Summer Break in China - Day 6

 

June 18th, 2024

Today we must board the train to go to Tianjin. The express trains are great in China. They are frequent, they are fast, and they are convenient. Just make sure when you buy tickets, you pay attention to which station you are getting on and getting off at. There are at least 3 stations in Tianjin (even more for Beijing), and they are not close to one another. The closest station to our destination is Tianjin South Unfortunately, they don't translate the word for south, so the English sign says Tianjinnan (Nan means south). Our tickets were from Beijingnan (Beijing South) to Tianjinnan (Tianjin South).

We had to say goodbye this morning to our beloved homestay hotel and had breakfast in the village. 

Entrance to our homestay hotel

At the train station, there are station signs that have English on them, but the big screen doesn't have any English at all.

Big screen of train schedules

You can probably get by by simply looking at the train number in the first column and match that with departing time in the third column, in case of any change of schedule. The train number is printed on your ticket so that's pretty easy. Chinese locals use their ID to board the train - they have completely gone paperless. It's actually kind of shocking how UNforeigner friendly a major train station in Beijing is. At the very least, I expected dual language on all displays.

Once you are on the platform, the English translation for the station name changes and actually uses the word "South" instead of "Nan". Which is kind of funny since you practically have to have learned the word Nan by now to make it this far. Once you are on the train, English is a lot more available. The displays and announcements are in both languages.

Arrived in Tianjin South

We are in Tianjin because this is my mom's home. Technically in a suburb of Tianjin called Jinghai. We arrived at my mom's condo and enjoyed a scrumptious lunch.

Ava sprawling on my mom's couch

Jinghai is in the outskirts of Tianjin, where life is much slower. There are still lots of shops and restaurants here, but it's certainly nothing like a big city. One of the MUST-DOs when you visit China is to have a meal of Peking Duck. In Jinghai, the best Peking Duck restaurant is the Linggui Roast Duck restaurant. 

Linggui Roast Duck Restaurant

This Peking Duck restaurant uses a unique spin on the traditional roast duck by roasting the duck in sweet osmanthus flowers, giving it a sweet aroma. 

The duck was carved in front of us, as it should be. 

Duck carved!

Here's something really awesome about China - doesn't matter where you are, you can order food delivery. Doesn't matter if you are in a private room in a restaurant, or whatever room in a hotel, or an office desk in a high rise. You give them your room number, and in a few minutes, it'll appear in front your eyes. All the kids got to order their smoothie/bubble tea of choice from a phone app (much like Uber Eats) from a nearby coffeeshop and it was delivered to our private room inside Linggui Roast Duck restaurant! We did this many times during our tour of China.

Delivered smoothie

Our next 4 nights will be spent at the nearby Mango Hotel. This hotel just opened its doors in 2023, so everything was quite new. The rooms are spacious and the bathrooms are fancy. This was a wonderful place to stay. 

Our room at the Mango Hotel