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.