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Saturday, January 6, 2018

A Pleasant Day in Tianjin

Ctourus -- Tour of Tianjin, Chengde, and Beijing, China
Day 2 - Tianjin, November 15, 2017

After a restful night, we woke up to a beautiful, sunny day in the city of Tianjin. What a great fresh start of a new tour for us! We were filled with anticipation and excitement for the upcoming days ahead! 

Tianjin
My first impression of this city can be summed up with one word -- clean. As we drove off from the hotel all I noticed was how orderly and clean the streets were. It was cold with a fresh crisp. We would be spending one day here only and then we will drive to the northeast to Chengde for the night. Some of the photos I took while on the bus show how nice this city looks. 

I believe this was right across from our hotel. Notice the KFC?


Some apartment buildings.

The Golden Arch.


An old gateway.

Tzu-ya River

Seems like many cities are building 'ferris wheel' type of attractions nowadays.
This is the Tianjian Zhiyan (天津之眼--Eye of Tianjian) by the Tzu-ya River and Haihe River.

Beautiful!


Ancient Cultural Street (古文化街), Tianjin
Our first stop of the day was the Ancient Cultural Street in town. This is an old fashion Chinese shopping street mainly for different historical or cultural items, like antiques, old books, arts and crafts, and traditional snacks. Quite an interesting place. There is a Tianhou Temple (Palace of Queen of Heaven) in the center of the square which we decided to skip. Instead we went around the alleys and checked out all the interesting shops.

One of the entrances to the Cultural Street. The building on the left of this picture is suppose to be the theater.

Our bus parked along the street next to the river.

Just love these old style paintings!

The vendors were barely setting up.

Gorgeous buildings!

A life-size clay figurines...

...from Clay Figurine Chang.

The main square of the Cultural Street. Most tourists we saw were nationals. We did not encounter any foreign visitors, other than the one who was with us. 😉

These must be local favorites--Osmanthus Cake.


An upside down sign.

Everything looked so pretty and decorative!

Now the vendors were ready for business.

Many different kinds of stalls selling snacks.

These looked delicious!

Crab Soup Packets

Steaming hot!

Especially tempting on this cold cold morning.

Straw was used to get the delicious 'soup' before finishing up the dumpling.

Apparently this was featured in a famous TV program in China.

Another vendor making sugar sculptures.

We cut short of our time here because of the cold weather. It was difficult to stay outside for an hour even with periodic visits inside some stores. We ended up meeting back with Mr. Yang earlier than planned.

Italian Scenic Area 
In the 19th century, the port city caught the attention of the seafaring Western powers and with the Treaty of Tianjin signed in 1856, gave the Europeans the right to establish nine concessionary bases on the mainland, from which they could conduct trade and sell opium. With the heavy western influence in the city, there remains some sections that used to be concessions of the different European countries with old buildings saved from that era.  Our guide brought us here to the Italian section which is one of the more popular sites in the city. The Italian concession of Tianjin officially controlled by the Kingdom of Italy between 1901 and 1947, when it was formally ceded by Italy to Chiang Kai Shek's Republic of China.  

Our bus parked near the Aoshi Customs Music Park. Should have checked out those statues.

 Bars, restaurants and vendors lined this pedestrian street along Ziyou Road.

I believe that is the Haihe Historical Building Conservation Museum.

Bar/restaurant with European feel.




Trying out Tianjin specialty--Jianbing at one of the vendors. Very good!


Marco Polo Square

HOHO bus!

Italian Style Town Pier by the Haihe River.


Nanshi Food Street
After the Italian Scenic Area, our final destination for the day was the Nanshi Food Street. This is actually a huge building with an indoor 'market' selling many different kinds of food specialties of Tianjin. 

Exterior of the 'Food Street'. It's a huge building with restaurants, stores, and food stall vendors. Almost like a mall of food.

Inside the 'food street'. We had fun walking around and looking into all the special food items famous in Tianjin. There were some stalls offering free samples also. There is also a Goubuli Tianjin Dumplings branch here if anyone is interested in trying.

Lunch was served at one of the restaurants in the building.

Plenty of food!

Had an enjoyable lunch here!

More photos of the city from the bus as we leave for Chengde. 
Our stay here was short but I really liked this city. Everything seemed so orderly. It is hard to believe that this is the fourth largest city in China after Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. So glad we had a pleasant visit here!






On our way to Chengde, a four-hour drive.


Arriving at our hotel for the night in Chengde.




Another hotel with drying rack by the window. Very thoughtful!



Pretty nice hotel.

Dinner was at the restaurant at the hotel, quite convenient and with lots of food again.




After the scrumptious dinner we called it a day and were ready for bed. 

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