#27 Half Marathon

I have been training since September for the Shanghai Half Marathon with my friend and neighbor Jerry. We were joined by two other friends, Scott and Leslie, who also live in our neighborhood. Scott and Leslie ran together and finished the race in under two hours while Jerry and I ran a more modest pace finishing in 2:15. I was content with that time. The weather was glorious with blue skies and a comfortable 65 degrees.

There were three concurrent races - a full marathon, a half, and a 5K - with over 20,000 runners from 20 different countries participating. The vast majority of the runners, of course, were Chinese. There was a running group from Holland that brought 70 runners for the full marathon.

We saw many interesting things during our 13 miles. Many of the Chinese runners had very odd gaits and running styles. There were several men who wore tight, shorty shorts in purple and pink. There were also more than a few runners wearing tube socks up to their knees. We saw two runners doing the marathon in bare feet and there was one American running with a clown wig and red nose.

My best decision of the day was to carry my camera during the race. Jerry and I took a few dozen pictures out on the course and started getting silly during the last few miles. If you wish, you can view the full collection of photos HERE.

#26 Shanghai - Sights

Shanghai is the largest city in China and the eighth largest in the world with about 17 million people - about twice the size of New York City! I think most of the 17 million were at the Nanjing pedestrian mall when we arrived on Saturday afternoon. Above is a picture showing the masses.

On our first outing, we walked from our hotel to the Shanghai riverfront, to an area called "The Bund" which was the commercial center of Shanghai at the turn of the last century. The street is lined with historic, western style buildings built by the foreign businesses during Shanghai's treaty port era. Across the river from then Bund is an area called "Pudong" which is the new financial center of Shanghai and China. It has the modern skyline shown in most current-day pictures of Shanghai. The Cazzato children are pictured above with the Pudong skyline behind them.

In the picture with the kids is a Chinese woman who asked if she could have her picture taken with our four children. The Chinese love children and a western family with four kids is a significant novelty. This scene of having a complete stranger pose with our children for a photo is not uncommon when we go out sightseeing.

Later that evening, we met up with our running compatriots and their families for dinner. The final two pictures are scenes from our walk to the Pizza Hut on Nanjing Road.

#25 Shanghai - Train

The next three blog entries cover our activities from this past weekend. The event that prompted the weekend in Shanghai was the Shanghai Marathon in which Tony and a few friends from the neighborhood ran.

The first adventure of the weekend came with our transportation. We decided to take the train to Shanghai rather than using one of the Caterpillar drivers and vans

Visiting the Suzhou train station was a real experience with the mass of humanity that is China. The station was pleasantly well organized with trains labelled in English as well as Chinese. The queues were reasonably orderly, though queuing up in China is always chaotic by comparison to the U.S. However, the station was extremely crowded and very dirty. Most notably, in the waiting room for the train, I watched a woman holding her one-year-old child while the boy dropped a No. 2 onto a newspaper on the floor.

Once on the train, life was pleasant. The seats were like airplane seats and each of us had an assigned seat. Tickets were fairly inexpensive at $6 U.S. round-trip.

Our thought was to take the train and save some time versus the drive to Shanghai. The car trip can take anywhere from 1.5 to 3.5 hours by car depending on traffic and the express train is only 35 minutes. However, once you add in the rides to and from the train station and extra time to wait for the train, our total time door-to-door ended up being around three hours - not much improvement over driving.

#24 T-giving No Holiday

It is perhaps obvious that Thanksgiving is not a holiday in China, but who would have thought that it would be a standard workday ? Our office was in full swing today with multiple meetings, teleconferences, and out of town visitors.

One clear benefit, though, is that tonight there are no conference calls with the U.S. Our IL Cat comrades are all having turkey with their families, so yours truly and the China contingent get to go to sleep early !

During the few minutes between dinner tonight and the children's bedtime, Maria performed a preschooler right of passage - she cut her own hair. Juliana discovered the mess of hair all over the floow next to their bedroom mirror. Maria's appearance not terribly affected, but the floor had more hair than a barber shop at basic training.

#23 Embroidery Town

Somewhere on the northwest outskirts of Suzhou is a place dubbed "Embroidery Town" where the town's main drag is composed of shops selling hand stitched embroidered pictures. We spent a couple hours there this afternoon and bought quite a few framed pictures. The town is unique because for four blocks both sides of the street are filled with nothing but embroidery stores - most of them with a person out front hand sewing a picture with silk thread onto silk cloth

Another surprising fact was that the vendors did not negotiate much on price at all. Typically in a shop in China selling decorative items, the actual selling price is well less than half the original asking price. However, in embroidery town, we did not get any vendor to lower his original asking price more than 10%. Nonetheless, the prices were quite inexpensive, especially considering the labor needed to produce these

The embroidered pictures are remarkable, because from five paces away, they look like a painting, and some even look like a photograph. Only when you put your nose to the glass is it clear that the picture is formed by hand stitched, colored thread. Suzhou is known for these embroidered pictures, so we were enthused to buy several pictures showing garden and canal scenes from Suzhou.

