Our Chinafied World: The forgotten sister city: Tianjin

Since we didn't have any plans for Chinese New Year, Miranda, me, Yassine (roommate), and Olga (Yassine's GF) decided to check out Beijing's sister city. Tianjin is not really a city that you would want to see, but since it was 30 minutes by bullet train I guess it was worth it. Going from Beijing to Tianjin is about the same distance from Ontario to San Diego in California. The bullet train is one of the coolest technology that China has and the USA doesn't have. The bullet train can travel at super fast speeds of about 350 km per hour. It was amazing how comfortable it was while going that fast.

Bullet train to Tianjin

When we arrived in Tianjin, we found that the city was actually a dump. There was nothing there. They had some high rise towers and that was about it. One thing that we got to try was Tianjin Baozi. Baozi is kind of like a bun with meat stuffed in the middle of it. It is usually filled with pork and tastes delicious. You would be quite amazed of how cheap it is. It cost 5 mao, which is about equivalent to 7 cents. The baozi in Tianjin were super expensive though. I have no idea how they can charge so much money for the same product. It cost 60 yuan (about $10) for 8 pieces. It was crazy expensive, and tasted exactly the same as the Beijing ones. Just because they are famous really makes a difference on the price. Its like I went to MCD's and paid $10 for a cheeseburger. WOW!!!

Goubuli Baozi (Tianjin Dumpling)

After we finished our Baozi, we were still hungry. We decided to eat upstairs after we finished Goubuli Baozi. Something that was quite shocking was that we ordered so many dishes and wanted to order rice, but couldn't because they wanted to sell their overpriced baozi. It was the first time I had ever went to a restaurant in China and you couldn't order rice. I got into an argument with the fuyuan (waitress) and told her that she was trying to scam us. After I was tired of arguing with her I decided to buy overpriced baozi. It made me so perturbed.

After our wonderful dinner, we decided to go shopping. One great thing about Tianjin is that they have decent places to shop. Although I hadn't planned on shopping we decided to because there was nothing to do.