14th to 15th of August 2010
My second escape from Beijing after the Beidahe Resort. As I was dating a Chinese girl this kind of trips were easy to organize ... well she was organizing everything and I was just following :).
Why Tianjin? It is a big and historically important city. It is currently the port city of Beijing with 11 million inhabitants and it is 130km away or only 30 min by fast train.
We left on Saturday morning and went to the South Train Station ... well here again i was impressed by the size of the station, by its modernity but also by the fast speed trains... it was the first time I was about to use them and they were making me think about those Japanese trains that I used to read about in the encyclopedia.
The trip was quite fast... 30 min later we were in the city of Tianjin. The weather was really hot but it doesn't stopped us going out to visit. The city used to be separated into different districts and was famous about the opium wars.
We went to the Italian district... Wow ... it was such as we have changed a country in 5 min. The architecture of the houses and the fountains were looking just like Italy. Really pretty place!
We came back to the downtown where a Catholic Cathedral has been left from the European occupation. Quite a big one and it was standing there in the middle of the square. I remembered that we have been looking for a church with Maxime in Beijing, but we couldn't find it. I have always considered that it might be because it the communist ideas about separating the religion from the people (and especially from what I have heard about the communist era in Bulgaria)... well, I was wrong. As soon as we got in the cathedral there were fidels praying and singing, and there were not any police officiers trying to stop people getting in...
The 15th of August, we met a mate I have met in the Bulgarian embassy and who was leaving in Tianjin: Rado. We met in front of the cathedral as it is easy to recognize...
Funny part, when my ex called him on the phone she thought that he is Chinese... I am always impressed about those people being able to speak a language after several years of hard working and studying as good as it was their mother tongue...
It was good to speak some Bulgarian with him. After a small walk and a lunch he showed us the Big Wheel which was having its basics on the both side of the river. Really impressive ! We went for a tour and had an amazing view over the city.
We finished the day by going to an old market from where I bought a lot of souvenirs and especially a small red bracelet for 10 yuans (1€=10 yuans at this moment) which I am still wearing and which is clearly showing that high price is not always a sign of quality.
In the late afternoon we came back to Beijing. It was really a nice escape from Beijing.
Why Tianjin? It is a big and historically important city. It is currently the port city of Beijing with 11 million inhabitants and it is 130km away or only 30 min by fast train.
We left on Saturday morning and went to the South Train Station ... well here again i was impressed by the size of the station, by its modernity but also by the fast speed trains... it was the first time I was about to use them and they were making me think about those Japanese trains that I used to read about in the encyclopedia.
The trip was quite fast... 30 min later we were in the city of Tianjin. The weather was really hot but it doesn't stopped us going out to visit. The city used to be separated into different districts and was famous about the opium wars.
We went to the Italian district... Wow ... it was such as we have changed a country in 5 min. The architecture of the houses and the fountains were looking just like Italy. Really pretty place!
We came back to the downtown where a Catholic Cathedral has been left from the European occupation. Quite a big one and it was standing there in the middle of the square. I remembered that we have been looking for a church with Maxime in Beijing, but we couldn't find it. I have always considered that it might be because it the communist ideas about separating the religion from the people (and especially from what I have heard about the communist era in Bulgaria)... well, I was wrong. As soon as we got in the cathedral there were fidels praying and singing, and there were not any police officiers trying to stop people getting in...
The 15th of August, we met a mate I have met in the Bulgarian embassy and who was leaving in Tianjin: Rado. We met in front of the cathedral as it is easy to recognize...
Funny part, when my ex called him on the phone she thought that he is Chinese... I am always impressed about those people being able to speak a language after several years of hard working and studying as good as it was their mother tongue...
It was good to speak some Bulgarian with him. After a small walk and a lunch he showed us the Big Wheel which was having its basics on the both side of the river. Really impressive ! We went for a tour and had an amazing view over the city.
We finished the day by going to an old market from where I bought a lot of souvenirs and especially a small red bracelet for 10 yuans (1€=10 yuans at this moment) which I am still wearing and which is clearly showing that high price is not always a sign of quality.
In the late afternoon we came back to Beijing. It was really a nice escape from Beijing.
