Tianjin: my home away from home

Tianjin has become my home away from home. It is a port city in northeast China (two hours south of the capitol Beijing). With a population of about 11 million people it is China's 3rd largest city. And a lot of people equals a lot of cars, a lot of crowds, and a sea of bicycles. Although more and more people are buying cars these days, there are still bike lanes running alongside every street and bicycle parking lots outside of every store and apartment building.

I wouldn't call Tianjin a tourist city. There is an amusement park with a rollercoaster that looks like it would give you whiplash and a water park which I think has some rides and a presumably delapidated zoo but I wouldn't know because I'm too cheap to pay the 30 yuan ( $4.50) to enter. This city's claim to fame is its TV tower. It looks like the Seattle Space Needle and can be seen from all over the city.

Speaking of being cheap, I have become a very "thrifty" person. I found myself trying to bargain with a man for 15 minutes because his price was 5 yuan more than what I wanted to pay. That's about 60 cents. What am I going to do when I return to the US?? Thank God I'll have my parents to feed me, otherwise I might be too cheap to buy myself food.

So in a nutshell: Tianjin is dirty. The air is heavily polluted, people shamelessly throw trash onto the sidewalk right and left, men spit all over the place (I even saw one guy do it in the supermarket!) and even my apartment gathers an inch of dust every day. But I love living here. The people here are welcoming and very friendly, more so than in other Chinese cities. I enjoy my teaching job, I have good Chinese and foreign friends, and because it's a big city the transportation is great and its so close to Beijing. The city has anything I could want, it's got character, and I'm comfortable here. It really has become my home away from home.