After the last week of classes I somehow got sucked into a school trip to Ningbo with Chen Ying (my "boss") and Joan. I signed up at first because I thought we might get the royal treatment -- a night at a fancy hotel and a big banquet. Also, I was curious about Ningbo, since it's the city I was supposed to teach in before SARS hit and I got reassigned to Hangzhou.

It turns out the trip was just a day trip to the Sixth Annual Zhejiang Investment and Trade Symposium. Although the day was not the highlight of my experiences here in China, it was interesting to get a glimpse of China's rapidly growing manufacturing sector.

At the entrance to the event, Zhejiang province's largest cities set up booths touting each city's manufacturing assets (see photo above). All the booths looked like space stations that were about to be launched into orbit.

Next up, Joan, Chen Ying and I wandered through the crafts section. Every gift store item you can imagine was represented in that conference hall, including Christmas ornaments and headbands.

I didn't see much of Ningbo, but it looked a lot like Hangzhou -- big, new buildings, lots of traffic and people. We spent most of the time at the conference hall and on a bus going back and forth between Hangzhou and Ningbo.