Tianjin City - Sunday

Sunday was not quite as jam packed as Saturday. But as per usual in China - was full of delightful surprises. After riding the light rail into Tianjin city, we were picked up by a colleague in his new Citroen (1 week old) and taken to the Tianjn Radio and Television Tower (or Tianta). Tianta is a 415 meter space needle like tower with three observation areas - an enclosed lower level, a Chinese space themed revolving bar level, and the outdoor viewing deck. The most unexpected aspect of Tianta was the group of 6 guys playing hockey on the frozen lake surrounding the tower. The space themed revolving bar was Chinese kitsch at its best. The outdoor viewing deck had a glass bottomed viewing outcropping that I could not bring myself to step out on - but the entire Zenium team had a portrait taken out there!

After Tianta, we went off the agenda and toured the Tianjin Museum. The Tianjin museum is a beautiful modern building housing some ancient Chinese treasures (600 year old scrolls - relativly new for Chinese history) as well as an in depth exhibit on the history of Tianjin.

Following up our Museum tour, we took a late lunch at a very fancy Shanghai style The restaurant was housed in arestaurant. western style building constructed in the late 1800's. It was in a district full of Western style architecture (Tianjin is known for its many architectural styles). Of all the Chinese meals we have enjoyed on this trip, this one was the one where the food seemed less like a dare - it was the most like American Chinese food.

After our lunch, we took in Ancient Culture Street - an area dedicated to selling traditional Chinese souvenir's. Even though the area was fairly touristy, a couple of Westerners walking around still drew a large amount of stares. I was even invited to sit down in one of the shops we were shopping in - "Sit down, you big giant" the 4 foot 2 inch shop keeper instructed me with a smile.

Check out all the photos in the usual spot!

Saturday In Tinajin City

Wow - we did so much on our Saturday tour, it is difficult to remember it all:

1. Visited an active Buddhist temple
2. Toured a typical supermarket (like Chinese Target)
3. Visited a Bazaar (like a flea market)
4. Took a quick tour of Tianjin University
   
5. Enjoyed lunch at a Spicy food restaurant (Sichuan style)
6. Went to a Mall (5 stories of tiny shops)
7. Got to visit a co-worker's house (very cool)
8. Visited a typical Chinese produce market (like the farmer's market, only indoors)
9. Rode the Tianjin subway
10. Enjoyed a nice dinner at a Guangdong (Canton) style restaurant
11. Took in a lantern show at a Tianjin amusement park

The Buddhist temple was very nice. The most interesting fact is that most of the monks at the temple were female.
Much like the flea market, once you've seen about 10 booths, you've seen about 90% that the bazaar had to offer. Some of the best stuff was the bad translation of western words, and the brands that weren't actually western brands. Anyone ever heard of Jack Wolfskin?

At the spicy food restaurant I was able to cross a couple of things off the list of exotic foods I hadn't tried yet - such as sea cucumber (tasty), frog (CocaCola Chestnut Frog) (tasty despite containing bones), All kinds of beef parts (Lung, Stomach), and a fish stew with the whole fish carcas in it (also some spices that looked like black pepper but tasted like Novocaine - after I bit into one, I had to have Steve try one too)

I very much enjoyed the opportunity to visit Kevin's house in Crystal city (the sight of a former glass plant) and see how our co-workers over here live. I also enjoyed meeting his wife, baby son (7 months old), and in-laws.

The best part of the Guangdong restaurant was the dumplings that were hot and contained soap. We were supposed to let out some of the soap so we could eat them - Steve and I both were slightly confused about the soap in our food, but we drained some out and ate the dumplings. The confusion carried over to the next day when at a very fancy Shanghai style restaurant we got very big dumpling which came with a straw and again the warning that there was hot soap in the dumpling and to use the straw. Steve proceeded to the horror of our hosts to poke holes in his dumpling to let the soap out. You may have guessed by now we had soap confused with soup...

We wrapped up the evening with the visit to the "Light Show" in the park. Steve and I were both expecting some sort of laser light show similar to a Pink Floyd concert - and were pleasantly surprised to attend a lantern show - with scenes from Chinese fairy tales and stories represented in large internally lit fabric. Also - the Beijing 2008 Olympic mascots had a fair representation.
My favorite olympic mascot is "The Pistol Packing Panda". All the photos are available at the usual spot.

