Gap, Old Navy, etc but it also manufactures for
its own brand that is sold in China. They currently have the strategy of
moving their personal brand on to the world market. I wonder if this is
going to create a conflict of interest between itself and the other brands
it manufactures for as it will be a direct competitor of all the brands I
just listed. It will be interesting to watch.

Once back at the hotel several of us wandered to the Copyright Infringement
market which is in a shop (up stairs and behind a false door). I only picked
up a couple of DVDs. They had quite a selection of purses, coats, watches,
ties, belts etc. They will even spend the time with you to tell you which
ones are the good knock-offs and which ones are the bad ones. Once Jason,
Brooke, Gabby and Arhen and I were done here we headed out to find food.
Gabby tried to take us to a street with little food stalls but it turns out
we were too late (past 8 by now) so we found a restaurant that was closing
and got them to stay open. The food was great and the beer was cold. What
more do you want. Oh and it cost about 1.50 US each.

More Mah Jong was played tonight. I actually one a game too.