Tianjin - Day 1 (5/25/09)
I am so excited to be here in Tianjin, and to meet the various professors and students. The bullet train we took from Beijing to Tianjin was probably the fastest land based transportation that I have used. We don't have anything like it in the United States that I know of, we do have some light rail but nothing that approaches the speed of these Chinese bullet trains. It felt like we were in an aeroplane but on the ground at the same time. The scenery flew by so quickly I couldn't believe it. I took a nearly 10 minute video of the train ride which turned out quite well, showing the impressive speed that these trains reach (330 kph / ~210 mph). Of course we do have things that can reach this speed in the United States but they're either aeroplanes or professional race cars, nothing else that I can think of that exists in the United States reaches speeds this high. I can't wait until tomorrow when we meet our first professor and our fellow Chinese Nankai University students.