Email From Tom: Warning: This is a real long email - not for the attention deficit

Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve really plopped down and put anything on paper. Well, I guess the Microsoft Word place you type thingy on the screen is supposed to look like a sheet of paper. Please note there is a reference guide at the end of this way too long message. Things have been a little hectic here lately. The job is supposed to be at a critical stage right now and it isn't. Strange as that might seem, the fact that we are not at that critical stage is what is making everything so critical. The original schedule was for first fire of the gas turbine to be about the 15th of August, but the “leader” decided that first fire must be June 5th. It is now May 31st or 6-days to FF and we have about 35-40 days of work left. Most of it is GE’s fault because [insert the problem du Jour here] and GE must fix it. Doesn't matter if it is something that was supplied by someone else, GE must fix because “the someone else” does not have any way to get it (read that as they don't have any money). If the contractor lost/broke something, it was because it never shipped (the fact that we have a signed receipt for that something does not matter). On top of that, we must provide it by tomorrow. This includes the ordering, engineering, procurement, packaging, shipping and customs clearance. But, that's enough about that crap. Weather is getting warmer, but it is still cool at night. Supposed to be getting into the rainy season, but so far, we haven't had much. Some light stuff and some overnight showers. Hope that it holds off a bit longer. Have enjoyed getting out on our electric bikes. Makes getting around the area much easier and quicker, plus it increases our home territory by a whole bunch. We are getting in the bad habit of having our regular places to go and aren't trying to find new stuff as often. Part of this goes back to the e-bikes in that while Jerry braves it, Mona is not ready to tackle the traffic downtown yet. She is starting to get more comfortable on her e-bike. Even pulls out in front of traffic or pedestrians like a real Chinese bicyclist, but with caution unlike the Chinese. Hope that we have some weekends off to do a little more exploring. Looking forward to riding and expanding our territory a bit. Battery life is supposed to be 25 to 45-km, so if you left with a full charge, you’d better turn around when the second light goes out. They do have pedals, so you aren’t entirely stuck, but it isn't like riding a normal bike either. The 15-kg of battery doesn't help. We do pedal some for exercise & Suzhou is flatter than Kansas, so that is a plus. Mona has discovered that she just doesn't have enough time for all of the luncheons; craft days; wood carving classes; coffees, both formal & informal; tai-tai trips to Pearl town or Silk town or Embroidery town or Water town or what ever town someone found that sells something. So in order to remedy this problem, she considered all of the possible way to cut back and then hired an ayi. She was only going to get one two days a week, but with three days you get ironing, so to her, it became a no-brainer at that point. What else do we have to spend 300RMB per month on? That's $36.58 for the currency impaired, which works out to be 91½ ¢ per hour. The part that is hard to believe is that is what we pay the company and they take their cut before paying her. The way that we look at is that at least she has a job. The average wage for someone living in Suzhou is 1000RMB / 122.40USD per month. Things are cheap here, but still… Spent 1700RMB/209USD to get bicycles for the job site – seven bicycles – that's less than 30USD each! These are by no means racing bikes, but if they last the year that we will be here, it was money well spent. Heck, if they only last 6-months, still don’t think I’ll feel like I wasted GE’s money. A while back, we got tickets to a grand opening party of a new upscale housing complex – you know, listen to our music, eat our munches, drink our drinks; buy a condo type of thing. They had a Canadian group called “Barrage”, which had a percussionist, two guitarists & seven violin/fiddle players. Wasn’t too sure about the concept, but the music was animated as were the musicians. Not what you expected from a string group. Had a really enjoyable evening and managed to resist buying an empty concrete box – excuse me, a very expensive, upscale, empty concrete box. On the other end of the spectrum, we went to a concert with a small number of other expats and a bunch of Chinese. It was kind of a combining of a French Jazz Fusion band with an equal number of Chinese musicians and their native instruments. Didn’t really seem to fuse too well. Did get about 3 or 4 decent naps between having to applaud. It was different and it was an experience. We’re all just thankful that we didn’t have to pay for the tickets. Guess that is one of the hazards you face when you accept free tickets…sometime you win & sometimes you get Chinench jazz. Sat down one evening with one of our abandoned children, that’s what we call our friends Sarah and Paul’s two teenagers, to watch the new Star Wars – Revenge of the Sith. Yep, that’s right; only took 5 days to get our hands on the DVD over at Yumway. Also