Lingshan Great Buddha

Sunday we were off to Wuxi. We were going to see the Lingshan Great Buddha. This Buddha was built in 1996 and sits viewing over Tai Hu (Lake). The Buddha stands 88 meters tall from the feet to the top of his head. If you include the Lotus base it stands over 100 meters tall. It weighs about 700 tons. It can be seen from far, far, away. We saw it from the highway on the way into the scenic area. The entrance to the scenic area costs 103 RMB ($15 US).

After entering the scenic area the first thing that is seen are Buddha's footprints. These footprints are 1.2 meters long and 0.6 meters wide. The feet are flat and all toes are equal length. The equal length toes signify Buddha's equanimity to all living beings. Many people throw money into his footprint for a blessing. I took part in this activity.

At the heart of the park is the fountain. Around the fountain are 108 sutra turning cylinders. the cylinder is a special musical instrument used for blessing. One turn of the cylinder means reciting scriptures one time. The turning also results in charitable and pious deeds and in blessed longevity. In the fountain is a lotus bud that opens up to show the birth of the baby Buddha. There is a show a fountain show that is performed twice a day during the week to depict the birth of the baby Buddha.

After the fountain is the sculpture of devil suppressing. This sculpture tells the story of how Buddha achieved enlightenment through suppressing all devils. After six long and difficult years, Buddha sat himself under a Bodhi tree where after 7 days and 7 nights of deep meditation, he suppressed the demons of money, power, women, terror, and slander and became completely enlightened.

As we get closer to the Buddha, we approach his hand. The hand is a replica of his right hand on the monument. It is exactly the same size as the hand on the monument. This hand is rubbed for good luck. You will notice the wear line on the hand from all the "high fives".

People from all walks of life come to visit the Buddha. We noticed ordinary people like you and me, military officers, and of course, Buddhist monks.

As you approach the Buddha, there are over 200 steps you must climb to make it to the top. Once you get to the top, you can go onto the lotus platform and be with the great Buddha. You can really appreciate the size from close up.

From the top, you can overlook the whole scenic spot and see what the giant Buddha sees. From this location, you can see Tai Hu on a not so cloudy day.

Suzhou Silk Museum

Suzhou is one of the most famous cities in China for silk. Today we decided to adventure out to see the silk museum. After living more than a year in Suzhou, I would finally get to see how silk is created. The museum goes through the process from the silk worm to the actual silk being pulled for quilts or made into fabric with patterns.

The first stage of course starts with the a prized grayish-white moth. This moth lays up to 500 eggs which will hatch in the spring. When they hatch, they are brought Mulberry leaves to eat. They will eat for six weeks, before they are ready to start to build cocoons.

Once the cocoon is made, the workers must prevent it from becoming a moth. It would take about two weeks for the chrysalis or pupa to develop into a moth. First the cocoons are sorted between good cocoons and bad cocoons. I observed the sorting, but I do not know what the criteria was for sorting these cocoons. Then to prevent the metamorphosis from happening, they expose the chrysalis to heat by boiling it and killing it before it has a chance to metamorphose.

Once it is dead, the process of silk reeling begins. The cocoons are manually brushed and picked from one end to begin the reeling process.

Once this process is complete, the raw silk goes to a re-reeling process. This re-reeling process is used to eliminate moisture and properly dry the silk while retaining the elasticity, strength, and elongation rate. Otherwise known as meeting customer expectations.

After this process, the silk can be sent anywhere to make clothes or any other item which uses silk.

There were no signs for me to understand the quilting process, so I will make one up with the knowledge I gained from the first part of the silk museum. If I am wrong 没关系！Well, first as stated above, the cocoon is boiled to prevent the chrysalis from becoming a moth. Then, the cocoon is opened up and stretched over a parabolic structure to dry. After it has dried, many layers are stretched out over one another forming the quilt.

