Tianjin day 1

So as of of Tuesday October 1st I was on Holiday for 12 days! Woohoo! Party time! This is because October 1st is National day and the start of Golden week, when basically all of China goes on Holiday.

The family headed to Huangzhou to visit the fathers family, whilst the grandparents went back to their hometown. On Monday night we went for Korean barbecue, which is a grill set into the table that you cook your own food on. Nothing complicated just strips of meat and vegetables. It's quite fun though.

We had squid at one point as well but that didn't really work in my opinion.

Helen asked me what my plans were for the week, I had booked what was apparently the last room in Tianjin over the weekend. Being an au pair I'm not exactly made of money so I had booked into a hostel, admittedly it had double bed and ensuite but still cheaper than a hotel. Helen was worried that I wasn't staying in a 4 or 5 star hotel, because apparently that's where foreigners must stay! This actually used to be a thing, where only one or two hotels in an area were allowed to house foreigners. Even to this day hotels must inform the police when foreigners check in. In Tier 1&2 cities it's more of a formality than anything, but I've heard that in some places hotels refuse to accept foreigners as they say its against the law. I also asked Helen whether I should book a train ticket because its the national holiday. She said there wasn't much point as it didn't change the price and trains went to Tianjin every 5/10 minutes. 

So along comes Wednesday, I leave about 11 as it takes an hour to get the station by the subway, and then a half hour journey to Tianjin. I'm thinking this is going to give me a good amount of time to get to the hostel, and I'll be able to visit a couple of places in the afternoon. What I really should have taken into account is that it's the day after National day, and a lot of people have come to Beijing to see the raising of the flag ceremony in Tiananmen square. As well as to visit their capital. There are lots of people with Chinese flags or face stickers. Most of them families with small children and/or old people. Most of these people aren't so good with navigating the subway system, and are even worse than their weekday counterparts when it comes to subway etiquette. I mean seriously people if you let us get off the train first then there will be space for you to get on!!!!

I thought the subway at rush hour was bad, but I was wrong, so wrong.

Unfortunately my train route takes me right past most of Beijings most popular attractions compounding the tourist/subway problem even more. I mean I actually got barged my a man carrying a baby in his arms. A BABY! As in a couple of months old kind of baby. Aren't you meant to be careful with those things?

Anyway I finally reached the train station by midday. I've never travelled by train in China before, and wasn't really prepared to tackle one of the self service machines. So I went up to the ticket office and in my best Chinese asked for a ticket to Tianjin, the guy said something fast and with a strong Beijing accent (slur your mandarin and randomly add -r to the end of most words). After I got him to repeat it he switched to English, very disheartening. There wasn't a ticket on a train until 16:20! That's a four and a half hour wait for a train that goes every ten minutes! I was a little taken aback but didn't exactly have all that much of a choice. So I said yes and had to show him my passport to buy the ticket. All very bizarre. So I went back into Beijing for the next 3 hours and bought myself some kids books to read. Before anyone else makes this joke, no not English ones, they are in Chinese!

I had to include this, it's from a book called learning English through English culture and is full of many humorous notes our stiff upper lip, our love of sports, our very particular sense of humour. Alongside notable books and films. Made for great reading though.

I got back to the station about 15:30 not wanting to miss my train. It's lucky I did as train travel here is more akin to airline travel than anything else. I went through 2 sets of security and had to wait by my gate! It was very bizarre. By this point in the day after being in a constant crowd and being barged past and stared at more than ever before I reached a stage of shell shock. Everything was a blur and I felt so trapped. I made it to my gate though. Eventually. However platforms 18&19 shared the same gate. So without thinking I joined the queue. By about 16:10 I was a little worried as no one was being let through. Then I saw a trickle of people pushing their way through the crowd and then running down to the platform. It turns out the mass of people were queuing for platform 18, from which a train left 20 minutes after mine. I didn't quite have time to make a scathing comment about the lack of queuing manners, or common sense when it came to organising transport, as I had to sprint to my train. Even if I did who would understand me? 

