The bath house where I stayed at.

Roads in Tianjin were harder to navigate because it’s not that straight and a little windy. It doesn’t help that I lost my compass yesterday.

Tianjin Station

Long line to get a ticket in the train station

Not many tickets left

Sometimes it’s easier to buy train ticket for the next day then getting ticket for the next few days because smaller station on the way will give back tickets to the ShiFaZhan (Main departure station of the train) if the tickets are not sold. Plus, people tried to change their trip last minute and there are tickets refund.

View of Tianjin

Big clock

Tianjin has some western influence since it’s an old port city and was always invaded first.

Some erotic sculptures along the river

Big Christmas tree still standing

Fishing on the river

Mahua, Tianjin famous

Shopping Street

Church

There is a subway line connecting from the northwest part of Tianjn to the southeast part of the city. Took the train to NanLou and walked to the Tianjin museum. So far all the provincial museums I visited in China was great. The contents in all the museums I visited were informative, every museum architecture is unique and entrance is free.

Tianjin Museum

Tianjin has some very interesting history. Because Tianjin is a port city, every time during a foreign invasion, Tianjin was targeted first.
Tianjin was the main import point for Opium by the British and was attacked by the British in Opium war I and II. China was forced to sign the Treaty of Tianjin after Opium War II and Tianjin port was opened to foreigners and Opium is legalized.

After traveling around, I noticed that the British Empire directly or indirectly did many harms to countries around world.

Atrocities by foreigners done against the Tianjin people

Tianjin was divided into multiple concessions by the British, Austria-Hungary, US, Japanese…

During the beginning of 20th century, Tianjin has foreigners from multiple countries. The eight nation alliance invaded China in July 1990.

2 Cornell Alumnis

NanKai University. I had a friend who studied mathematics there and mentioned that it’s a good university, so just check it out.

Had dinner with LiuFeng at Tianjin Finance University and took bus 676 to the train station.
Back to the train station

Took the 1471 train at 11.18pm to Harbin.

Met up with ShuLan for lunch today. It’s kind of weird that we met up in Beijing because I didn’t even know he was visiting Beijing until I sent him a random email. Like many Chinese that furthered their studies in the US, Shulan hasn’t been back to China for 12 years and this time he is bringing his 3 year old daughter to see their family.

Lunch on Shulan since he is getting his fat bonus soon. As an expert in US mortgage market, he mentioned that ABS market last year was even better than 2007, seems like the US economy is improving.

ShuLan’s daughter. She wasn’t even born while we were in graduate school, how time flies.

Somehow I lost my Bank of China ATM card which I just opened few days before. It’s quite bureaucratic in China where I had to go back to the same branch to close my account. I had to look for the same branch because I was planning to leave Beijing the same day. Since I lost my ATM card, I wasn’t able to withdraw any money so I had to open another account in order to transfer all my money to the new account and withdraw from the new account. My old account was still left hanging because it will take 7 days to report my lost ATM card and after 7 days I will need to go back in person to the same branch to close it.

Sometimes, things in China look nice from the outside by inside, it’s not what it really is.

Went to the Beijing south train station and took the 6.25pm bullet train to Tianjin (58 Yuan~USD$8.50). The south train station looks pretty new.

The design of Beijing South Station

The bullet train will only take 30 minutes to Tianjin traveling on a speed of 300km/h.

Beijing is huge, even after 5 days I still wasn’t able to cover many parts of the city.

Got to Tianjin station at 6.55pm. Tried to find a youth hostel and took bus 5 from Tianjin tran station to the north part of the city. Missed the stop and decided to stay somewhere else since the place is quite far off from the city. Most small hotels around the train station don’t accept foreigners as well.

Took bus 50 to BinJiang Dao and met up with Liu Feng and Li Jian for dinner. Li Jian treated me for SiChuan food.

Went back to the train station and got a ticket to Harbin for the next day (140 Yuan~USD$20 for hard seat). It’s hard to get ticket currently because most Universities are having vacation.

Walked around and decided to stay at a XiYuZhongXin, bath house. (38 Yuan~USD$6). The place was pretty nice and clean, inside looked just like a 3 stars hotel. There’s a hot pool, sauna and they even gave out towels and pajamas as well. I slept pretty well in the big room.