Tianjin

Sunday October 18

Our next day starts at 7 am. A wind storm has passed into the entire region. The temperature, which was about 25C the past few days, has dropped to about 15C.

We need to catch the bullet train from Beijing into Tianjin. Beijing is a city of 17 million people. Tianjin is a city of 10 million people a short distance southeast of Beijing. The bullet train travels at about 330 km/h. We get into Tianjin in under 40 minutes.

This is Haibo’s hometown. He left over twenty years ago. When we arrive, he is surprised at how much things have changed. Tall buildings are everywhere, and construction is still underway. A six line subway is being built from scratch. We are told that once the decision was made, construction started right away. The subway will be completed soon.

Despite this homecoming, Haibo shows remarkable emotional restraint and determined focus on the job at hand. We have a meeting with one of Tianjin’s important hospitals.

One of his former colleagues picks us up at the train station. I wish I had my camera ready to take a picture of the impassioned reunion. There is no time to drop our luggage off at the hotel. We need to get to the hospital. When we are dropped off at the hospital, I get my luggage from the trunk to throw on a tie and jacket.

We are meeting the hospital’s President, Vice-president, Director of Clinical Pharmacology, Director of International Relations and a few other people. This is a specialty hospital, but it is still massive. It is easily over twice as large as Toronto’s largest hospital system in terms of square footage, number of beds, and number of patients treated. To top it off, a 24-story addition is being built.

The meeting goes well. Haibo does most of the talking in this meeting. The President needs to leave soon, so we wrap up the meeting, exchange gifts, and take a few photographs.

The rest of the hospital staff at this meeting take us to lunch. We drive directly to the restaurant, and we are shown to a private dining room.

After the lunch, we have a meeting with the Tianjin High Tech Park. We drive straight to the High Tech Park from the restaurant to meet with the park’s director.

We wrap up the meeting and then go the hotel to get changed. We just ate a couple hours ago, but we will be meeting soon with two of Haibo’s colleagues, professors at Tianjin University. They are taking us out to dinner.

By now, the wind storm in Beijing has reached Tianjin. The temperature has dropped to 10C and there are 60 kph winds.

We go to a famous restaurant with a funny name who’s translation is something like ‘the dog is too busy to care.’ The story is that the chef, with a name that sounds like dog, made popular dumplings. They were so famous that people traveled long distances for them, including the emperor. That’s why he was so busy.

Dumplings are still served here as the signature dish. At 9 yuan (about a dollar) each, they are expensive.

After dinner, we get back to the hotel. It is now about 10 pm. We have an early rise tomorrow, because we need to take the plane to Shanghai.

So much for a homecoming.

tianjin development

the dog restaurant1

the dog restaurant2

the dog restaurant3

road to airport1

road to airport2

tianjin airport1

tianjin airport2

tianjin airport3

plane to shanghai

Travel route

Here is the link to a map of the cities on our itinerary: map

 

Cities on our travel itinerary.