Day 7: Hangzhou

Today we started off the day with a visit to High Tech Zone, another science park like company, similar to the one we visited in Beijing. We met a few of the companies in the zone and sat through a presentation. It was decent, but nothing spectacular. Even though I have a cursory knowledge of IT, servers, mainframes…a lot of it was over my head. At one point one of our speakers referred to us as “geniuses from Bentley” so that was pretty cool…haha.

After the first company visit we hit up a tea village. First we had a few minutes to walk around the hills of tea and take a few pictures. After that we went in and got a demonstration on process of making tea and what makes good tea – it was really interesting. We got to try some different types of fresh tea, so it was really fun. The tea was loose and sunk to the bottom of your cup. She said that 2 pinches of leaves could last someone a whole day if they kept adding new water. A bunch of us bought some of the over-priced tea (including me). I didn’t really care though because I knew it was fresh and I really wanted something from that tea village we were at.

Next, we visited State Street Bank. Basically, this branch developed technology for other State Street branches and select clients. They were really excited to have us since they have had a few Bentley interns at this office in the past. Also, State Street sponsors Bentley’s school of Ethics and Social Responsibility. The talk was good – I learned about the constraints of conducting banking in a city like China.

After the company visit we went to a silk factory to see how silk is made and learn about the benefits of different silk products. It was really interesting – I fought the urge to buy new pillows, but I did buy a cute new scarf.

For the night we had free time. About 12 of us met up and got a late dinner at an Italian restaurant in the city. It was really nice to have a change from Chinese. We got a few bottles of wine and had a long dinner. Believe it or not they didn’t have chicken parm, haha. I got some eggplant parm and a green salad – so good. After dinner we went back to the hotel and chilled out in someone’s room. It was pretty low key, but good to just hang out.