In the pictures above, you can see the Cazzato women shopping and loading up the van with their purchases.

#22 Busy Week at Cat

This past week in Suzhou, we hosted a significant event to update our facility project plan. We had over twenty visitors from all over the world come in for an intensive week of planning and workings sessions. Pictured above is part of the team standing in front of the empty field that will soon be our new factory. Pictured are yours truly (Suzhou, China), Marciano and Edson (Brazil), Stanley (Suzhou, China), Cindy (Beijing, China), Baowan (Shanghai), and Kevin (Decatur, Illinois). Other team members (not pictured) were folks who travelled from Xuzhou, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Atlanta.

We held the obligatory Chinese banquet on Tuesday night where vast quantities of Tsingtao Beer and a small amount of Baiju were consumed. Baiju is to China what Grappa is to Italy, Ouzo is to Greece, and Everclear is to the U.S. - a nasty form of grain alcohol where sipping (or even tasting) is not recommended. The team also enjoyed a night out for Italian food on Thursday and a Brazilian barbeque in Shanghai on Saturday.

Eighteen months from now we all expect to stand again in the same spot and take another picture - only with a huge Caterpillar machine plant in the background behind us.

#21 Halloween in China

The Chinese do not celebrate Halloween, but within our expat compound, Halloween was a major event. For our family it was even bigger, as the day of celebration happened to correspond to Joseph's 7th birthday.

Getting costumes for Halloween in China is not easy. Marco (Batman) received his costume last month as a gift from his grandmother in Kentucky. Joseph's Darth Vader was imported by our neighbor Patti who picked it up during a recent trip home to Chicago. Maria's Snow White was a birthday gift last year from our friends the Tomlins in Peoria and I am not sure where Juliana Montana found that blonde wig.

We trick-or-treated in the neighborhood and found many of our neighbors had put a tremendous effort into their adult costumes and house decor. One neighbor had created a haunted house in their garden and first floor which all of the trick-or-treaters walked through. It was a truly amazing effort with ghouls and smoke machines and more.

Later in the evening there was a neighborhood Halloween party with food and drink as well as games for the children. A group of neighborhood wives did a splendid job organizing the party. It was held at the Golden Lough clubhouse.

Finally, Phase 3 of the evening was a return to the Cazzato villa for Joseph's birthday celebration. The birthday boy is pictured with siblings and friends preparing for the singing-of-the-song and the blowing-of-the-candles. The kids sang Happy Birthday in English and Chinese - "qu ni sheng er kuai le."

Our guests departed fairly soon after cake and ice cream. Shortly thereafter, despite all of the sugar consumed, the Cazzato family collapsed for the night.

#20 Best Little Watch Shop in China

I have discovered "The Best Little Watch Repair Shop in China" which is pictured above. The "discovery" actually came through a recommendation from my friend Jerry who has lived in Suzhou for a couple of years. I was extremely pleased with the service and price from this tiny shop. I brought him four wrist watches with various repairs required. He replaced a battery, fixed a broken band, and adjusted two other watch bands. This was all done for the remarkably low price of 30 kuai ($4 U.S.). The price even included the battery !

You can see in the picture this guy's entire workshop - approximately three feet by four feet. I guess low overhead helps him keep his prices low !

#19 Tong Li

Today we took a trip with our church to the town of Tong Li which lies about 20 miles south of Suzhou. The reason for the trip was to celebrate the recent re-opening of the Catholic church in Tong Li. Our church in Suzhou had raised some money to assist in the rebuilding effort so the Suzhou congregation organized a bus trip to the Tong Li church to celebrate. The new church was very nice and the trip offered the opportunity to also explore the town of Tong Li.

Tong Li is called a "River Town" because, like Suzhou, it is criss-crossed with canals that are used for transportation. Tong Li is a much smaller town than Suzhou and many say it resembles Suzhou in the time before recent development and industrialization. Tong Li was truly a charming place with ancient streets, footbridges across the canals, and lots of shops and small eateries along the water. We ate lunch with some of our expat neighbors at a waterside restaraunt.

It was a beautiful sunny day and a very fun outing.

If you are interested in seeing a few more pictures from the Tong Li outing, you can visit our snapfish photo site by clicking HERE.