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So while Denise was romping around the city with her mother....I was romping around China with some folks from school. My thesis project deals with urban developmental strategies and patterns in China, or in other words, my thesis is an excuse to travel to China on someone else's dime. Since the work we are doing on China is of interest to them, the local government of Tianjin payed for us to visit the city for a week...which included airfare, hotel, some meals and transportation (all we have to provide is an alternative strategy for development in the Wudadao neighborhood...easier said than done).

We flew into Beijing and stayed there for a day or so before heading to Tianjin. We took the high speed train (travels at 200+ miles an hour and is as quiet as a Lexus) to Tianjin and then stayed there for a week. Then returned to Biejing, did some sight seeing and came home...all in all the cost for me was almost nothing in dollars, but I also missed a week of class, which came back to bite me in the end.

This is typical Chinese development. They purchase the plans for a single skyscraper and the multiply it out across the landscape. And then, because of certain sunlight codes that are in place, they have to be a certain distance apart from each other...resulting in the eerie monoliths you see here.

This is Justin and I kung-fu fighting in one of the courtyards at the Forbidden City. Actually, we were doing some synchronized heal clicking but the photos make it seem much more masculine than it really was. The image is deceiving though because the Forbidden City had probably a million people in it, it just so happened none of them showed up in this picture...

There they are.

This is most of the people who I went on the trip with.

And this is most of the people I went on the trip with plus one random stranger who wanted his picture with a bunch of foreigners, or ladies, whichever. You would think he would ask us if he could be in our picture...not the case. He just walked up and stood there until we disbanded, never saying a word.

This is looking back on the Forbidden City...the pollution (not fog) keeps you from seeing any of the city beyond.

I'm eating a cabbage filled pastry of some sort...it was amazing, but off of the street and so may be responsible for the week of stomach torture I endured upon my return home.

Cabbage market, and fruit market. The street life (not night life, although that was pretty interesting as well) was absolutely fascinating in China. The streets were completely commandeered by all sorts of informal activites. You had shops, bicycle repair carts, food, people playing cards...essentially the street is the same thing as a park for us here in the states, but much more informal. The parks were largely under-utilized during the day (from what I understand people wont walk on the grass in China) but during the morning the parks did get some activity. Usually in the form of senior's practicing their Tai-Chi (see next image).

This was taken outside the fence of a retirement home. The Chinese are also the only people I have ever seen actually use the fixed exercise equipment you find at parks.

This is Tianjin at night. Pretty amazing how developed and 1st world China is for being a "developing" country. They build faster than any other country in the world. One project we walked around took 3 months for completion, from the time the Mayor said he wanted it, until they opened the doors for business. That project was about the same size as the Gateway Mall in Utah for those familiar with it, or 2-3 Ghiradelli squares for those here in the Bay area.

This is a video taken at one of the markets I walked through while documenting my site. All of the animals were alive and in bins. In fact, when I walked in, there was a huge bin of crabs that weren't moving and so the person selling them scraped at them with something just to get them kicking around again and prove there freshness.

I might be back in Tianjin again come June, so look forward to another exciting post in a few months! I leave you with a friendly reminder to let your wife drive sometimes.