picked up “Monster-in-Law” and a couple of old favorites. Seems a shame not to buy all of the movies as they only cost 85¢ each. They come complete with the jacket and inserts for use with the standard DVD cases. Of course, you wonder when the title is “Paral Harbor” and the English subtitles you have for “National Treasure” & “Million Dollar Baby” are the same but don’t match the words coming out of the actors mouths. A few glasses of wine, a bowl of popcorn, turn down the sound and you can have a completely new movie! Brian’s mother, Loraine, and her friend Bob, had been in Thailand visiting with Brian & Pucca while they were on their R&R / vacation. Came back to Suzhou for a few days before heading off on a tour of Beijing, Xian & Shanghai. They stopped by the apartment, dropped off their suitcases and met us over at the Italian place for burritos & lasagna. Mona spent the several of the next few days playing tour guide for them. Took them down to Walking Street, visited the travel agent about the trip, ordered a Cashmere coat, shopped the market (pretty much all day) then headed to the Southern Cross where Brian, Lael & I met them for dinner that evening after work. Couple of days later, she went with them out to Pearl Town for some, what else, pearl shopping. Loraine did more than a bit of shopping there! Thursday, Bob still hadn’t shaken a cough he picked up in Thailand, so Mona took them over to the doctor’s office to get him looked at. They headed out on Saturday on their trip Friday night Sally, Jerry’s wife (Furuiye tai tai) got back. Sally is the one who broke her leg, whom we escorted back to Denver on our way to Portland for Erik & Amy’s wedding. Jerry was more then ready for here to get back. Think Jerry said that this was the longest time that they have been separated. Everyone is looking forward to showing her all of the new places that they have found for shopping. She has to take it slow, but riding her e-bike will make getting to all of the coffees & lunches easy for her. Hope the ladies don’t let here over do it. Saturday, it was a fruit-picking excursion. Met over at Singa Plaza and loaded on a bus for the one-hour trip out to Taihu Lake. Paul didn’t want to ride the bus, so he was going to follow us out there. His version of the story is that he followed the wrong bus, but none of us are buying that load of rubbish. We think he just ditched us to go fly his kite. He was over at the park where he was the only one having success getting his kite up, so he was showing off and let the entire reel of line out. Next time I bet he checks to see if the line is tied to the reel! Finally got to the little orchard where we picked Pipas (pea-paws). You could pick and eat all you wanted for free, but what you picked and couldn’t eat you bought – fair enough. We picked & ate, and picked a few more. Then we got to go on a cucumber hunt. Mona managed to capture about half a dozen of them, then we went to get our fruit weighed. Cost 44RMB for 2kg (5-lbs) the Pipas, and the cucumbers were free. Next we went to visit a farmhouse for lunch. Typical Chinese meal of both recognizable & non-recognizable food items; some good, some very good and the obligatory ‘spit it back on the table’ dish. The food was really fresh; fish & shrimp from the lake (didn’t really need to know that), veggies from the farm and the chicken was killed and fixed just before we got there! They were proud of that one and when they said chicken soup, they mean chicken soup. Soup with a chicken in it…the whole chicken in it…I mean whole chicken, not just all of the chicken, the whole chicken…including beak & feet! Actually it was one of the “very goods”. Picked up some fresh peaches from a passing cart, then back on the bus for the 3-block trip to the garden. Strolled through the garden, then for a boat trip out on the lake. The oarswomen that took us out were using a single loose oar on the back and at other times poled the boat along. It is really a huge lake, but is only about 2-meters deep at the deepest point. The wind was kind of brisk, so it was difficult to make a lot of headway. Neither of the two women were large, but they did have some pretty well defined forearms. Earlier in the week, we had heard through the grapevine that there was Mexican restaurant opening up somewhere in town. Did a little online research and found the address so a group of us planned, during the boat ride, to head out there that evening. Bonnie called later that afternoon and said that she heard that someone said that they had heard that it was not going to be open until Sunday. So I hopped on my trusty e-bike and headed over to the other side of the lake to check it out. Turned out that it was indeed open, so I called Mona so she could pass the word, and then headed back to the house to clean up. So, all 13 of us are now headed out to checkout the new place in town. While we were setting out on the patio, waiting for the2 rest to trickle in, we met the owner and he set us up with a free round (or two) of Corona’s on the house. They actually had limes instead of the standard lemon that they use so often here in China. Don’t understand that because the have limes in every fruit market you go into. There was even a band from Cuba & Colombia playing salsa music in the