Saturday July 23, 2005 10:30 am

Already very warm out. Hot and Sticky. I just got back from walking around Wuxi for 2 hours. Quite interesting - although since the streets are not exactly at right angles I did get a bit nervous that I was lost a few times!

I walked down by the canal. There are walkways along the sides of the canal and what look like housing of some sort. I considered going down along it - but it didn't look very welcoming so I stuck to the streets.

I am intrigued by the little shops. They sell just about anything - shoes, clothing, bags, phones, food - everything you could want. They are small places - most only about 7x7 feet or so - small, little things.

There are also food vendors at almost every cross road. There was one cart that I watched for a little while. The man would pour a batter on the hot plate and spread it out to make a thin crepe. Then he took that off the plate and cracked an egg on it - scrambled it up - put what looked like some onion on it and sauce of some kind. He put the crepe back on top and flipped them both over so the egg was on top - added more sauce and what looked like a piece of fried bread of some kind then rolled it all up like a burrito.

While I was out walking there were several people who would pass by and say "hello" to me and then laugh and smile when I said hello back to them. I don't know if it was their only english word or if they were just being friendly. There are also many times I feel a bit *on display* here for lack of a better word. Wuxi is not a big tourist area so other than in the hotel I do not see very many non-asian people. It is funny to have people looking at you all the time and frankly I am just not that interesting!

On the way back to the hotel I found a grocery store and stopped to pick up some water. Luckily I still had a little bit of cash from my last visit. I need to locate a bank where I can get a cash advance from my corporate card. It would be nice to have some money for food and other things I need for the places that don't take a credit card.

I will probably go find a coffee shop and read for a while today. I want to get out of the hotel room - but I am not sure how much more walking around I want to do.

more later,
Tina