Tianjin Day Trip: Makeover City, China

I just remember the first time I went to Tianjin in recent memory — 2004. I won’t use the word “crap” here, but neither I nor my ex-girlfriend came back to the ‘Jing impressed by what we saw. The traffic was chaotic (a far cry from Beijing’s gridlike street layout), things just went totally off the hook, and the whole place looked like it was overly polluted or something like that.

But you know what? I kept going back. There was something that kept me in Tianjin — not the least because I did Wikipedia articles for the ‘Jin (after finishing the one on Beijing freeways). Nope, it was the fact that I saw hope in Tianjin. When I went back in 2005 (during winter turning into spring), the sky was a lot clearer, and I at least knew the ring system — inner, middle, outer.

When Tianjin throws things at you like half-baked flyovers, you can either take this as a sign that the ‘Jin has gone totally nuts (bad move) or is actually in the midst of building like mad (good move).

First Move Up: More Navigable Streets

I pulled off the first stunt using my Nissan Teana, which came with GPS built-in. Driving sessions with the old Jeep reduced me to yanking the stick away on the wrong gears while frantically trying to look for that sign that read JINGJINTANG FREEWAY — my only way out of the curse. Too many trips saw me get off at Exit 9 — Tianjin City — and that’s where the troubles began. All I knew was to head in to Tianjin.

In little to no time, though, I had found my first starting point: Bei’an Bridge. Heading down Bei’an Bridge, I found UBC Café on Fu’an Street, which is hereby duly noted for having a seemingly working wifi spot.

But that wasn’t precisely what I was looking for in the Jin — I wanted something round that was without traffic lights. These folks were listening. In 2007, they opened up about half of the Express Ring Road, which, if I remember right, is supposedly sandwiched between the Middle and the Outer Ring Roads.

Second Move Up: The Tianjin Metro

But getting around by car is just the un-greenest way ever. The Jing is well-renowned for its Underground Dragon, aka the Beijing Subway. Until 2001, Tianjin had one too, but it seemed antiquated and I actually never got a chance to ride on the old Metro. When the Metro returned on June 12, 2006, it was un-news to me as Beijing’s Subway just started taking public transit stored value cards.

I never even knew about the Tianjin Metro until I banged into it in February 2008. At first, I thought the system, while not the worst ever, had some of the oddest things on the planet. Half-size doors instead of full platform screen doors. Crazy cartoons on station TVs and in the train that rendered you deaf at impossible rackets of noise. And — get this — cross-platform passages that took you forever to get from one platform to the other.

Things, though, started getting better after I learned that the Tianjin Metro went underneath some of the most “central” roads in downtown Tianjin — Nanjing Road, for example. I really started falling in love with the Tianjin Metro after I saw how the future cross-line interchanges between Lines 1, 2 and 3 would work. Very sweet. It’s the kind of changeovers that make such mazes like Beijing’s Xizhimen irrelevant.

Third Move Up: Easier To Get There

The last hurdle, then, was how to get to Tianjin. My options back in the day were quite limited: either the ultra-slow Jingjintang Freeway or the traffic-lights-included National Highway 103. None were considered ideal.

June 30, 2008 kind of changed that as a direct freeway link from Beijing’s Pinggu District connected with Tianjin’s Jinji Freeway, which led you straight to central Tianjin. June 16, 2008 brought the brand-new Jingjin Freeway straight to Tianjin — a big deal as this was an 8-lane freeway with 4 lanes per direction. (The old Jingjintang Freeway was a 4-laner.)

But you knew that better things were in the making. August 1, 2008 saw services begin on the Beijing-Tianjin High-Speed Railway service. This thing screams at speeds up to 350 km/h, cutting down travel times to 30 minutes — or less.

When the world’s fastest regular service links your two cities together — you know times must be really good. One day trips to Tianjin suddenly became all the rage.

Added Bonus: Tweeps in Tianjin

I am a massive tweeter, so it was no wonder that I had to keep the tweeting going — even in Tianjin. When @daygan set up @TheSpotCafe in Tianjin, I thought of poppin’ on over to give the first-ever café I came to know of via Twitter a look.

@daygan was a bit busy that, but it was great that we could meet. We took photos — but the absolute icing on the cake was the tuna sandwiches. Without making CN Reviews a commercial outpost for The Spot Cafe, I can swear blind that the tuna sandwiches there are the best on record for the whole planet so far.

I mean, honestly, going into Tianjin and grabbing lunch at a fellow tweeter’s place — that has exactly that “home” feeling that you get when you run into a Mac guy’s home or when two Chinese meet overseas. This ain’t no feeling that can be described in words — most certainly not in 140 characters or less!

Upshot: Tianjin Rising

An evolving infrastructure system. High-speed trains from the Jing. Wider, and cleaner roads. Easier and faster ways to get into and out of town. Tweeps running the show.

I say Tianjin’s making it high time to a Tier 1.5 City (and it’s got every potential of being a plain-vanilla Tier 1 City) — it being so close to Beijing. Now all we need is to get the ferris wheel into action…

You know what? If that’s set into motion, we’d be seeing Tianjin 2012, not London 2012… (apologies here to the London Eye…)

At the end of the day, there’s something more than Metro and HSR trains and tweeting tuna sandwiches that keeps in the Jin: the Tianjin accent. Oh my. I’m in love with it.

Tianjin’s like a city redone and a city reborn. Its impressions a la 2004 gave me this bad example of a smoked-up industrial smogger that’s had its day. And yet, the Tianjin of 2008 sports blue skies (especially as of late), a Metro network that is incredibly close to more wifi spots than I could’ve imagined, and extremely easy ways to get into the city. The place is also quite a bit cleaner.

Congratulations Tianjin. Now just keep on runnin’ the show — and make it better!