Before anything else, let me sum up my China trip with four main points:

• Beijing is worth your while because of the awesome main tourist spots: Great Wall, Forbidden City, Bird’s Nest, Tiananmen Square being on top of the list.
• If you’re looking for bargain shopping, China is NOT the place to go.
• Bring lots of tissue and water. Hygiene is not one of the Chinese people’s strong points.
• Right now, I don’t see myself going back to this country in the next five (or ten) years. I don’t know if it’s just MY experience, but it’s not the kind of country that will make you want to go back. But then again, that may just be me.

I was in China for 6 days to chaperone my brother for a math competition. I really didn’t want to go, since I had so much work on my plate — but my parents were paying, and I’ve really missed traveling! So with my laptop in tow, I rolled out my suitcase knowing I’ll die from work when I got back.

Our arrival day passed by without much excitement. We got to Beijing in the afternoon, took a bus to Tianjin (which is one of their other main cities, it’s sort of like Subic/Clark of the Philippines), ate dinner, checked into the hotel.

The next day was Competition Day 1! I wore the screaming yellow MTG shirt in support of my brother, despite not having jeans to go with it. The result? I pretty much looked like a human stoplight of some sort for half the day:

This is my brother doing capoeira moves while waiting for the competition to start. (We don’t look alike, don’t we?)

After the competition, we took a quick trip down the Ancient Culture Street. It was ancient, alright. The street hangings and decor were so old, I didn’t even need to desaturate them in post-processing.

I got to try a watermelon popsicle with CHOCOLATE CHIP SEEDS. Sorry, had to put that last bit in all caps because I cannot get over the epicness. I’m talking chocolate chip “seeds”, people.

It was a long, long street, so my brother and I snapped photos with everything and anything that remotely looked like a temple, lantern or statue. { Disclaimer: Arriane-Same-Face-Same-Outfit-Overdose for the next few pictures or so. }

I personally hate traveling in big groups, and would rather go by myself or with one or two other people to less touristy spots. So I dragged my brother out of the bus to do some exploring on our own around Tianjin.

We walked along Haihe River, along the bridge that looks like a St. Charles (Prague) rip off. Then my ever so reliable shopper instincts led us to Heping Lu, which is a shopping street that stretches on and on and on! It looked a bit like Bonifacio High Street to me.

My brother and I had a lot of fun “sightseeing” (a more positive term for “getting lost”) — but we eventually found our way back to the extremely beautiful Dagu Bridge, which fronted our hotel.

A slew of failed jump shots later, we surrendered to exhaustion and walked back to Kind Hotel.

(Chinese people have this penchant for using adjectives to name their establishments. The hotel itself wasn’t kind, but it was really really nice! But I guess the name ‘Nice Hotel’ was already taken.)online antibiotics com by wanderrgirl, on Flickr” href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/47957983@N07/4892450965/”>