cantina. Finally, went up to the third floor to a large table that was set up for us and started through the menu. It looked like an authentic Mexican food restaurant menu, menu! Sarah talked to the owner and made a deal for a set price of 100RMB – 12.24USD per person – for an assortment of appetizers and an entree; drinks were extra. Sounded good to all of us, so we started ordering. When the first burrito came out, it was met by a chorus of – “ Oh my God” or “Holy s%&t!" " They were damn big burritos! The fajitas came out on sizzling platters with fresh tortillas. The chicken mole that I ordered came out in a lava type of stone bowl that was so hot that I had to push it back into the center of the table to get away from the heat. Everything was excellent! Another place that we have added to the dining cycle. Took cabs over to another bar for drinks, but it was a little dead, so we decided to catch a cab down to Shi Quan Jie – better known among the expats as Bar Street or Pub Street to the Aussies and Brits. Ducked into Whisky Jacks, which has been adopted by the Aussies as their place of choice. Did I mention that Sarah & Paul are from Adelaide. No sooner than we got there, then Paul grabbed me and we headed off to the bar next-door for some Foosball. Paul is good, but that night he was smokin’! I scored the first five goals, but it didn’t help that they were ‘owns’. I then proceeded to get a royal ass kicking is a sport that, in part, caused me take a semester off to reevaluate my commitment to my early college career! Danced to the obligatory Filipino band until about 1:30am before we got enough sense to get out of there and catch a cab for home. Saturday was an excellent day right here in Suzhou, the Garden City; Venice of the East; home to the original leaning pagoda (built wrong 400 years before the Italians screwed up their tower at Pisa). So how do you follow up such an excellent Saturday? Well you start off by sleeping late – didn’t roll out of bed until nearly 8am! Had a leisurely breakfast and then headed out for a little shopping. E-biked around doing a bit of scattered shopping for some office supplies for the job, until lunch time, then stopped in for a light lunch of a couple of fresh Greek salads on the outdoor patio. Finished up the shopping then home for a nap. That evening we grabbed some of the GE people who were in town for a site visit, the free tickets we got for the real grand opening of the Mexican restaurant and hopped in a cab. The place was packed! So packed that we just grabbed our free Mexican beers & went upstairs. Found a table and tried to order some food. The grand opening was such a success – lots of people with invitations showed up, bringing lots of people without invitations – that they were running out of food & the time to fix it. We caught some little gal coming by with two plates of cilantro-lime wings & hijacked one. Then we stole half of another waiters grilled veggie trays then they brought by some fresh tortillas. Everyone got a light snack and lots of talking. Some people headed home and some people were still hungry for Mexican food. Luckily, we had a backup plan; the Italian place owned by the Thai restaurant. The menu says you can have Bburritos, Nachoos, Mexican ghoulosh (scary goulash) or maybe a Greak Salad even. Finally went home, showered & in bed by 11:30. Not a bad weekend. Monday was back to work. With the GE factory people in town, it meant that I was in meetings all day, not getting any work done, listening to them tell the customer that we are working hard for them. Sitting in a 6 hour meeting – working hard – seems like an oxymoron to me. Then we had to go out that evening for the obligatory team building dinner. It was my turn to buy; naturally we now have twice the people as their last visit. Set things up at Life’s Café where they have some decent French, Italian style food along with both American & New Zealand steaks. Don’t know why the American beef is twice the cost as the New Zealand, but the New Zealand tastes great to me. Dinner and drinks (lots of drinks) for 23 people came to 3811RMB or $466.46. OUCH! Twenty dollars per person in the States would be cheap, but here it is kind of expensive. Tuesday, it was just Jerry, Sally, Mona & I for dinner here at our place. Mona made a chicken something served over spaghetti, salad & corn on the cob. Nothing fancy, but a nice evening with friends. Wednesday; Tom off to work as usual, but Mona go a call that her dad was in the hospital and not doing real well. Talked to her sisters about going home, but they told her to wait until they had more definite word. So, life continued. She got the ayi started on cleaning then headed off to coffee with some girls. Stopped on the way home to do some shopping and pick up some veggies for Sally. Paul left on another business trip, so Sarah & Chloe came over for steak, baked potatoes, fresh onion rings & creamed green beans – Louis claimed to be sick but we think that he stayed to play pool on their new table. Thursday; Tom off to work as usual, & Mona went downtown to pick-up coat that she got as a sample that she had buttons put on then over to the doctor’s office and made an appointment for Louis – we are apparently the designated parents for abandoned children. Managed to get all that done