The final part of the museum allows a little bit of "hands on" experience. Below my mother and Isaac help stretch one of the layers of silk to help form the quilt.

I hope all of you enjoyed the silk museum and were able to stay awake and read this blog entry.

Tennis Masters Cup 2008 - Shanghai

This last Saturday my son and I attended the 2008 Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai. This event would be the last Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai. The event actually started November 9 and finished November 16 with the finals. The event would be for both men's doubles and men's singles tennis. The Masters Cup is the final ATP Tournament of the year and only the top seven players in the world qualify automatically to play. The eighth player goes to the highest placed Grand Slam winner who finishes outside the top seven but within the top 20. Probably many of you are saying whatever that means.

I had decided to get tickets to watch #1 Rafael Nadal and the #2 Roger Federer play. The "B" tickets would cost 780 RMB ($114 US). These were the least expensive seats. We also decided to go for a semi-finals match to be able to watch two doubles matches and two singles matches. The final day would only be two matches, the finals of each event. Well, as far as seeing the #1 and #2 play, it did not happen. Nadal was injured and did not attend this event. Federer was beaten the night before by Andy Murray and thus eliminated.

The Masters Cup is held at the Shanghai Qi Zhong Tennis Center. This stadium is an engineering marvel that has a magnolia shaped retractable roof so games can either be played indoors or outdoors. You can see the roof above. Also, it has another 40 indoor and outdoor courts.

The actual facilities are gorgeous. All the sponsors had different booths and a few games to play and win prizes. I have been to many Chinese sporting events and have not been impressed with the ability to serve food for long events. Usually only snacks are available, but here there was a wide variety of selection. Yu could eat pizza, hot dogs, Chinese food, and many other items. Also, the players would come and autograph your items if you would wait at the players entrance. We waited a few minutes, but really got tired of waiting and decided to see the matches and eat some food.

The first matches were both doubles matches. The first event would see Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic (#2) defeat Pablo Cuevas and Luis Horna (#7). Then we got to see the American world #1 of Bob and Mike Bryan defeat Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski (#8). It was great to see the American team win. Photos below of the two matches. The Bryan brothers are in red and blue, second photo.

The featured singles matches would feature Novak Djokovic (#3) defeating Gilles Simon (#7). This match was excellent. It would go the three sets 4-6, 6-3, 7-5. It was a battle to the very end with Simon putting up a very good fight. Pictures Below.

The last match would feature Andy Murray (#4) losing to Nikolay Davydenko (#5). The day before Murray defeated Federer in a three hour three set match. It was probably the best match of the tournament. It had completely worn out Murray and you could tell during the match. Oh well, better luck next year in London!

These matches were the first time I had watched tennis live. It was a wonderful experience and I would do it again. I would go again. it is much more enjoyable in person than on TV. My son liked the tennis, although he said he did get bored at the end. I understand, it is pretty tough for a young guy like him to watch so much tennis in one day, but he said he would like to return next year to see Nadal. Next year, Shanghai will hold an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 Tournament. It is one of the ATP's nine top tier event and it will be the only one in Asia.

Hangzhou Half Marathon

Last Sunday was the Hangzhou International Marathon. It included four events. These were the full marathon (42K), the half marathon (21K), short marathon (13.8K), and mini marathon (6.8K). The theme was Run Along Beautiful Scenery. The race would start at the Huang Long Sports Center with a beautiful run around West Lake to the beautiful Six Harmonies Pagado and then back around the other side of the lake. It was truly a beautiful run, but also a painful run for someone who has always lived and run in the flat lands.



As you can see, the race course had various elevation changes. Even nearing the finish, there were small short steep bridges considered as part of the "flat" section. Those little steep bridges would add salt to the wound.

So Saturday we were off to Hangzhou. We had decided to take the bus. Train was not an option due to time limitations. The bus station is similar to bus stations across Mexico, except there were many more buses leaving and arriving to many destinations all over China. I think many foreigners use the bus, but today at 9:00 am we were the only foreigners to be found in the bus station. The bus took two hours to arrive at Hangzhou.