Chinese Food

Food has been mostly excellent – it is typically better not to ask what it is. Some of the more exotic things:

1. Sheep’s Stomach in a Spicy red pepper sauce (Very popular in Beijing)
2. Jelly fish with slivered cucumbers in a vinegar sauce
3. Donkey cold cuts with brown garlic sauce (actually quite good and flavorful) It has spawned the saying “That tastes like Donkey”
4. spicy peanuts with what looked like dried minnows
5. Squid (more chewy) and octopus (very tender and delicious)
6. Wild Rabbit – The meat tasted very good, but I didn’t prefer all of the bones. You typically pop a whole piece of meat into your mouth, chew it up then spit out the bones
7. Century Egg - cured egg - essentially controlled spoilage.

Some of the things we’ve seen, but not ordered (yet)

1. Frog
2. Turtle
3. Sea Cucumber
4. Fish Head (really big fish head with not much meat visible)
5. chicken with the head still on
6. Duck Tongue
   

Some standard things we’ve had that are really good:

1. Peking duck
2. whole crab – you kind of tear them apart with your hands and use the chopsticks to get the meat out
3. Shrimp/Prawns in red slightly hot sauce
4. whole fish – cooked whole with the skin – you kind of pull some meat off with your chopsticks
5. All kinds of mushrooms

We typically don't go to Chinese restaurants without a "Host" - as the ordering process is overwhelming. There seems to be a lot of negotiations that occur, all in Chinese. The typical ordering cycle takes 15-30 minutes.

We've also taken in some western (and south American) restaurants. The Wei Hai pub served very good fish and chips and currywurst with fries. I've had two chicken chimichangas at the Island bar that were outstanding. We ate at Pizza Hut in Beijing - the "American Special" plane pepperoni pizza tasted quite similar to a Pizza Hut pizza at home (not that that is a good thing :-) The Churrascaria we we ate at last night was mostly like a South American steak house back home - except the meat was served Chinese style - as soon as we sat down with our salads, they began piling all the different kinds of meat on our plate all at once. No red card/green card to control the flow of meat.

Globalization

Tonight in Tianjin, China we took a new Volkswagen Jetta taxi cab to the Holiday Inn to have dinner at a Brazilian steak house (Salsa Churrasco) and stopped at an Irish pub on our way back to the hotel. The Holiday Inn also has a Japanese Sushi and sake bar...

Chinese Lantern Festival

Today was the last day of the 15 day Chinese New Year Celebration. The fireworks started around 4:30 and just kept on going. It has been like a continuous 4th of July celebration for more than 6 hours.


The last day of Chinese New Year is also called Lantern Festival - so the Chinese Lanterns are everywhere. This is traditionally a time to spend with family, so a number of our single team members took us out to dinner tonight. We went to seafood restaurant, where you get to pick your fish from the live tanks. We had some very good scalops served on the half shell, as well as whole crabs. The most interesting thing at dinner tonight was the mutton stomach in chili oil. We also had some peanuts with dried small fish (they looked like minnows) and same very good octopus in black pepper sauce. Of course we had plenty of Chinese white wine - or as it is also known Chinese Gasoline...104 proof rice liquor!
The traditional food to eat on Lantern Day is sweet rice dumplings or rice balls. The team picked some up for us and the restaurant prepared them. They were quite tasty, like a pot sticker, only stuffed with chocolate. The dumplings are supposed to resemble lanterns and represent gathering around with friends and family.


It is hard to believe all of the spent fireworks. The paper is 1 foot deep in some locations. I'm glad we were able to experience some of the holiday here in Tianjin! Gotta call home and then get to bed now.

Forbidden City

Toady, Sunday February 17th, we went to tour Forbidden City! We entered from the Tiananmen Gate, across the street from Tiananmen square. The gate has a big picture of Chairman Mao on it. It is where he used to address the nation and watch the military parades occurring in the square. We worked our way through Forbidden city from the outer courtyard, where the emperors used to perform public ceremonies and rituals, and attend to matters of the state, to the inner private courtyard, where the emperors lived their daily life with their relatives, court, and concubines.