in time to make the coffee at Starbucks with the girls. Afterwards, she took Louis for his appointment; influenza the intestine was the diagnosis, so he got the standard six-pack of assorted pills. Delivered him back home to his primary mum. Too hot to fix the lasagna that she had planned from some of Tuesdays leftover chicken something & we were both thinking hamburgers. Hopped on the ebikes and headed down to try getting money out to pay the rent and find the elusive hamburger. Walking by the La Rosa café & the menu said that they had hamburgers, so that became the place for supper. Got the menu, found the hamburger; bun, meat, lettuce, pickle, onion, bacon & egg, decided I could toss the egg if required and ordered it. Mona looked and then ordered pineapple chicken (sweet & sour chicken-ish) I thought that she had been in the mood for burgers or pizza, but what do I know. She got hers first, but one bite, and it became painfully obvious that it wasn’t what she wanted. So, I did the only thing that any husband with half a brain would do, I gave up the hamburger that I had thought about all afternoon long and ate pineapple chicken. Actually I thought that it was quite tasty, but it just wasn’t a hamburger. Maybe next time. Friday was Angelina’s birthday and we were invited over to Life’s for drinks, dancing & cake. Drug Sarah along, actually, if we would have had towropes, neither Mona nor I would have had to pedal. We did all of the drinking, dancing and cake eating, with the girls apparently putting a little extra emphasis on the drinking (they are both such lightweights when it comes to wine). Herding the two of them home at 1:00AM was a real experience. Saturday Mona had to be over at the Singapore International School to help with the EAS booth at the International Children’s Day. I didn’t go over until she was due to be relieved at noon, then we got to go looking around at all of the other booths, games and shows by all of the different school classes. Mona did a bit of Christmas shopping as usual and then bought 16 bottles of water. OK the deal was that she had eight of these tickets left that she purchased and didn’t want them to go to waste, so she decided to get some bottled water to take home. What she forgot to put in the equation was that they were selling them two for 1RMB. Glad she had the backpack on & not me. So back home to rest and cool down before heading out to the DUSA (German community) Summer Fest. This is one that we couldn’t pass up – pay 165RMB then it is all of the food, soft drinks, beer, wine and cocktails you can handle. The tickets said that it was being held out on the terrace behind the Blue Marlin II at 38 Shi Shan Lu. Turns out that they got the address off of the old business cards and the street numbers have since been changed. Some people spent over an hour trying to get there. We had no problem as Mona called her friend who was already there, and she gave the phone to one of the Chinese helping out and we gave the phone to the taxi driver. Like I said, no problem. The beer & wine was provided by the local German restaurant, the German/Swiss/Austrian community brought homemade cakes, cookies, pretzels, etc. and then there was the BBQ! Two types of German sausages on a stick; beef, chicken & shrimp kabobs; broiled salmon strips; grilled ; corn-on-the-cob; salads (green, meat & potato) and more desserts, including an excellent chocolate mousse. There must have been between 300 & 400 people there enjoying the great weather, live music, food, drinks and seeing lots of friendly/familiar faces. When we left, they were still grilling food. Had to be to Life’s by 9:45pm in order to get there in time for the raffle. Remember that 3811RMB dinner from Monday? Well, when you spend 120RMB they give you a raffle ticket, so Mona was the proud owner of 32 raffle tickets. We took our abandoned son and went down for a round of soft drinks to wait for the drawings. It’s nothing big, just some certificates for food & drinks and free beer coupons. Any, we waited, 9:45 came and went. The place was absolutely dead when we got there and showed no signs of life then. OK the sign said that the drawings were at 21:45 and 22:45. Louis & I played a few games of pool waiting for the 10:45 drawing. Finally at 11:00, Mona ask about the drawing. They said that there weren’t enough people. Don’t know what Mona said, but she got a couple of food certificates and drink coupons. I hope they aren’t thinking that we will forget next Saturday. Sunday, I rented a small conference room at the Renaissance Hotel so that Brian, Jerry, Ken, Andrew, Tommy, Lael & myself, along with Bill Opp from PPSD, can sit down and hash out a list of work that has to be completed before first fire (the first time the gas turbine runs under it’s own power), along with durations and sequence. Not a schedule, but enough that the owner can put one together from the information. The owner was originally saying that first fire would be June 5th, but is now saying they want to be mechanically complete by June 15th and first fire on June 22nd. The original contract date for first fire was August 15th. GE thinks that it will more likely be July 25th to August 1st, but as per the direction of the PPSD project management team back in Schenectady, NY, USA, we cannot