A Stop Over at Tianjin

To recap for the year of 2009, I would put the trip to China in May 09 is the most memorable one with lots of amazing moments. The 3 of us planned our trip way back in Mar 09 with a couple of coffee breaks in Hainam Kopitam. It is definitely an advantage to have Wong as the lead for the entire trip as he had worked in China with some travel experience in this country.

There were some preparation activities prior to the trip such as China visa application (the visa duration of 30 days is good enough for us), purchase of travel insurance (recommended for some peace of mind). As a precaution, I also took the vaccination for protection against influenza, hepatitis A & B.

We avoided the trip in early May 09 as the labour day week is traditionally a peak travel season for the people in China (the other peak seasons are the Chinese New Year in Jan-Feb and the National Day in early Oct). We commenced the trip on 12th May as the airfare was cheaper on the weekday. We visited a total of 6 cities in the duration of 18 days. We planned the trip from north to south and Tianjin was the first destination.

Tianjin (天津)
This is the city nearest to Beijing which in within our budget airline’s (AirAsia) direct flight routes. We took the morning flight at 08:30 and landed on the Tianjin Binhai International Airport (滨海国际机场) at 2:30pm. It took slightly longer time to check-out due to the tightened HINI clearance and body temperature check in batches.

We did not book the hotel room in advance. We boarded into a taxi and it took us some time to locate a hotel which is opened to foreigners. It’s kind of new experience to me as we do not have similar practice in Malaysia and elsewhere to check on whether the hotel is restricted to locals only or opened to foreigners as well.

As it was meant to be our stop over to Beijing, we did not plan many activities here and most of the time we were wandering in the famous Ancient Culture Street (古文化街)and the Nanshi Food Street (南市食品街).

Ancient Culture Street

Photo taken in the Ancient Culture Street

Nanshi Food Street

We had the dinner in the Gou Bu Li (狗不理) Restaurant. We ordered the renowned Gou Bu Li buns and the steamed fish. I did not quite enjoyed the steamed fish served as there were just too many tiny bones to be alerted of.

Photo Taken outside the Gou Bu Li restaurant

On the next day, we took the bullet train from Tianjin to Beijing South station. The train travelled in gradual speed to the maximum 350km/h and reached Beijing in the 30 minutes. The high-speed railway was opened ahead of the schedule for the Beijing Olympic Games. With its amazing lightning speed, it is therefore not surprising at all that it has now become a popular transportation for Beijing & Tianjin weekend inter-city travellers.