Tianjin

We took a bullet train to Tianjin. I reserved a hotel in Tianjin and had no idea that it was 2 hours from the train station in Tianjin. It cost us an $80 taxi ride to get to our hotel. Our hotel was nice but was on the northern part of Tianjin. We really wanted to see the Central Park of Tianjin with a giant Ferris wheel and ancient buildings and shops. It cost us another $40 to get to central Tianjin from our hotel. We had a lot of fun on Nanshi food street, The Tietsin Eye, and ancient cultural street.

Tianjin Eye, also called "The Tientsin Eye" is electrically powered and has 48 passenger capsules, each able to carry 8 passengers, and takes 30 minutes to complete a rotation, giving a maximum capacity of 768 passengers per hour. It is a 120-metre (394 ft) tall giant Ferris wheel built above the Yongle Bridge (formerly Chihai Bridge), over the Hai River in Tianjin, China.

We saw a Chinese man trying to catch birds to eat and many people selling fish on the street. We rode a bike. I am getting braver, navigating around cars.

We stayed at the other side of Tianjin for the second day and decided to take a taxi back home to Beijing. We had a good rest and ate breakfast at the hotel. Carly is obsessed with eggs, now that she got over her allergies.

No one speaks English so Carly and I helped each other. We walked to the cultural market and a lady came up and kissed Carly's head. Carly's face was priceless! We then walked to Jizhou Confucian temple where there was a big bell and drum and we learned a little about Confucius.

We then took a taxi to the cave. Jizhou Karst Cave was developed from dolomite formation. We bought tickets and had to wait for the tour. There were a lot of Chinese ladies selling fruit and nuts. They were delicious! The cave was huge! It is 1200 meters and took us to the top of a mountain. A lady asked Carly to take a picture with her daughter and her daughter gave Carly a gift. When we reached the top, there was a 400m long slide to go back down. The cave was discovered 1.2 billion years ago.

Tianjin is the largest coastal city in northern China. This is also where a lot of people come to ski and snowboard. Even though I cost myself an extra $200 because of my lack of research on the hotel location, I still feel proud that I got us through another new city safely and unharmed.

Here is a map of where we are and plan to go in China. We live in Beijing. We have went to Xi'an. We have now went to Tianjin. Next weekend, we will be in Nanjing. The following weekend, we go to Shanghai (South of Shandong)