【Dec 7/15】One Day Tianjin Highlight Tour

Tianjin is the fourth largest city. It has both Oriental style buildings and European architectures due to historical reasons. 

Don't miss it if you want to see the unique sceneries! 

 Meet your trip mates and enjoy Tianjin view.

We will meet at the meeting points(shown below) in the morning.

and then we are about to leave for Tianjin and arrive at 10:20am. There's a wonderful spot for enjoying the view in Tijian— Tianjin Eye.

From 12:20am, we will be having pleasant time in visiting Tianjin Ancient Culture Street, Italian-style Avenue, Porcelain House and Tianjin Binhai Library and around 6pm we will go back together(The return time depends on the actual situation of the day and is determined by the team leader).

📍Tianjin Binhai Library

Tianjin Binhai library recently propelled to fame on the Internet and was called as the "Most beautiful library in China". The splendid library represents the most forward-thinking of modern architects.

The Dutch design firm MVRDV and Tianjin Urban Planning and Design Institute (TUPDI) have completed Tianjin Binhai Library as part of the great plan to provide a cultural district to the city. The 33,700 ㎡ cultural centre featuring a luminous spherical auditorium and floor-to-ceiling cascading bookcases works not only as an education centre, but also social space and connector from the park into the cultural district.

The library is anchored by a giant spherical structure in the center of the space ,with the surrounding bookshelves curve and ebb around the sphere all the way to the ceiling. This gives visitors the sense that they are walking inside an eye, an illustration that has inspired the library's nickname: "The Eye of Binhai."

📍Tientsin Eye

Tianjin Eye, also known as the Tientsin Eye, is a Ferris wheel as tall as 120 meters (394 feet). Its full name is Yongle Bridge Tianjin Eye, because it is built on that bridge over the Hai River. Completed on 22nd, April, 2008 and opened on 16th, April, 2009, Tientsin Eye has become one of the landmarks of Tianjin. 

Tianjin Eye is also the No. 1 Ferris wheel in Asia, the only Ferris wheel built above a bridge and the tenth tallest Ferris wheel in the world. You can ride Tianjin Eye to enjoy the scenery of Tianjin or appreciate Tianjin Eye from afar on Jingang Bridge which is also enjoyable. 

📍Ancient Culture Street

Ancient Cultural Street, Guwenhua Jie in Chinese, is located in the Nankai District of the Tianjin Municipality and was formally opened in 1986. Although essentially a business street, it attracts visitors who come to see its special architectural styles, admire its classic cultural features, buy various folk crafts, and sample the delicious local snacks. Above all, as visitors take a walk there, they will be particularly impressed by the splendid replica classical architecture in the folk style of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Visitors who are interested in Chinese traditional handicrafts will also appreciate another highlight of the Ancient Culture Street - the hundreds of stores selling a wide variety of folk handicrafts. These include the famous Yang Liuqing New Year Paintings and Niren Zhang Painted Sculptures. Visitors who are fond of Chinese curios, such as jade items, cloisonné and potteries, will also be able to find many examples of these for sale here. 

The street is also a favorite place to sample the delicious local snacks. The local delicacies include Goubuli Steamed Dumplings, Erduoyan (the Ear-hole Lane) Fried Glutinous Cakes and tea soup.

📍瓷房子

Located on the Chifeng Road of the Heping District in Tianjin, the Porcelain House (the China House) is a French-style building embellished by porcelain. Standing before the house, tourists will be amazed by the colorful chinaware cemented onto the wall. The windows, doors, pillars, eaves and roofs are all exquisitely decorated with different chinawares. Moreover, tourists will find beautiful porcelain decorations on the handrails, ceilings, and walls inside the house. The house is so extraordinary that it has no parallel in the world.

History

First built in the 1920s, the Porcelain House covers a total area of 5,000 square yards (4,200 square meters). Adopting the architectural principle of eclecticism, the building is in French style as a whole but with an Italian-style corridor. It was inhabited by contemporary Chinese diplomat Huang Rongliang.

On September 3rd, 2007, the house was open to the public. Since then, it has become a landmark in Tianjin. On September 23rd, 2010, it was listed by the US Huffington Post as one of the fifteen museums with unique designs, together with the Louvre Museum in Paris, French, and the Denver Art Museum in Colorado, America.

Porcelain Decorations

More than CNY two billion has been invested into the decoration of the Porcelain House, using more than 700 million porcelain pieces, 4,000 ancient china vases, 400 white marble sculptures, and 40 tons of crystal and agate. Moreover, 13,000 ancient plates and bowls, 300 cat-shaped porcelain pillows, 300 white marble lions during the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and Song Dynasty (960-1279) have been used in the embellishment.

The porcelain pieces come from different historical periods. The celadon in the Jin Dynasty (265-420), the tri-colored glazed pottery of the Tang Dynasty, Jun china and Longquan celadon in the Song Dynasty, the blue and white china in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and the rose china in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) can all be found on the walls in the house. All of them are cemented and glued to become part of the building.

On the roof of the building circles a gigantic dragon adorned by chinaware with a length of 840 yards (768 meters) and a width of 0.87 yards (0.8 meters). Even the drainpipes outside of the house are embellished with crystal and cat-shaped porcelain pillows.

Inside the building, the ceilings and handrails are decorated with chinaware, too. The house preserves hundreds of precious furniture from Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty, and more than 200 calligraphies and paintings both from home and abroad, including the masterpieces of Chinese great masters Zhang Xuan, Qi Baishi and Xu Beihong, and foreign masters Van Gogh and Picasso. All of precious treasures and china make the house inestimable and splendid.

Furthermore, the house dexterously combines traditional elements with Chinese culture. The outside of the wall is decorated by vases, and they are called "Walls of Peace". Because "vase" sounds like "peace" in Chinese, the designers used vases to wish for peace and safety. Similarly, white marble sculptures and rock images are used frequently to symbolize good luck and chance. At last, the vivid dragons and phoenixes on the eaves symbolize auspice and prosperity.