Buildings
Dabei Monastery
The monastery was first built in the Ming Dynasty, but has been heavily rebuilt and renovated since and consists now of the West Monestary from 1669 and the East Monastery from 1940. It is the largest and oldest in town covering 10,600 m² 114,000 ft². The temple houses Tianjin Buddhist Institute and exhibits quite many ancient statues.The Dabei Buddhist Monastery is made up of two parts: old monastery and new monastery. The old monastery refers to the three great halls in the west yard. The construction of the old monastery was start in the beginning of Qing Dynasty, and was renovated in the eighth ruling year of Kangxi Emperor in Qing Dynasty. The east yard features in the new monasterys. The statue of Sakyamuni oblated in the Daxiong Palace from the east yard was created in Ming Dynasty. The whole Sakyamuni Statue is 7 meters high, 6 tons weight, with 9,999 small Buddha carved on the lotus throne. Inside the Great Compassion hall, a 3.6-meters-high-mud-statue of Thousand-hand Kwan-yin is oblate. The monastery was once famous for holding a skull relic of Xuanzang, however, the relic was presented to India in 1956 when it was taken to Nalanda - allegedly by the Dalai Lama - and presented to India. The relic is now in the Patna museum. And from then on, Great Compassion monastery takes the image of Xuanzang Master instead of the spirit bones for the worship of the Buddhist. There are memorials for Xuanzang Master and Hongyi Master in the east yard, while the west yard becomes an office for Cultural Relic Palace, Abbot Palace and Chinese Buddhism Association Tianjin Branch. In the Cultural Relic Palace of the west yard, there many collections from every dynasties since Wei and Jin Period including hundreds of Buddha statues which are made of various materials from bronze, iron, stone to wood. Vegetarian Food Dabei Great Monastery is the only monastery in Tianjin providing vegetarian food, so it's a good new for the vegetarian visitors. Food made by the famous Tianjin Dabei Buddhist Monastery Vegetarian Food Corporation are served in the monastery, which includes Longevity Perch present basket, soybean vegetarian, muti-vitamins-calcium noodles, deepfreeze eight precious vegetarian steamed-buns and vegetarian dumplings etc.
Xikai Catholic Church
This church really stands out as architectural eye-candy. Constructed in 1917 by French Jesuit missionaries, this Tianjin landmark features three massive green domes making it easy to spot miles away. The façade adds to the building's novel appearance with a series of orange and brown horizontal stripes. Given its visual prominence it boggles many minds over how this church survived Mao's cultural revolution. Today it is fully embraced as one of Tianjin's greatest buildings. Morning church services are held daily. There is also an interesting market behind the church.
Streets and areas
Binjiang Dao
Enormous street with block upon block of stalls and shops containing almost anything you may need.
Gulou Street
Ancient cultural street full of cheap and tasty cafes.
Heping Road
One of the busiest shopping precincts in Tianjin.
Machang Dao
Lined with large English style homes, another cultural street in Tianjin.
Binhai New Area
The 183 km² Binhai New Area holds three administrative areas: Tanggu, Hangu and Dagang, as well as some towns.