If you need to exchange your money or cash traveller's cheques I suggest going to the Bank of China. They give you a good rate and don't charge high commission. I was charged $3.75 on exchanging $500. They have 5 or so locations (I go to the Main Tianjin Branch and the Wang Ding Di branch)

BOC Tianjin Branch (biggest one)
Hours: Mon-Fri: 9:00-17:00
Addr: No. 82, North Jiefang Rd., Heping Dist.
Tel: 27102208, 27102209, 27102238

BOC Triumphal Arch Mansion Office
Hours: Mon-Fri: 9:00-12:00, 13:30-16:30
Addr: 10th floor, Block B, Triumphal Arch Mansion, No. 66, Xuzhou Rd.
Tel: 23133095

BOC TIB Office
Hours: Mon-Fri: 9:00-12:00, 13:30-16:30
Addr: 2nd Floor, TIB, No. 75, Nanjing Rd.
Tel: 23306973

BOC Shi Ying Lu Office
Hours: Mon-Sun: 9:00-17:00
Addr: No. 1, Shiying Rd., Nankai Dist.
Tel: 23911932

BOC Wang Ding Di Office
Hours: Mon-Fri: 9:00-12:00, 13:30-17:00; Sat, Sun:9:00-16:00
Addr: No. 118, Fukang Rd., Nankai Dist.
Tel: 23619806

Hotpots are fun to eat and the restraunts are located all over the city. In a hotpot restraunt all the tables have circular cutouts in the middle where the pot sits atop a burner.

A hotpot costs around 10RMB for the pot filled with 2 broths (hot and not hot); a divider seperates the two. Meat plates (chicken/pork/beef..) cost around 5RMB each and vegitable plates (potato/lettuce/greens/melon..) 2RMB. They put the plates down on your table and you throw your food into the boiling broth as you see fit. Its quite fun and tastes good.

Karoke is extremely high priced at the bars. 380RMB at one bar we saw. We paid only 98RMB for 6 hours (0:00 - 06:00) at one KTV shop and 83RMB for over an hour at another. Normally its 60RMB/hour before midnight and after midnight they give a good deal. You get your own room with a nice setup. Of course every 20 minutes someone will peek thru your glass window'd door to check on you. You can order drinks or food and smoke in your room to your heart's delight. I'd suggest KTV over the bars for a good night out. There are two types of KTV. The first type uses music with the ability to turn vocals on or off (this is best if you sing english songs). The second type just has MIDI style music, no vocal option and the beat, rythm, and pitch are off key so trying to sing to a song sucks. If you go to the second type of KTV then I'd suggest singing along to Nirvana cause no one will notice the difference :D

If you don't speak chinese then haggling is generally done with a calculator. If one isn't available then the common hand signs for numbers are used. I'll include a crude drawing of the hand signs and explain them below.

The 1,2,3,4,5 are the same as ours. We learn these as children.

The 6 is a 'hang ten dude' configuration.

The 7 is a 'eets a spicy meata ball' hand position or the pinching spices position.

The 8 is the gun pistol position. Of course we don't actually point it at people, we point it sideways.

The 9 is the pirate hook configuration.

The ten is the good luck crossed finger position.

To sign multi digit number you just give the signs in series. For example 98 is... 9.... 8....

Nankai University has the only hostel I know of in Tianjin. Its mainly students but does have some backpackers in it. The price is listed at $7 for a double occupancy room or $14 for a single. The facilities included are shower, bath, hot water, TV, phone, air conditioning and the location is safe. You can do your laundry there, there is also a cafeteria, a store, and internet in Building No. 2.

Nankai-Aichi Guesthouse:
Tel: +86-22-23505339, 23502000
Fax: +86-22-23509311
Address: Yiyuna Nankai-Aichi Guesthouse, Nankai University, 94 weijin Road, Nankai District, Tianjin 300071