Since it was Sunday, I slept in until 2 pm. The majority of the group went to KTV, which is a karaoke lounge. I didn't really have much planned for the day; I needed to find a working ATM because I was out of cash, and after that maybe delve into The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo for the rest of the day. When I finally made it down to the lobby, I found Alex and he was hanging out with two Chinese girls. One of them was named Janessa, whom Alex met on the train from Beijing to Tianjin. Her best friend Mary was also with them. Alex invited me to join them for the day. The plan was to go to the Waterpark in Tianjin and then ride on the Tianjin Eye. Since I hadn't really accomplished anything so far into the day, I was pretty excited to actually do something. I quickly grabbed some cash from the ATM, and we convinced Tyler to come with us. We were all geared up for the day's adventure, there was only one "problem:" both of the girls hardly spoke any English.
Alex had been communicating with Janessa using a translator on his iPad and some of the basic words we know. I thought this was going to be an issue throughout the day, but it actually made it one of the more interesting and fun days in my life. Both Janessa and Mary were really nice, and they were pretty patient with our lack of Chinese vocabulary. It was fun trying to communicate and enjoy the day without having to explain everything, because we really couldn't. We just enjoyed the day and our surroundings, and sort of forgot about our lack of "communication." Although, through the day we could all tell that their English was improving by just hanging out with us.
We made it to the Waterpark by taking two different buses. The Waterpark was awesome. It's not really a "waterpark" by American standards, but more of a park with cool fountains and sculptures. There are some theme park like rides, but we didn't visit that part of the park. After the Waterpark, we took another bus to ride the Tianjin Eye, which is a huge ferris wheel. Before we went to the Eye we had dinner at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. The food was great and the portions were enormous. By the time we made to the Eye it was closed, which was initially disappointing. We actually found some of the other people in our group at the Eye. We walked around a little bit, and by the time we got back to the river it had turned into a pseudo-carnival. We all played some games, won some prizes, and then left. Before we parted ways we made plans to come back and actually ride the Tianjin Eye, and maybe do something else. It was a great day.
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