The train itself was one of those high speed ones and it was very comfortable with plenty of space. By this point I was exhausted of dealing with China, and wished the train was longer than half an hour. However we reached Tianjin and I bought both a map and my return ticket for 7 o'clock the next evening. I had definitely learnt my lesson. I remembered from google maps that I had to go straight out of the station and walk past 3 bridges before crossing the river, and my hostel was a couple of streets in. So I orientated my map and walked along the river bank. The sun was setting and I was starting to enjoy myself. I felt very soothed by the tranquil atmosphere. There were old men fishing, families walking along, people taking their dogs for a walk. All in all a really lovely place to be.

For some reason a lot of Western architecture survived the turmoils of the past century here. A lot was built in the first place as Tianjin is the closest Port to Beijing, making it a sensible base for businesses and families.

My only issue with the walk was when I saw an old guy in speedos climb out of the river, not the best view of my life. 

By the time I crossed the river the sun had pretty much set. My jaunt however had revitalised me and I was ready to get exploring! First though I had to find my hostel, it had been a hot day and I was feeling pretty grotty. I went up to some people handing out flyers, and asked them where Harbin street was. They didn't know but one of them checked on Baidu maps, they then tried to find it on my map; however this didn't have enough detail. They could point me in the general direction though. My heart sank. Where they were pointing was a 15 minute walk from the train station. My walk had just taken an hour... In the opposite direction... I later worked out that I had walked out of the South entrance, whilst Google maps had assumed I'd leave via the North. Great.

It was now dark, however I was determined to find this place without a taxi. The main thought was don't get mugged. So I stuck to brightly lit streets and tried as much as possible to look less like a tourist. Funnily enough I stick out like a sore thumb anyway, but combined with my map, dishevelled look, bulky rucksack and shoulder bag, I don't think I could have been anymore obviously a lost tourist. Eventually I found the street, and by some stroke of luck I saw the hostel.

I say stroke of luck because as you can see there is no sign, and in the dark this place was basically invisible. I checked in and headed up to my room. 

I was pleasantly surprised how nice it was. Very clean, and I was very glad that I had my own bathroom. As tired as I was I went for the big flop onto the bed, which resulted in me having a very sore shoulder, because the mattress was stone... Yay!

I headed to the bar, seeking a relaxing beer and to read the paper. After about 15 minutes I noticed this guy staring at me. I was the only western person there, and apparently more interesting than talking to his friends. Every time I looked around there he was, staring. It was incredibly disconcerting. When he took a picture of me - he didn't ask by the way, just went ahead and took a picture - I decided to go in search of food.

The major issue with Chinese food is it isn't ideal for solo dining. You can't just order a plate of meat, a plate of vegetables, and a plate of rice. That is insane. Normally I head to mall canteen and grab a bowl of noodles or something. However it was now 8, and the Chinese don't eat late. I found this food street. However it was mainly meat sticks or squid sticks, so I was still searching.

I ended up walking along a massive shopping street. It was really busy, and a load of places were still open. All with Holiday discounts, which confused me a bit until I realised that it was a holiday here, and that's why I was in Tianjin and not Beijing. I am so slow sometimes.

I saw this really cool building.

After walking for an hour I was on the verge of giving up and going to KFC, but the Hallelujah, I saw a Chinese fast food restaurant. Which in my head I decided was better than the western offerings. I ordered something with pork and rice, which turned out to be this.

It was pork in a super peppery gravy with overly salty vegetables. It was sustenance though, and what I needed. I meandered my way back through the side streets, watching all that was going on and in turn being watched. I really wanted to just chill in the bar but I thought creepy photo guy might be there. So I contemplated grabbing a 3¥ bottle from these mini shops they have on basically every street, but then I realised I had nothing to open it with and a trip to the Chinese dentist isn't on my list of things to do. If I did have to go I know what time to book for ;). When I reached the hostel sure enough creepy guy was there and everyone seemed pretty hammered. So I retired to my stone bed. How delightful.