Once we arrived we had to purchase the return tickets for the next day. There were about 10+ lines full of people purchasing tickets. Here we were able to use our Chinese and purchase the tickets without much difficulty.

After purchasing the tickets, we would queue up in the taxi line. This line was extremely long and we waited 20-25 minutes as many, many taxis queued up and took many passages all over the city. We would take a 25 minute taxi ride to our Hotel and then off to the stadium for my runners package.

I asked one of the guards in Chinese where the package pick up for the marathon was located. He pointed us out in the right direction. I would say the pick-up location was what you can call a hole in the wall. There were no real signs, we just walked from one side of the stadium until I decided to peek around the corner and there it was! I just call it plain luck.

The rest of the afternoon was spent finding a Pizza Hut to load up on spaghetti and walking around a shopping mall. Dinner was spent with a few friends from Shanghai who came to race the following day. We ate at a delicious Chinese restaurant in the Xi Hu Tian Di right by West Lake. We would call it an early night and get ready for the big day.

Above you can see Team Delphi ready for the Half Marathon. This event would be the first half marathon for both Freddy and Nina. Ravi would be competing in his second half. Well, Sagar, Bill, and I have each done a few. This event would be my fifth half marathon.

Keeping with the Olympic spirit of 2008. I would run in the official Chinese Team T-shirt. It is made by Adidas and it is Climalite to help dissipate sweat from the skin. In fact I was in full Adidas gear except for my Asics Nimbus running shoes. This year I purchased some new running socks because my good long run socks are starting to develop holes in them. I did run a few long runs with them, but when it came down to the race, I stuck with the old Adidas socks which have now made it through countless long runs and five half marathons. I guess I am superstitious.

The weather was beautiful. It was perfect for a nice long run. A little chilly, but not extremely cold. The sun was out, so I decided I would run with my sunglasses.

There was some traditional dancing and music to get us ready for the long run!

Once the race started, the mass of people would start going. Even though we were the second group (behind the marathoners), we still had a very slow start. It was just as if everyone started moving forward, but walking. I picked up some speed by the quarter mile and was able to get into a very fast pace. I checked out my Garmin 305 results and for about .4 miles I was running under 7 minute miles. I know I was going fast, but with my Garmin 305 average mile display I still couldn't get the exact pace read-out. Beginning the second mile, my Garmin 305 had me at 7:30 pace. Using my Garmin 305, by the third mile I was at the pace I wanted run. I thought about the Houston Half Marathon (the best organized half I have run) and the pace setters yelling out the pace every mile. Here I was thinking about how the guys with balloons were keeping the pace. For a while, I was running with the guy with the blue balloons (4 hr marathon). He was definitely running faster than a 4 hr marathon. He had no running device to know pace, no pacers shouting out the pace every mile. I wonder what was his time for the marathon. Did he get close to the four hours?

It was a beautiful run around the lake. The first water stop was at the 5km point, then at each 2.5km interval. I had trained on my long runs only drinking water every 5km (Shanghai will be every 5km). So, I considered the extra water and sports drink a bonus and I felt I remained well hydrated throughout the whole race. As mentioned before, the race was a little hilly, but manageable.

After a nice long run, it feels good to come down the final straight with the finish line in sight and friends and family their to cheer. It felt good to complete the race.

I had finished the race in 1 hr 51 minutes 26 seconds. I figured it was an OK time for a little hilly route and also the fact that I am in the meat of the training program for Shanghai. Next weekend is the longest run on the training plan (14 miles), then two weeks of taper before Shanghai. I am hoping to improve this time. I hope the legs remain strong.

After the race, we had a our lunch and headed for the bus station to return home. Enclosed are some pics of the station and the bus we took home.

