Tianjin zoo has quite a collection of animals. Hippos, Rhinos, a giraffe, tigers, bears, reptiles, monkeys, osterichs, raindeer, yaks, zebra, tonnes of birds and more. If you haven't seen hippos or rhinos up close they are really big.

The zoo is located near Hua Cheng hotel. Chinese for zoo is dong wu yuan, give that to your taxi cab driver. The zoo costs 20RMB or 30RMB to enter. The 30RMB lets you see more. We paid 20RMB and saw almost everything. Once you've paid you'll still be asked to pay further to see certain animals. The reptiles cost 20RMB to see. The circus show is 4RMB and to see the majority of the birds you have to pay a fee to enter the large bird sanctuary part.

On a sadder note they have a bear cub which they force to ride a bike and do other tricks for people. It looks so horrible, the poor thing is skinny and has chains on it and moans as its doing its paces. Its cruel and horrid to see but other than that the zoo is cool.

They have a water park beside the zoo with carnival rides. I didn't bother going in. All I know is you can't go on the ferris wheel, its closed permanently due to a fatality.

Here is an idea of the bargaining pschology here:

You ask how much an item is. You are given a figure which seems good when you convert it to your home currency. You accept it and the seller now knows what a foreigner is willing to pay.

When bargaining the seller is going to ask you what you are willing to pay. This is a trick which benefits them. If they are asking 100RMB and you say no its too high, they will ask you what you think. You say 60RMB. The item is only worth 40RMB but you've just set a minimum so now they are going to say 'nooo...' and do some theatrics and say 80RMB. After a while you'll settle on 70RMB.

Prices you are given are going to be twice that or more than what a local will pay. Here are some examples of the bargaining I've done:

2 pillow cases.
Seller was asking 40RMB.
I got 4 for 50RMB.

1 traditional dress.
Seller was asking 100RMB.
I got it for 50RMB.

1 traditional shirt.
Seller was asking 100RMB.
I got it for 38RMB.
It took quite a bit of theatrics on both of our parts and the lady kept saying '40RMB.. only 2RMB.. not much'. I told her that the 2RMB was my breakfast.

1 traditional night robe.
Seller was asking 90RMB.
I got it for 50RMB.

A cool pocket knife.
Seller was asking 20RMB.
I got it for 10RMB.

My first purchase was 2 watches. I paid 80RMB each thinking I did good to get them down from 105. Just today I was offered the same selection of watches for 20RMB a piece.

I'm including the pics of the traditional clothing I purchased. They look beautiful in real life and will look great mounted on my wall.

There are KFCs, McDonalds, Starbucks, Subway, Baskin Robins, and Pizza Huts here. KFC and McDonalds are priced decent.

Starbucks costs 12RMB for a basic cup of coffee.

At KFC I order large fries, large popcorn chicken, 2 mexican wraps, 1 chicken breast, large Pepsi, and medium hot orange juice for 58RMB.

At McDonalds its 5RMB for a double cheese burger. 7RMB for large fries. The have big macs for 10RMB and chicken nugget packs of 6 for 10RMB.

PizzaHut's pizza isn't cheap. Its about the same price as the west. I believe it was 135RMB for a medium-large sized pizza. They have a salad bar too.

Cyber Mart is a 3 story building the size of a square block with about 200 venders inside. You can purchase things like 40GB harddrives for 415 RMB or webcams for as low as 60RMB. They have really cool stuff and all the namebrands we love. Its a total candy store :D

Cyber Mart is on An Shan Xi road in the Nan Kai district.

The tombs of the Qing Dynasty are amazing. The tombs themselves are underground and built of beautiful stone and are original and unaltered. The tombs have coffins of the kings/queens and concubines in them but nothing more. Above each tomb is a palace. The palaces are in great condition and most have been restored to some degree. The landscape has other awesome temples and palaces to behold too. The queen who built the summer palace in Beijing rests in a tomb here.
The Qing tombs are located in Ji Xian of Tianjin.