The Eastern Discovery Tour
Day 5

Day 5 was a Saturday, so I decided to avoid the worst of the crowds in Beijing and head down to Tianjin, a City South of Beijing, for the day.

I had originally planned to spend a large portion of the day at Tianjin amusement park, only to find the park, and the area where the Natural History Museum used to be next door had been turned in to a giant building site. Since then I've learnt there is some sort of large amusement and retail area planned here. Luckily some of the parks I had originally intended only a quick bonus coaster count visit to turned out to be a lot better than I thought they would be, so in the end I had a pretty good day.

Getting to Tianjin from Beijing isn't that difficult. You get the metro to Beijing South (line 4) from where as long as you've got the name written down getting a ticket is pretty easy. The only problem I had was finding where to go when you've got your ticket. From the level where you exit the metro (and can buy a ticket) you need to head outside and get an escalator up two floors to the departure area. It's not a bad idea to get your bearings before you buy a ticket.

The Beijing-Tianjin route is served by the famous high speed bullet trains. They get you between the 2 cities in 30 minutes, at a top speed of 330kmph. The most amazing thing about these trains is how unamazing they are. Despite the fact your travelling at faster than the worlds fastest roller coaster you hardly notice on the train itself, it feels like travelling on any other train.

One problem Tianjin has is it's Metro is nowhere near as developed as the Beijing metro. When I visited the main train station didn't have a stop. This means unless you know someone who speaks Chinese, and is confident navigating the buses you'll need to rely on a Taxi to get across town. Make sure you've printed out a map, with the names of where you want to go (including the train station) in Chinese on them for the taxi drivers.

I read that some of the taxi drivers in the station may try to overcharge you, so I walked over this bridge and down the road where it was pretty easy to get a taxi going down the street.

After finding out Tianjin Amusement Park had permanently closed I headed over to Tianjin Water Park. This is Tianjin's largest public park, which includes the Zoo in the far South, an amusement park in the far North, and this large leisure and beautiful garden area between the two.

Another shot of some of the beautiful gardens which are worth taking the time to look around if you have the time spare.

I'm surprised by how empty the gardens look in a lot of these photos. The gardens were very popular. They avoided being unpleasantly busy, instead they had a pleasant lively atmosphere.

I think this is a dried out stream.

A photo taken from one of the ponds.

That giant observation wheel is the landmark to look for when searching for the amusement park.

This long structure is what separates the gardens from the amusement park.