Movies in Suzhou

I know this post is a little late, but last weekend after the wedding, we did go to the movies. I had bought group coupons with many other co-workers at a discounted price. The coupons are then exchanged for a movie ticket at the theatre. the coupons are valid for one full year.

First, we decided on watching the new movie Wanted. We went and exchanged three coupons for three tickets. I originally paid 28 RMB ( $4.08 US) for each coupon. On your ticket are your assigned seats in the theatre. We were assigned to row 7, seats 18, 19, & 20. Assigned seating was something new for us in Suzhou. In the states, we are use to being able to sit where ever.

The movie was good and we enjoyed the theatre atmosphere. This activity was something we had not done in some time. It is hard to go to the theatre when the DVDs cost $1-$2 US. Usually, we stay home and watch movies. Hopefully, with all the coupons I bought, we will get out to the movies more often.

First Chinese Wedding

Sunday I went to my first Chinese Wedding. It was a lunch wedding and I had no idea what to expect. I have learned to expect the unexpected at weddings and at least ask a few questions. Even in different parts of the same country, I wedding can be quite different. I had been to many weddings in Mexico in the state of Tamaulipas where at every evening wedding there is always dinner. When I attended my first wedding in the state of Chihuahua, my wife and I were waiting and waiting for the food to be served. We had not eaten any dinner and were starving. Finally, we asked when would dinner be served and everyone looked at us funny and said there was no dinner at the wedding. It turns out that in Chihuahua, unless specified, don't expect a meal.

I had asked my buddy who has been to several weddings what are the things that I must remember to do or not to do. There was only one rule to follow, don't eat or open any drinks until the reception starts. What an easy rule.

When we arrived, we took a photo with groom and his bride. We were all really happy to be invited and celebrate this special occasion with them. It was a new experience for us.

We were then taken to our seats for the banquet. On the table we had various cold dishes, soda, beer, Chinese wine, and cigarettes. The cigarettes are of the highest quality cigarettes in China.

The bride and groom would be presented, then the parents of the bride and groom wood be presented. Both fathers said a few words. I think some was in Chinese and some was in Korean. Both families come from northern China near Korea so there is a cultural influence from Korea. Then, a tea ceremony was performed. As I was told, the tea ceremony changes the way a parent is addressed once the bride and groom are married. Before they are married, the bride and groom address each others parents as auntie or uncle. After the tea ceremony they now address each others parents as mom or dad.

Then, the wedding picked up speed. The bride and groom exchange rings, the cake is cut, and champagne is poured. After these activities we began to partake of the celebration with eating and drinking.
After these ceremonies, the bride changed into the Korean traditional dress for wedding and some traditional dances were performed. Later, we would all have a toast with the happy couple drinking some of the Chinese wine.

It was a beautiful ceremony. I feel really special that my family was invited.

2008 Suzhou Look-Shimano Road Race

Today was the 2008 Look Shimano Road Race. It was held near Green Lake in Weiting. The starting line was less than a half a mile away from my house. The race would be 110 km road race around a 5 km loop. I would consider it like a crit that would be run in the US.

My cycling buddy Zhang Zhong Ming would participate. He works for the local Trek store in SIP and represents Trek in many of the races. He rides an Aluminum Discovery Channel Trek Road Bike. He is a really strong rider and can keep up with the peloton very well. He might not be fighting for the win, but he will be in the main group when it comes to the line. He invited me to participate and I probably would have participated if it wasn't so close to the Hangzhou Half Marathon. So, I decided not to race.

Above are a few pictures of the peloton. Some of the usual big racers from the Chinese Trek Racing Team and the Chinese Specialized Racing Team were present. This race would also be a really fast race. They were doing laps in about 8 minutes per lap, an estimated 38 km/h. I probably would have been able to keep up for about 6-7 laps before I would be dropped from the peloton.

This race was very well organized. All streets were completely closed of from motor traffic. In front of the peloton was a police car and then a police bike. Behind the last cyclist was also a police motor bike.

