Tianjin – Page 13 – Turners Abroad

China

From Winky to China: Day 7

July 14, 2014July 14, 2014by turners0730Leave a Comment

We had a leisurely start to the day as Mr T popped over to school for his weekly football match (6 goals in 3 games by the way). We gave Sarah the Wellington tour and I was reminded what a mess I left my classroom! I’m sure next week I will be ready to get back in and get organised.

Next up was a bit of pampering with pedicures for Sarah and I.

And the main event for the day was visiting Drum Tower to watch a traditional Beijing Opera. It was a bargain for only 40 RMB ($6.44/£3.76). It was my second visit and I found it just as enchanting as the first time. We had no idea what was going on but enjoyed it anyways. The venue itself was quite a surprise as we walked into a stone building to find a massive room with the walls and ceilings covered with intricate woodwork, and the seats were tables surrounded by chairs. A lovely pot of jasmine tea, and robust crowd of older Chinese, which I can only assume are weekly regulars to the show. Both the music and singing are quite different than anything I have experienced but very interesting and some would say a bit hypnotic. It surely won’t be my last visit to the opera.

A quick visit to Joy City to get a few items for a packed lunch for tomorrows Great Wall excursion and off to the St Regis for a buffet dinner. As always we received a warm welcome from the staff and the food was delicious. We ended the meal with a glass of wine out on the terrace enjoying the beautiful blue sky and sunset by the river.

One last stop to collect some dry cleaning and we stopped in our local tea house. We managed to get some of the delicious teas we tried whilst in Beijing for a fraction of the cost. Early to bed today, as it is a 3 am wake up to watch the World Cup final.

-Mrs T

My classroom (pardon the mess!)

Year 1 Osprey

The Nest Playground

Year 5

Wellington Theatre

Beijing Opera

Enjoying the opera

Beijing Opera

Beijing Opera – the venue

Beijing Opera

Tianjin Drum Tower

A beautiful day with air quality of Excellent!

St Regis

The Terrace at St Regis

The Tianjin Eye

Gorgeous full moon greeting us as we arrived home

China

From Winky to China: Day 6

July 13, 2014by turners0730Leave a Comment

Today took an unexpected turn, when at 9:32 we arrived at Tianjin West Train station for a train we thought was departing at 9:45. Now this was pushing it a bit, but we didn’t think much of it, in our minds we were still ‘on time.’ It turned out that the 9:45 on our ticket was for Tianjin South! I had bought the ticket at Tianjin West and had taken the train from there a few weeks earlier so I expected the same. Only in the moment when a kind English speaker translated what the information desk had explained did I remember the last time I took this journey the train departed ‘early’ which we found quite odd.

So we were at the station all set for a trip to the Great Wall faced with the prospect of having to try to negotiate in a foreign language to get them to change all of our tickets to another day! This was not how I had intended on spending my Saturday morning. After a lot of queue hopping and Google translate we were able to get the same tickets for Monday, and with no additional fees!

A disappointing start, but a bit of relief as we were all exhausted after two very busy days. Instead we spent the day relaxing and packing. We put some of our favourite movies on (A Place Beyond the Pines and Bad Words) and got to work. We made a good start but still have a bit of work to do.

We did venture out in the evening, to Kitchen Igosso for dinner. It was delicious as usual and we followed this with a walk along Nanjing Lu, to the Tangla hotel. We stopped in there to visit China Blue, a cocktail lounge on the 49th floor with stunning views of the city.

What started as a bit of a disaster turned into a highly productive, peaceful and enjoyable day.

-Mrs T

Tianjin West Train Station

Our favourite pizza, The Bismark (asparagus, prosciutto, and egg)

Bleu cheese gnocchi

Little pig we passed on the street

Nanjing Lu

Black Swan Bakery, this cake costs 1,999,999 RMB ($322,408/£188,317)!

The Tangla Hotel

Views from the 49th floor

Live jazz on stage

Nanjing Lu

China

From Winky to China: Day 4

July 12, 2014July 12, 2014by turners0730Leave a Comment

Today we were back up to Beijing for two days of adventure. Our first stop was the 798 Art district. Although it took us over an hour to drive 10 miles to get there, it was one of our nicest days of sightseeing. 798 is already one of our favourite parts of Beijing, this visit we were able to see a bit more and found a delicious Japanese restaurant for lunch.

We took a short rest in our hotel and were out for our first meal of Peking Duck. We dined at Duck de Chine and were overwhelmingly impressed. The atmosphere and the service were top notch and of course the duck, was fantastic. They carved the duck tableside and along with a delicious lemon chicken dish and a few others, we were pleasantly full. We even tried the complementary red bean ice, it is a traditional Chinese pudding that we have seen on menus many times but never have been brave enough to try. It tasted good, just a bit strange on our Western palate to be eating beans for desert.

After dinner we were off to Sanlitun to visit one of our favourite cocktail bars Janes and Hooch. We were just out of the taxi when Mr T’s trusty Havaiana decided to break! We thought, ‘lucky for us, we are directly across from YaShow!’ Unfortunately it had closed just a short ten minutes before. He was forced to buy a pair of flip flops off the street (that were too small!), for more money than they were worth, and then after some convincing got some trainers from the Puma shop. An unexpected part of our evening but something I am sure we will laugh about for a long time. As always the drinks and atmosphere at Janes and Hooch was great but we kept it to one drink as we had an early start and a long day ahead of us on Friday.

-Mrs T