Tianjin – Day 14 and 15

Tianjin is Hebei’s former capital and is known as the Shenghai of the North. It’s a very interesting modern city, which will take us 2 days to explore.

Day 1 – Boat tour along the Hei River

The Hei River runs through Tianjin, and I think that to start with a river cruise and seeing the city’s skyline is a great way of getting a feel of the city.

I’ve been checking around and from what I found, Hai River ferry tours start out from Tianjin Railway Station, the entire tour takes around 1 hour.

There are 3 wharfs where visitors can opt to purchase tickets and board the tour ferries, the Tianjin Railway wharf, Wenhua Street wharf and Dabei Temple wharf, everyday from 09:00 -21:00, and they start out on the hour every hour.

Visitors are able to see the different attractions lining the riverbank and can opt to go out on the docks to look and shop at the various specialty and souvenir shops. Visitors need not pay extra for return trips, they can catch return ferries just by showing the driver their ticket stubs.

After the boat ride, returning to Tianjin Railway Station (Point A), we’ll walk on Haihe East Rd and cross The Ligonglou Bridge. We’ll turn left on Jiefang Bei St and walk until we reach the Astor Hotel (Point B).

Jiefang Bei St has many of Tianjin’s colonial structures from the French and British era.

After reaching the Astor Hotel, take a right on to Tai’an Rd until you reach the big Nanjing Ave then, take another right, take a left on Yingkou Rd and an immediate right on Xining Rd towards the Xi Kai Cathedral (Point C).

The Xi Kai Cathedral is based on the Notre-Dame church in Marseille and it is open on Sundays.

Continue on Xining Rd and turn right on Guiyang Rd, left on Nanjing and right again into Shenyang Rd. Here you should start walking towards the Antique Market (Point D).

The Antique Market, open on the weekends, is supposed to be the perfect place to find all sorts of collectables.

From the market take a right on Shandong Rd to No. 77 where you’ll find The Goubuli Dumpling Restaurant.

Tianjin is known for their city’s dumplings, and I read that this is the place to get the best, so take your late lunch of the day here.

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Day 2 – Ancient Culture Street

Start your day by arranging train tickets back to Beijing for today or the next. The high speed train takes 30 min.

If you have time, take it easy today and check out the Ancient Culture Street.

In the north part of town, the Ancient Culture Street is a recreation of an old Chinese Street. At the end of it lies the Tianhou Temple for the Goddess of the sea, it’s suppose to have beautiful tiled walls.

If you still have some time before returning to Beijing, take the rest of the day and do some shopping, there should be quite a few malls in this commercial city.