mention any date except for the one determined by the owner. All we can tell them is that GE will support their efforts on a very aggressive schedule. Aggressive my ass! You’d have better luck getting a 5-gallon bucket full of unobtainium than finishing by June 15th, especially since the materials for the change out of the first stage compressor blades that have to be changed out before first fire, won’t arrive on site until June 14th! Just FYI, they will take 6 days to install. Let’s do the math – 14+6=22, nope, aren’t going to make it by the 15th. One last item, we now have two more ways to communicate. One is a service called SKYPE. It is a broadband based, over the computer, phone service. We have a local Vancouver, WA, phone number (360) 283-5234 that you call and it rings here in China on our computer. Works really well and costs us less than 3.5¢ a minute, all you pay for is the call to the phone number in Vancouver. They also have a free Instant Messenger service where you can talk to each other using a microphone & the computers speakers; look for ToMonaInc as our SKYPE name. The other is MSN instant messenger also so if you want to chat, all you have to do is add ToMonaIng@aol.com. She has the web cam hooked up and usable so if you want to check out her smiling face, you can. So if you need/want an invitation for either, just let us know For those of you who were wondering: There are 1.2-billion people in China. That is 18% of the world’s total population, which means one out of every five people on the planet lives in China. Nearly seventy percent of all Chinese live in the eastern third of the country There are 10-million cars in China now, by 2020 – more than 100-million There are 540-million bicycles, or nearly two bicycles for every man, woman & child in the US The average monthly income here in Suzhou is 1,000RMB or $121.95 Gas costs roughly the same as it does in the Vancouver area Suzhou has 800,000 people, but Suzhou City has 6,500,000 China is just slightly larger than the US, but has only one time zone. Reference guide to Singapore Industrial Park (SIP) The section of Suzhou that we live in which is east of Old Town, and is the newest part of Suzhou Old Town (OT) The original part of Suzhou surrounded by the a moat New District (ND) The other sided of Suzhou from SIP but quite a bit older Orchard Manors, Dushi Hau Yuan, our apartment complex. The total complex has 84 buildings that run from 4 story walk ups to 21-story buildings with 2, 3, 4 & 5 bedroom apartments, some are two story. Two major sections each with it’s own complete shopping district – convenience stores, laundry & dry cleaner, fresh veggie & fruit markets, bank, bakery, DVD/CD store, massage parlor, etc (SIP) Walking Street, Guan Qian Lu Central shopping area about 7 blocks by 7 blocks – several large department stores & hundreds of smaller ones; four KFC’s, two McDonalds & a Pizza Hut – the largest part of which cars are not allowed in. (OT) Shi Lu Another shopping area but large department stores (OT) Pet Street Place where they sell all kinds of pets (OT) Computer Street Place where they sell all kinds of computer stuff (OT) Bar Street Shi Quan Lu, lots of bars & nightclubs, the place where the westerners gather to socialize and party. Each group seems to have their own hangout (OT) (………) Street Probably whatever you want has a street if you can just find it Singa Plaza Strip mall where several restaurants & shops are located (SIP) The Italian Place Restaurant that has no real name but serves Italian, Mexican Thai, Indian, Chinese & Steaks (SIP) Hot Chicks Chinese restaurant serving southern style food (SIP) Black Mirage “American” style bar & grill (SIP) Blue Marlin Western, steaks, German/Italian (#1’s in-SIP, #2-OT & #3-ND) Yang Yang’s Great dumpling shop down on Bar Street. Listed in the Lonely Planet Guide for places to eat in Suzhou (OT) Southern Cross Aussie owned Mexican/Italian/Sandwich restaurant & bar (OT) Drunken Chef Used to be owned by the owner of the Southern Cross, so the menus are nearly identical. The present owner is an Englishman from Yorkshire, whom it’s felt have lost just a wee bit too much of his pudding (OT) Life’s Café & Bar food in the French & Italian vein, good steaks (SIP) Amazon South American-ish style buffet – meat on swords (OT) Yumway Teeny tiny little shop that sells western food (SIP & ND) Auchuan Think of what the French would do to a super Wal-Mart (SIP) Carrefore Think of another way the French would do a super Wal-Mart (ND) B & Q Think of what the English would do to a Home Depot (SIP) Starbucks Duh!!! (SIP & OT) Haagen Dazs Another duh (OT) Chinese finger counting 0 = make a fist, knuckles up 1 = raise your index finger 2 = raise your index and middle fingers 3 = raise your little, ring, middle fingers 4 = raise your little, ring, middle and index fingers 5 = raise all four fingers and your thumb 6 = raise and spread your little finger and thumb; index, middle and ring folded down 7 = hold you thumb, index and middle fingers horizontal like you are holding a pencil 8 = hold you thumb and index finger at a 90-degree angle like you are making a gun 9 = make a fist, knuckles up, but with your index finger up curved 180-degrees 10 = using your two index fingers & cross them like an “X” flat in front of you