Tianjin Museum

Last Sunday we went to the Tianjin Museum with a young lady named Nicole. She came to English corner a couple of times and she and Linda really hit it off. So a couple of weeks ago she brought a painting that her father had done. It is a traditional Chinese painting on a traditional theme. The writing at the top is the poem that inspired the painting.
She is very proud of her father and his painting. She is not from Tianjin but is from a province to the north of here where it gets really cold in the winter. She said the snow is really beautiful there and apparently it lasts all winter.
The pictures of the painting were taken a couple of weeks ago. Last Sunday we went to English corner in the rain. It rained the whole time we were there and it was about 50 degrees.
After a couple of hours both Linda and I started to get cold so we were glad it was over. We went with Nicole to a restaurant close to to the Museum for lunch. Nicole ordered. She did a great job. Both Linda and I really liked lunch. We even prevailed upon her to let us pay for lunch - something that is often a competition here. One person pays for the whole meal. So we got to pay for lunch. We were so happy. Although, she got by with paying for the cab ride to the restuarant. Oh well....
After lunch, we walked to the museum. It was still raining and it was still cold but at the museum it was pretty warm. The exterior picture of the museum was taken today during better weather - at least it wasn't raining.
We rode our bikes over there to see if we could find it. We could.

The museum is a collection of all things Tianjin. There was a lot of pottery, some furniture and a lot of paintings. I didn't get any pictures of paintings. After my third flash picture, Nicole informed me that I should not be taking pictures with a flash so I stopped.
After that I didn't take very many pictures but the yellow bowl and the vase with the two birds on it were taken without a flash.

We spent the better part of 3 hours in the museum. It was really a lot of fun. A major part of the museum is devoted to the foreign concessions that were ceded to 8 foreign countries after the Opium War in the 1860's - so many things happened in the middle of the 19th century. Large parts of Tianjin were under the control of foreign governments including the US, England, France, Belgium, Russia, Japan, Italy and a couple of others I can't remember. In these areas of the city the buildings reflected architecture that was current in those countries at the time. That time is shameful to the Chinese. But they also now use those sections of the city as a tourist attraction and are in the process of restoring the buildings that are left so that more people will want to see them.
We really enjoyed this museum. In fact, our trip out of town fell through this weekend so we are going back with another young friend who is a student of Linda's.I forgot to include one image of the interior

of the museum which shows the scope and size a little bit. The building is supposed to resemble a swan, with a long neck and white body. The interior is full of light because the exterior is mostly glass panels and steel. It's pretty neat inside.

The food doesn't look very appetizing but was great! There were 2 dofe (tofu) dishes, and 2 chicken dishes. One of the tofu dishes was a cold salad made with tofu noodles that were almost like fettucini noodles, not soft. Hard to describe. It had a vinegar dressing unlike vinegar I was used to. Yummy. Some of the vinegars here have a stronger % of acid in them, 5% instead of 3%. Good for cleaning the shower stall we have found.