Chengdu to Tianjin

Ctourus -- Tour of Tianjin, Chengde, and Beijing, China

Day 1 - Chengdu to Tianjin, November 14, 2017

This post should be short and sweet because we started our day a little later than usual. After the episode we had with the tour guides the night before, we arrived at the Intercontinental around 2:00AM to check-in. We were definitely tired and stressed out. Everybody had a restful night before getting up for our late breakfast this morning. J at Ctourus already notified us that he had booked our flight out of Chengdu at 3:00 that afternoon so we were in no hurry to get up. It was still like a dream when we woke up at this beautiful hotel in the morning. 

The spacious balcony.

This is a huge hotel complex.

With luxurious rooms and villas in separate buildings.

Ground floor of our building.

Breakfast was served at the pool-side restaurant.

A wonderful cup of freshly ground and brewed coffee to start our day. What a nice start to a new beginning! Breakfast was plentiful with tons of choices. It was such a welcomed change from the night before. We can't stop but praise our Lord for His care over us!

Our rooms off the atrium.

Back to our rooms after breakfast.

We checked out of the hotel at around 11:45 to take the complimentary shuttle back to the airport at 12:00. Services at this hotel was exceptional! All the staff was helpful and courteous. When they noticed that their regular shuttle bus would not fit all of us plus our luggage, they changed to a bigger bus and even had an extra employee went along with the driver so he could help unload the luggage once we got to the airport. We gladly tipped them for their wonderful service.

Festive Christmas tree in the lobby.

I believe the escalator leads to the mall connected to the hotel.

As we drove away from the hotel we could see that it was actually part of a big mall called Global Center. It was so dark last night that we did not notice anything.

One impressive building!

Another interesting building nearby.

Safely back at the Shuangliu Airport in Chengdu as we waited to check-in for our flight to Tianjin. 

I believe this was a different terminal from the one that we were at the night before.

This was terminal 1, for domestic flights.

Tianjin, China

After flying for over three hours, we arrived at Tianjin Airport in the northeastern part of China. Tianjin is a major port city southeast of Beijing. We have been to many cities in China but this was our first visit to Tianjin. Mr. Yang, our wonderful guide on this part of our trip, was waiting for us as we came out of the airport where we also met our driver for the next few days. And there was a huge coach waiting, just for the 12 of us!

Both Mr. Yang and our driver came all the way from Beijing to pick us up in Tianjin and that was the reason we had a little problem finding the hotel for the night. We finally found our way and made it to the hotel safely. Now I have no recollection of the name of this hotel since we arrived in the dark and couldn't see any signs. Actually, all the lights were turned off both inside and outside of the hotel but we were able find our way to the rooms nevertheless.

Older but comfortable room.

We will have an early start tomorrow for our tour of Tianjin.