More of Tianjin

Repeating Tianjin’s Italian concession

I headed out about 0730 to revisit some of the Italian buildings that we drove past last night.  From my windowless room, I didn’t realise it was drizzling until I stepped out from the hotel. But it didn’t deter me.

After crossing the river, I saw a building which I thought belonged more in old Jakarta rather than Tianjin.  As the Dutch didn’t have a concession here, I’m guessing it is of Belgian (Flemish) design.

I got to my Italian buildings and these two were fairly authentic and well-preserved, rather than over-restored or ruined through commercial use.

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Drum Tower & more

Back around 0815, I had some cereal before D and I headed out again.  I wanted to pay a token visit to the Drum Tower and it was very “meh” after the ones in Beijing and Xian.

From here, we took a car to a park which had a nice lotus pond.  We then walked to the Tianjin Eye ferris wheel.  We finished up at a historic academy that’s been converted into a lovely courtyard café, where we called a car to take us back to the hotel.

We checked out and took another car to a vegetarian restaurant for lunch at midday.  The food here was an art form, as in the case with Chinese vegetarian.  The fake salmon looked so real, as did the gratinated eel.

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Returning to Beijing

After lunch, we took a car back to the hotel to collect D’s luggage, then take another car to the railway station.

We booked our train tickets en route.  Due to restrictions on the railway official app in English, I couldn’t add D (Chinese passport) to my list of passengers.  Conversely, he couldn’t add me (foreigner) to his Chinese language version of the app.

We got to the station platform a couple of minutes before boarding commenced for the 1339 departure.  The ride took only about 35 mins but it was about an hour more before we got back to the Baiman Hotel by metro.

I settled into my room and did my load of washing in the machine in my room; what a luxury.

We headed out for dinner around 1930.  D wanted to do something special but I just wanted to eat and get it over and done with.  I went along to a place that specialised in a kind of freshwater prawn with big head, resembling a mini lobster.

One chucks the head and the claws, then peels the tiny body to yield something smaller than a prawn.  It was expensive for the yield that one gets.  But it was something I had been curious about.  The beer and side dishes were nice.

The beer would have been God-sent a few days ago in the extreme heat.  Tonight, the weather was heavenly warm and dry with a light breeze.

D continued with his evening at a live music venue but I returned by car to prepare for departure tomorrow morning.

Our freshwater prawn dinner.