1 - Tianjin

August 1, 2008:

So we arrived last night in Tianjin, via long distance bus from Beijing International Airport (equivalent to a 2 hour GO bus ride), which ended up bring surprisingly smooth. As a result, Joanna and I managed to grab an hour of sleep on the bus and remain awake for dinner, upon our arrival in Tianjin it self.

However, I was so hungry, I got to eating before I inquired as to what it was I was eating

The cab ride from the bus stop to the condo was harrowing, to say the least; two things became apparent: cars don't watch for pedestrians here, and the pedestrians don't seem to care.

Dinner consisted of a number of traditional Chinese food, most of which was very tasty. Thanks to Joanna's mother for that! However, I was so hungry, I got to eating before I inquired as to what it was I was eating and I now know what Spicy Chicken Neck pieces taste like...

A bit crunchy, but not that bad over all.

More to come later!

August 2, 2008:

We woke up at around 5am and we noticed that the road below our condo had been closed and hundreds of people in white T-shirts were walking along the street towards the same direction. To our delight, we realized that the Olympic torch relay was passing through Tianjin and it was only a few blocks away from our condo. Matt, my brother Davy and I walked towards the relay hoping to catch a glimpse of the event. It was only 8 in the morning but it already felt like 30 degrees (By the way, there is blue sky in China!!!!). We walked for about 30 minutes and found ourselves surrounded by beautiful European architecture left behind from the European concessions in the area. At times, I felt like I was back in North America or even some parts of Europe...until we realized that the locals were staring curiously at Matthew at any given moment. One girl even asked Matthew if she can take a picture with him!

Unfortunately, we were unable to get anywhere near to the relay. Road blocks were set up at least 2 blocks away from the relay with hundreds of volunteers (mostly highschool students) in white T-shirts lining the route. Everywhere police were telling people that they can't enter and to go try somewhere else. The thing was...the police here never tell you straight up that you can't see the relay, period. They only tell you to try somewhere else and MAYBE you'll get to watch the relay. So we walked for at least 2 hours, yet all we could see was the tip of flags and lots of police officers. During this walk, we met a girl from Holland named Ann; she lived in Tianjin for the past year working as an English teacher. Ann shared her experience living and working in China with us and the locals seemed to be even more intrigued by the sight of two white people communicating with each other! LOL.

In the end, we weren't able to get close the relay. All the audience members or bystanders were preselected to ensure order and safety. However, we had a blast exploring the city and we also got to meet some very nice people along the way...and some cold beer on a hot summer day for Matthew for about $0.30!!!

Stay tuned!

August 3, 2008:

So once again Joanna and I found ourselves awake early, still adjusting to the 12 hour time difference of course; however, waking up at 5am every morning does have its advantages, such as street-food breakfast. Once we got down stairs, Joanna guided me through alleyways and side streets until we reached a busy street lined with food vendors with their carts. I was then introduced to a chinese omelette: a crepe made of eggs, wrapped around a piece of fried dough, and covered in a spicy sauce. At first, I thought I might not like this authentic local breakfast treat, yet I was delighted to discover that it was actually quite tasty, resembling a western omelette in flavour with an asian spiciness. We also picked up some fried dough sticks and soy milk. After we grabbed all our food, we took it back to the condo, ate in relative peace (there's a busy intersection below our condo), and prepared for the rest of our day.

After breakfast we set out to find a catholic church that Joanna's grandmother worked in when Joanna was a child living in Tianjin, and after about a 20 minute walk, we arrived at Xikai (St. Joseph) Catholic Cathedral. The Cathedral, built in 1917, looked out of place lying between a modern mall and towering skyscrapers, yet its concession era architecture was stunning both inside and out. It was nice to take a moment to rest inside, as it we found it very quiet and calm within the cathedral itself. Joanna and I, throughly rejuvenated in both body and spirit, wandered south of St. Joseph's in search of lunch.

We happened upon another side street of food vendors and choose a eggplant and lotus root wrap; I was once again pleasantly surprised as to the taste of chinese street food, as I enjoyed the wrap very much (odd since I've never really liked eggplant at all).  After we had eaten, we wandered further down the side streets and back alleys of Tianjin, where we happened upon a grand variation of animal, food, and souvenir vendors. One was selling puppies that fit in the palm of Joanna's hand (two months old, said the seller), for as low as 40 yuan!