Zhong Ming in the peloton. He is besides one of the few foreigners I saw riding this race. I can tell by their faces that they are moving really fast. There is alot of concentration.

Another picture of Zhong Ming in the peloton on one of the corners of the race circuit. After a few laps, I no longer would see him in the peloton. He was unlucky and suffered a flat tire. In these races there are no neutral service help vehicles or team cars ready to pass out wheels. A flat usually means game over.

Well, I did not get to see all of the race. I don't know who won or how the final sprint turned out. I was off to a lunch wedding to celebrate a new beginning in the life of one of our engineers! It would be my first wedding in China.

Health Certificate and Registration for Shanghai

The Shanghai Marathon committee requires every participate for the half marathon and full marathon to complete a physical examination to assure each person can compete in the event. The physical examination includes general health questions, a stethoscope examination for cardio function, blood pressure, and heart rate. The notes for the physical examination are on the entry form.

I think the most important thing on the entry form is your home address. Last year I had a colleague write my address in Chinese, while others I know who ran wrote in their address in English. I was the only person who received the results book for the Marathon. It is a pretty thick book. For the half marathon alone there were 67 pages of finishers for the male category and 14 pages of finishers for the female category. So I hope any of you local runners put your address in Chinese.

Well today I woke up bright and early to complete my physical examination for the Shanghai Marathon (As you all know, I will be competing in the half). My driver today picked my running buddy Ravi and I up and took us to the Kowloon Hospital here in Suzhou. She took us right up to the front of the building and parked at the front door and went in with us to help us out with our Chinese. My driver does not speak any English. Actually, I speak very little Chinese, but she happens to understand my terrible Chinese and translate it into Chinese that people can understand.

We were led around by a nurse to the different areas of where the tests were to be conducted. In China, you queue in different lines where the different tests are conducted. It is very similar to an assembly line. Also, no privacy. It is more efficient in the fact that in about 20 minutes the whole process is complete. Not much more even if you have to include a blood test and urinalysis (you do get to do this in private) and x-rays. These would just be additional stations. I think it is an excellent process that follows the Toyota System without every having to have consults come in and make the process lean. I remember when I arrived the complete physical was done in less than 30 minutes. Something that took three to four hours back home. Both physicals included all the same tests!

So first we had our blood pressure and pulse checked. The blood pressure is checked at the hospital with a machine similar to what would be found in a Walmart or HEB Food Store back home. The machine shows your blood pressure and pulse. I am not sure how accurate these machines are. My blood pressure was 130/82 and my pulse was 62. I thought that my systolic pressure was a little too high. I'm not sure if that's from me moving in the machine or watching my money disappear in the stock market.

Then the nurse took us to see the doctor. We stood in the queue behind several people. She told the doctor that we were here for a check-up to compete in the marathon. That got every one's attention and then they were staring at both of us. Well, the line was all the way up to her desk. She would consult and everyone could here her consultation to each patient. The doctor did speak English and ask me if anything was bothering me. I said no I had no problems. Then she checked my heart with her stethoscope and signed my entry form.

The last step of the process is the most important. The official seal from the hospital. The doctor does not put these seal on your entry form. You have to go to a special little room and get someone else to stamp your form. Then, the process is complete.

The whole exam cost 18 RMB ($2.63 US). In the US, I would $90 US for a doctor's visit. The costs in the US are really ridicules. That's why health care is so expensive.

We had finished our exam and I wanted to go to the bank to take out some money for registration in Shanghai. We passed the Genway building and their was a big line of people outside the Human Resources building. I'm wondering if the line had to do with increased unemployment in Suzhou. Not sure.

Later on in the day I traveled to Shanghai and officially registered both of us for the half marathon. This year, the price has increased. I remember paying 100 RMB last year. This year I payed 200 RMB. My bib number will be 6398. I was quite happy with the number. It ends in an eight.

I am almost ready to run. Wish me luck!