Hello again! We've had a fun filled week with a visit to Tianjin and the Water Cube Happy Magic Water Park. We'll get you the pictures - from Tianjin, no cameras allowed in the water park.
Tianjin is China's third largest city by whatever metric they measure. It did not seem to be the third largest city. It was big, very big. The people were hard to come by and the subway seemed deserted. In all fairness, comparing any other subway we've been in to what we've become accustom to in Beijing they all seem kind of lonely. Tianjin is a quick 30 minute high speed train ride from Beijing. Remember it takes us about 2 hours to get to the train station, so we cover 20km in two hours and the other 100 or so in a quarter of that time. The train station in Tianjin seemed quite easy to manage and the subway stop took us right to the hotel. Our first issue came when we tried to take that same subway line to our first sight seeing stop, Italian Style Town, yep that's its English name.
So it turns out this subway line, Line 2, had a bit of an accident during construction in 2010 and due to the accident the line is not finished in it entirety. It is really two lines that are awaiting to be joined. We needed to get across this "unjoined" section. We managed to walk around the formerly easily manageable train station for about a half hour and found our way out and then back in and then out in the correct direction. It was a short walk along the Haihe river till we arrived in Italian Style Town.
Tianjin is the nearest port to Beijing and has proven to be a vital place to be for local and world powers over the years. This fact has resulted in an incredible about of European architecture across the city, remnants of the Italian, French, English, Russian etc. strongholds that used to be. Italian Style Town as you have probably imagined is a section of the city that appears to be dropped straight out of 19th century Italy, or so I would imagine. We found an incredible Italian restaurant, go figure. We also found a Starbucks to get out of the cold and a Bavarian beer hall that also advertised American BBQ, the beer was excellent.
Day two in Tianjin we first made it to the Radio and TV tower built on a man-made island in a lake (apparently the only of it's kind), aka big sky needle with an observatory about 250m up in the air. Then made it up towards the Golden street an Ancient Cultural street, both are really just shopping streets with Golden street having a lot more Western feel. We were headed to the Tianjin Eye (it's a big Ferris wheel that is mounted on a bridge, apparently the only of it's kind). It was very cold on our walk and about time for a late lunch.
We saw a sign on a building saying Mr. Beer and really wanted to get out of the cold. Inside we went and two ladies gave us a receipt for 120 RMB and pointed to a third lady and said, "pay". We thought about it for a second and then decided to go for it. We paid got another receipt and were led up at least five flights of stairs. At the top of the stairs was an enormous hall with a very long buffet and lots of beer. After our time at Mr. Beer we headed to the Eye. It remained very cold and we were hoping to get on the Eye in time for sunset. Luckily there were a couple of malls just across the street. Unluckily they were both closed. It appears the area had been built a little over ambitiously. The Eye was about a 30 minute ride and very nice as the smog has been worse.
The next day we went to the Five Avenues and the pictures will tell it better so you'll have to wait until we get them up. We headed back to Beijing that afternoon and took a couple of days to relax and then yesterday we headed to the water park. Half of the Water Cube has been transformed into a water park. The competition hall and warm-up area from the Olympics remains on the other side of the cube and you can pay and swim there if you are so inclined. The park had several slides we enjoyed but they had one the like I had never seen before. From the time we got there as far as we could tell it wasn't opened. Finally I got to the slide next to it and pointed, the lady shook her head in the affirmative. This particular slide has a capsule you must enter to ride. The attendant unlocked the door and let me get in. She then locked the door and pressed a button. Next I hear, "Three" (in English), "Two", "One" and the floor drops out of the capsule. What seemed like five seconds later I had dropped straight down, then slid up and back down. My brain had no idea where I was.
We are enjoying our last day of vacation and then back to work tomorrow. Hope this finds you well!
-Ryan
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