Joanna then called her friend from Canada, Jane, who she grew up with in Tianjin. Joanna informed me that Jane had been working for the summer in China, was now on a month long vacation in Tianjin, and was willing to show us around the city a bit. Jane showed us a mall that sold things at "local prices," as opposed to other malls in the area that sold goods at prices equivalent to those you would find at the Eaton Center (not what a flew halfway around the planet for)! After a bit of bargain hunting, we remembered that we had set a time for dinner with Joanna's parents, my hosts, and that we had to run.

Dinner was traditional street style, once again, except this time we actually ate it on the street! The vendor, who made us absolutely succulent spicy lamb kebabs, set us up a little table with stools right in the alley way where he had his cart set up; my parents would be appalled at me eating in a filthy alleyway, but "When in Rome!" Might I also quickly add, that regardless of where it was eaten, the bbq'd lamb skewers I ate in that alley were the best I've ever had, period.

Hope you're all keeping up, more to come later!

August 4, 2008

The weather today was just plain miserable. We headed outside with water and sunscreen, yet nothing could help us from the sun other than air conditioning. Our first stop of the day was Tianjin Station (similar to Union Station) to look up train schedules and prices. The place had been closed for the past two years for renovation and had recently reopened for the Olympics. I believe everyone's first reaction upon entering the station was "OMG, it's HUGE". Their second reaction would be "OMG, the workers here don't know anything about their job". Beautiful interior design and modern technology made the place no less inferior to any other major train stations in the world. However, we did experience some difficulties finding train schedules. I asked the help desk for a schedule booklet and he told me that I had to pay for it. So I went to another help desk and got it for free. It turned out that depending on your destination, you had to buy tickets from different ticket booth (located at opposite ends and different floors), and there is no indication of price anywhere noticeable in the station. Information desk workers didn't know the price either so they told me that I would know how much it is when I buy it. If that is not "helpful", I over heard another customer asking where the arrivals/pick up area is located, and the exact response was "go find another information desk". Eventually, we found all the information we needed to get to Beijing, but we had to go to Tianjin West Station to get information for Qingdao and Shanghai. Yes, there are multiple train stations in Tianjin, 3 to be exact. Once we got to Tianjin West, we found out that train tickets here don't go on sale until the day before your departure date (not what we were told online). This means that we couldn't pre-order our tickets ahead of time. If you are getting the image of hundreds of people lining outside the train station early in the morning hoping to buy tickets and getting pushed onto the train due to overcapacity...you've got the right idea! Tianjin West is much smaller than Tianjin's main station and extremely crowded (did I mention no air conditioning), but I guess it's more realistic in terms of what the local people might experience.

After giving up on buying train tickets in advance, we spotted a subway station right outside Tianjin West and decided to give public transit a try. The price to ride the subway differs (2 to 5 Yuan) depending on how far you are going. We received a plastic token after paying that we had to scan over a sensor in order to pass the turnstile. Once we got off the subway, we had to return our tokens in order to get out of the station. The subway was brand new and there was announcements at every stop in both Chinese and English. It's clearly ready for the Olympics!!

We then met up with my parents at the apartment to go out for dinner and decided on hot pot! Hot pot is a authentic Chinese dining experience composed of a pot of hot water in which you throw all different kinds of meat and veggies! We had lamp, shrimp, fish balls, tofu, mushrooms, lots of vegetables and sesame sauce as the dip. The idea of hot pot is to bring everybody together at the dinner table, cook at your own pace, share your food with others, but most importantly, to bond and get to know each other better. Food is an important part of Chinese culture and according to Matthew, he hasn't eaten anything he doesn't like yet.

August 7, 2008:

So today we planned on taking Davy (Joanna's little brother) to a local amusement park. However, after breakfast, Joanna's father suggested that he should take us to the weekly street market in order to help us shop (local goods sellers tend to run up prices and hawk fake products when dealing with unaccompanied foreigners).