 the view from my room. yes, that's smog. |
 dinner at a local chinese restaurant. note the river crabs--delicious. also, pig's blood, pig's tongue and stomach, raw clam, fried yogurt, and HUGE sea snails. but after a few shots of 78 proof beijou (BYE-JEW) it's not so gicky. |
 wee han and friend. the koreans complained about so much seafood. they prefer beef. |
 traffic jam in tianjin. the secondary roads have three lanes. one lane in each direction and the center lane is used for overtaking-- by BOTH directions of travel. in this picture we are making a 3 point turn in the oncoming traffic lane. not too dangerous because about 8 other cars ahead of us were doing the same thing at the same time. |
 passengers have no choice but to wait out the traffic jam. |
 note truck bearing trucks. we are on a unpaved tertiary road trying to escape the traffic jam. i couldn't get a good picture of the brick walls. they tend to skip the mortar and just stack bricks on top of bricks to make walls. |
 quick lunch at mcdonald's and kfc. lunch here is equiv. to US$3.00 which is pretty luxurious compared to local food costs. |
 arguing with the waitrons. they brought the wrong thing and insisted that we must have ordered wrong. u.s.-style customer service (customer is always right) is peculiar to the u.s. |
 we weren't sure why they name it the "steel pipe hotel." |
 street scene. closest to the sidewalks? is a protected lane just for bikes, since traffic has not converted to 100% cars. but it becomes a total free-for-all in intersections. the bikers will seize any opportunity to slip inbetween the cars. |
 another chinese lunch, starting off with beef this time. actually there are so many ethnic koreans in this part of china, there are plenty of korean restaurants. tianjin is 1.5 hrs from seoul by plane. |
 highrises are springing up with the requisite microwave/cell towers. china is a odd mix of 19th century and 21st century technology. they will probably end up leapfrogging the 20th century altogether, going right from steam-engine trucks to cell phones. |