Beijing's (not so little) brother - weekend trip to Tianjin

Tianjin was on my China bucket list. Not because it's famous for anything - but more because it's a big city that's really close to Beijing. It took me (and my beloved class mates) over 2 years to finally take that 35 minute train ride to Tianjin. We were in for a pleasant surprise.

Before I let the pictures (and the captions) do the talking, here are some facts about Tianjin:
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• Tianjin is located along the west coast of the Bahai Gulf from where you can see the provinces of Shandong and Liaoning
• The city is one of China's 4 municipalities that are directly under the central government. The other three are Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing.
• In terms of population, Tianjin is among China's 10 largest cities with almost 15 million inhabitants!
• During the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) a large number of  European-style buildings and mansions were constructed in concessions - and they are still one of the main tourist attractions of the city. The most famous concession is "Italian style town".
• Over the past two decades, Tainjin has become a hub of advanced industry and financial activity. 

Sources: Chinatoday.com, Wikipedia

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European symphony. Ready for departure!

Rebecca, Elisabete and Egle about to board the train.

View from our hotel room. Not bad at all. What you see is the Tianjin eye. We chose to stay at the Holiday Inn Riverside. Nice rooms but the executive lounge we decided to treat ourselves to was a bit of a joke :-)

It was a sunny but cold and windy Saturday. But that didn't stop these guys from a nice swim in the river.

Close your eyes and pretend you're in Italy...

Our night out started at the legendary Astor hotel.

Followed by a visit to a rather "interesting" live music venue

Enjoying some Sunday morning sunshine at the Dabei temple

...followed by a very pleasant river cruise before we had to head back to the station and catch our train to Beijing.