Last day in Beijing turned out to be a short but enjoyable one. First we took a tour of the Temple of Heaven, ate lunch and hopped on a bullet train to Tianjin. I was really impressed by the massive train station on Beijing, it was bigger than most airports. The train station also turned out to be the worst part of the day as it was very very uncomfortably hot and we had to wait around 45min to just board the train. The train ride was very smooth and short, we traveled at 335km/h making the journey to Tianjin a short 25 minute ride. Arriving in Tianjin was also less than desirable as the train station was incredibly crowded and the bus we took to the hotel was much smaller than the one in Beijing, so we had to store half our luggage in seats on the bus making for a very uncomfortable bus ride to the hotel.
My first impression of Tianjin is a bit mixed at this point. The city seems to be more spacious and spread out compared to Beijing, but at the same time is much more dirty. We finally checked into the hotel and quickly thereafter headed down to a very unique restaurant where we were received by some of the staff of Nankai University. The meal was great, they kept bringing more and more different kinds of food (mostly meat) and even served us beer that came in a long plastic tube.
I look forward to our first day of class tomorrow meeting all of the Chinese students. I've been fighting a bug of some-sort for the past few days that has been making things a bit difficult but have hopes that it will soon pass.
My first impression of Tianjin is a bit mixed at this point. The city seems to be more spacious and spread out compared to Beijing, but at the same time is much more dirty. We finally checked into the hotel and quickly thereafter headed down to a very unique restaurant where we were received by some of the staff of Nankai University. The meal was great, they kept bringing more and more different kinds of food (mostly meat) and even served us beer that came in a long plastic tube.
I look forward to our first day of class tomorrow meeting all of the Chinese students. I've been fighting a bug of some-sort for the past few days that has been making things a bit difficult but have hopes that it will soon pass.
