It's hard to believe how quickly time has passes -- it is now exhibition day! Installation took most of the morning, and we had a quick lunch, some of the professors didn't even have lunch as they worked straight through to the opening ceremony at 2:30. At 2:00 we went over to visit President Pan in his spacious office, where we gave each of us gold plated medal coins, featuring the bust of Confucius, designed by one of SUAD's professors. At the ceremony, I translated the short speeches by Ying and Christian (who was the US student representative) into Chinese, and then got to enjoy all of the fantastic art pieces. Matt and Li Guang's video attracted the most attention, and I was flattered that they included a short cameo of me pretending to be a rock star at the end of their video. In their piece, Li played the role of a Kong Fu master, battling out a game of Chinese chess with a Western Cowboy, played by Matt. Images of the normal LI and Matt in t-shirts were interspliced with images of Li imagining an epic battle between East and West. In the end, neither Matt nor Li wins the game, and they walk off into the sunset as friends. In the evening we went to another fantastic dinner, hosted by the SUAD's Vice President Li. I sat next to Wang Han Chen, and Professors Luo and Jiang, who kept repeating how wonderful the US students were this year. He also apologized for some of the problems they had had with printing out projects, which surprised me, given how rarely people directly appologize in Chinese culture in my experience.
In addition to toasts by Vice President Li and Ying, a number of the students proposed toasts to the Professors and Ying. Professors Jiang and Luo were very impressed with Stan and Sam's drinking ability, and Professor Wang, Wang Han Chen's father, poured Stan a full glass of Baijiu, white alcohol, and encouraged him to stay in China because he was such a good drinker. After dinner we drove directly to the train station, and Jackie, the head of the International Affairs Office, shepherded us through the station and onto the train. The sleeper cars he had helped us purchase were very comfortable, and I stayed up until about 11 talking with Steven, Ila and Christian about their experiences and the coming US election. It was a really full day, and one of the most satisfying so far.
We first went to the Humble Administrator's Garden and then explored some of the older streets, and had lunch of dumplings with Ariel and Matt. We then went to the East Gardens and saw a leapard, lion, and panda in the city's zoo. 
After the zoo, we split up into two groups with one group taking the bus back while myself and about half the group decided to try to take the train back. We walked to the train-station and stopped at the Beisi Tower, a Buddhist temple with an eight storey pagoda tower that dates from the Song Dynasty. From the top we had a great view of Suzhou, and had a bird's eye view of a Buddhist ceremony being performed in one of the temples in the complex. After dinner in the old city, we took one of China's high speed trains back to Shanghai. While the morning bus ride had taken a little under three hours with traffic, the train got us back to Shanghai in about 40 minutes. 
