Ancient Culture Street in Tianjin

It seems that Saturdays have turned into our Exploring Tianjin days.  I wish every day was Saturday as there are so many things to explore!

It is of course difficult to focus on exploring if you are hungry.  So in keeping with our (recently established) ages-old pattern we started with Lunch. On this particular day we were joined by some friends for some Indian food at a place we had heard lots of good things about.  We were NOT disappointed!!!  It was AWESOME!!!  You'll have to take our word on that though…we didn't manage to take any photos as we were way too busy infusing all of our senses with curry!  Mmmm…I can still smell it…can you???

Next, on to the Main Event: Ancient Culture Street!

WOW!  Now, it didn't look exactly as I had pictured it in my head, but it came pretty darn close.  The street was lined with shops selling all kinds of things from antique looking objects to intricate jade (and other rock) carvings to music instruments. There were quite a number of stalls set up outside the shops which sold things like lanterns, toys, food, really detailed figurines made on-the-spot from reeds, and even goldfish in teeny-tiny glass bowls.

Here's a smattering of photos and videos from our rather quick journey up and down this street (it was, as it has tended to be lately, super cold that day.  I wish I'd brought my winter boots with me!  I don't know about you but I'm done doing stuff outside when my feet get cold.)

Ancient Culture Street

Lidded cauldron filled with boiling water. The shop keeper would pour out water from the dragon's mouth (to make hot drinks or something that looked like a bowl of oatmeal). It was very theatrical…if we were cool we would have gotten video…

Large, intricate, jade carving in the shape of a ship. We saw a lot of jade carvings in the shops.

Yes, it's expensive…but Not Too expensive!!!

In a lantern shop. We were hoping to find lanterns that you light and then let float in the air. (remember the movie, "Tangled"? ) I think they're called wish lanterns. We didn't find any (plus we didn't know how to ask. The language barrier makes life tricky sometimes.) Why are we so interested in finding those lanterns? We'd heard and read that Monday (the fifteenth day after the New Year) is supposed to be a special celebration called the Lantern Festival. Apparently lots of families light those "wish lanterns" and let them float into the air.

Watch artisans create animals such as grasshoppers, birds, butterflies, preying mantis and dragons (okay, so dragons aren't real animals but it is the Year of the Dragon). Not sure what those reeds were, but their hands were just flying!

Watch the crafters at work:

Untitled from Astrid Breutzman on Vimeo.

 Someone playing a flute while we were wandering down the street…

Untitled from Astrid Breutzman on Vimeo.

 

Lots of different food vendors lined the street. This one looked like it was cooking quail eggs. She cracked the eggs into the hot metal cups (one egg per cup). Then they used chopsticks to turn the eggs to cook on the other side.

This food vendor put what looked like a scoop of rice into one of the wooden cups (there are several small wooden cups stacked on top of each other). She pressed the rice into the cup and carefully dumped the cup-shaped rice onto an edible "plate". Afterwards she added a different sauce to each "rice cup".

Ava traveled in style! She used her Daddy as a great accessory. Actually, before we started on our walk our driver pulled me aside and told me to keep a careful eye on Ava (I think his google translator said something like," watch boy package careful" while pointing at Ava. I have to admit- Ava did attract a lot of attention from the other shoppers! There were lots of people taking her photo (and Annika as well). I guess the two cute blondies really stick out here!

Chinese cotton candy! I think I like this version better than the one back home. It was SO light and SO fluffy! It was like eating a cloud. 5 RMB for one cotton candy = happy girls. (that's less than $1US for one cotton candy)

Do you think Annika likes cotton candy? Noo……kids don't like sugar! 😉

Eating the lighter than air sugary treat.

A lady playing with an unusual "toy".  I'm guessing that she was demonstrating these "toys" to sell them. Is it a toy or is it something else?

Untitled from Astrid Breutzman on Vimeo.

 

Sort of amusing but also sort of sad…Those are live goldfish in those teeny tiny glass bowls.  I can't imagine that being a healthy habitat for those fish.

Next time: go with a Chinese-speaking friend!  It was all so amazing and so awesome but I think we missed a lot just because we don't understand the language yet.  We didn't end up buying anything there as we just didn't want to deal with the language barrier.  That can be quite frustrating to deal with at times. We will get there…just not today!