The tour progressed from the amazingly large scale halls of the outer courtyard (Hall of Supreme Harmony and Hall of Preserving Harmony) to the incredibly intimacy of the inner courtyard. The iner courtyard gardens were especially impressive - even without anything really growing in them in the off season. In additional to touring the main forbidden city, we also went on some interesting side tours. We went up into the Tiananmen gate and saw the rooms where foreign dignitaries were received. We toured the East Palaces which now host a number of exhibits. We were also able to see the Gallery of treasures which had a number of items from every day use through the ages in the city. And finally we toured the museum of clocks and watches. The emperors were obsessed with measuring everything - especially the passing of time. The collection included a number of very ornate clocks. My 3 favorite were the clock with "A European dressed robot writing 8 Chinese characters", a chariot clock pulled by an elephant with a large number of warriors, propelled around a circular track, and a water based clock which had to be at least 20 feet tall. It told time by having water drip from chamber to chamber - causing indicators to float and point to the current 15 minute, hour, and day. Check out all the photos here!

Temple of Heaven

After lunch on Saturday, we went to tour the Temple of Heaven. All the temples in Beijing are really interesting. Temple of the Moon is on the west side of the city, Temple of the Sun is on the east side, Temple of the Earth to the North, and Temple of the Heavens on the south side. Forbidden city is at the center of it all. The emperer would travel from the forbidden city to various temples to perform sacrifices and other rites - the harvest sacrifice was performed at Temple of Heaven.

The temple grounds at Temple of Heaven are the largest in Beijing, and the temple itself is gigantic. Check out the photos!

I've got to post this and then pass out. I don't think I'm going to make it up late enough to call anyone tonight, but I'll probably wake up around 4 am again to make calls. Tomorrow it is off to the Forbidden City and Tianamen Square. Then the transfer to Tianjin.

Mutianyu Great Wall

Saturday morning, after meeting for Breakfast, we (Steve H., Steven L., our driver, and myself) headed for the Great Wall Mutianyu (Mew-Tee-On-Yew) site (click the link, it's where the wall makes a Y northeast of Beijing). It took a while to get going the right direction out of Beijing - something about our driver being from Tianjin, not Beijing.

When we were pulling into the parking lot, somebody was walking a 2-humped camel up the road. That was interesting to see! Once we got there, the wall was spectacular. We rode the chairlift to the top, then explored the wall as far out to the right as we were allowed to go (right where it splits). The portions of the wall that tourists can walk on have been restored. At the end of the tourist area, there were cool old sections of the "Original" wall which have not been restored. Check out the rest of the photos on flickr

Getting to Beijing

I Got to the Airport in Minneapolis the requisite 2 hours prior to the international flight and subsequently made it through check-in and security in 5 minutes. While having lunch at Wolfgang Puck's Express, the bartender and I noticed the same woman walk by - and both said "That's Macy Gray - she's got to be famous to wear her hair like that!" The bartender tracked her down - turns out she was a female vocalist. Not Macy Gray, but Marva King - she said she sings with Prince sometimes.

The flight from MSP to Tokyo was long, but uneventful. In the 12 1/2 hours on the plane I:

1. Listened to all 31 prince songs on my iPod
2. Read the complementary Wall Street Journal cover to cover (are these still randomly showing up at our house?)
3. Listened to all 44 Husker Du songs on my iPod
4. Watched the 2nd half of the 2nd in-flight movie - really bad with the Rock as a quarterback...
5. Watched a really good movie (Super-Bad) on my computer - forgot to turn the backlight down to conserve power and spent my 1st battery in less than an hour :-(
6. Reread 2 chapters of the Wold is Flat - by Thomas Friedman
7. Watched the 3rd in flight Movie - Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium - Better than the Rock quarterback movie, but not as good as Super Bad.
8. Watched the free episode of "How I Met Your Mother" on my iPod - I didn't think I'd like video on the smallish screen, but I am impressed.
9. Still had 2.5 hours to kill - When the last in flight entertainment was done and they put up the flight progress map - I couldn't believe it - the plane looked like it was over Japan, but we still had 2.5 hours left
10. Put on the classical music channel from the airplane with the noise canceling headphones and attempted to doze until breakfast (I think they served 2 full meals and 2 snacks on the flight).

All that, just to get to Tokyo - still had a 4 hour flight waiting!

The change of planes went smoothly - From the not so nice 747-400 for the long hall to the sweet A330 - with the in seat personal video system. Unfortunately I was too tired to really enjoy it. Scored a sweet seat isle in the 2nd row of coach with no seat in front of me. I was able to doze a bit on that flight. Summary: Left Minneapolis(MSP) on 2-14 at 1:10pm, arrived Beijing 2-15 at 9:15pm

Transfered to the hotel in Beijing and passed out at 11:30pm- only to start tossing and turning at 4:15am - Jet Lag Sucks...