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"Looks like you'll be staying here in New York all summer... fighting the crowds, smelling the hot garbage, while I travel to beautiful, breezy Beijing. "

Saturday, April 7, 2012

An Idiot-Proof Trip to Tianjin

Last week was Tomb Sweeping Holiday in China.  During this holiday, people go home to visit the tombs of their relatives.  In China they do not have huge graveyards; instead, they have small plots of land for each family to have tombs for their relatives.  For Tomb Sweeping, they go to this family plot of land and tidy it up by cutting the grass, etc.  They also leave offerings of fruit and they burn fake money.  The fake money thing is really cool because they believe that in the afterlife their relatives need the money so when they burn it they are passing it to them.  When they have dreams of their dead relatives, they believe it is their loved ones contacting them to ask for more money to be burned/passed over to them.  They always want their loved ones to be very prosperous, even in the afterlife.  I think it's so interesting.

For the holiday we had a couple of days off from class (only after working through the weekend... China, I will never understand that about you...) so we went for an overnight trip to Tianjin, which is about 60 miles southeast of Beijing, right near the coast.  Tianjin is a very interesting city because it is also a tier 1 city (like Beijing) with about 13 million people.  During the late 19th century, many European countries wanted to set up trading missions in China but were unable to do so in Beijing so instead they set up shop in Tianjin, which is connected to Beijing by river.  Each of these European trade missions were self-contained towns with schools, libraries, and prisons.  The architecture has survived so now Tianjin is a weird mix of European, Chinese, and modern buildings. 

You can see Beijing on this map, and Tianjin, just southeast.
 

Since Tianjin is just a 30 minute train ride away we figured it would be a good mini-trip for the short holiday.  Plus, it was a great opportunity to check out the high speed trains!  175mph! 

Here is Chris in the futuristic Beijing South Railway Station.
 
 Here we are on the train cruising at 175mph

We were very fortunate to have recently made some friends who live in Tianjin.  Chris met this guy, Mike, at an event at Tsinghua University.  Mike works for a Tianjin municipal government think tank.  He was in Beijing a couple of weeks ago and brought his colleague, Grace, to dinner and the four of us had a great time chatting.  

For our trip to Tianjin, Mike and Grace picked us up from the train station and were our tour guides the entire time!  We were so lucky.

Here is Chris and Mike.  The first day we were there the weather was overcast and dreary.  The second day was gorgeous, though.
 A bridge near the train station.

 Here are some pictures of the Italian Style Area.
 

 There were tons of these Italian sculptures everywhere.
 

This is near a bridge across from the Italian Style Area.

This area is the Ancient Chinese Culture Market.  There were lots of shops selling traditional Chinese trinkets and gifts.  I bought a lovely silk scarf as a souvenir.
Here are some guys pounding some kind of peanut candy with huge hammers
One of the famous local snacks is ma hua, which is this twisty dough snack.  When I heard people describe it I thought it would be soft and sweet.  It was neither.  It was very hard and crunchy, and bland as hell. 

After dinner, Mike drove us to our hotel that he had already prearranged and checked in for us.  It was around the corner from his house so the next morning he arrived at 8am with some local jian bing for breakfast (so good!).

He drove us first to this area called Wudadao, which translates to Five Streets.  This was an area with lots of old mansions used by prime ministers and head honchos from the late 1800s.  There were touristy horse and carriage tours, which of course our tour guides made sure we got to experience.

 Of course there was time for a coffee break!

This is the local Drum Tower with more trinkets shops around.
 We saw some traditional carnival games -- we didn't see a single ring land around one of the targets so we assumed like American carnival games, they are rigged.
 Here was a guy making a sugar snack for kids.  He heats up the sugar real hot then pours it slowly while he makes the design.  Then, at the end he adds the stick.
 Finished product!

Next we went to a temple, where we had a great view of the Tianjin Eye (just like London!).
 
This thing was sort of a good luck charm where you try to throw your coin onto it and if it stays on there you get good luck (versus if it falls).  I think I threw 50 cents six different times and it never stayed on.  I took that as a sign I would have better luck keeping my coin.

 

On the way back to the train station, we stopped to walk over a pedestrian bridge to get one last look at the city.
 Here is the equally futuristic looking train station in Tianjin.

That was the end of our Tianjin trip!  We had such a great time and were able to see so many of the sights thanks to our amazing tour guides =)


As I wrap up this update, I will include some pictures from the last month here.  When we got back from Vietnam, out of necessity we started to cook regularly.  I have to say, we have gotten quite good at some traditional Chinese dishes, yet we keep it really real with some favorites from the homeland.  Here are some pictures of our creations:
Fried dumplings (aka potstickers)

Eggplant with minced pork
Keeping it real:  Penne with vodka sauce (and pork)
Yay, happy peas!
 

Here is Chris with our next door neighbor, Tian Zhou, eating some dried duck wings.  In China, they sell tons of meat snacks packaged sort of like beef jerky.  Chris was surprised at how much he liked it, saying it was 75% better than he had imagined.
 

Other photos around our neighborhood..
This is right across from our school -- the sky was so blue that day!
  
We went to a park nearby our school on the first warm day we had, but none of the trees had grown back in yet.  However, there were still people swimming in the canal in the middle of the park!  They must have been so cold.





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