Between Deyue Lake and Tianjin, we passed farms large and small - rice paddies, tree farms, vegetable fields, and other agricultural land. It seems as if a lot of trees along the highway had been recently planted. As we neared the city, we saw more industrial complexes, complete with smokestacks and large power lines. We also saw more residential skyscrapers and the usual cityscape.
The highway was modern and well marked, and we might have been in any country, except for the language on the road signs, which were in Chinese and English. Some of the driving instructions, such as the ones in the title of this post, were a bit mangled in the translation. There were toll plazas, just like home, though the structures over the plazas were generally much more elaborate than the ones at home.
The picture on the right shows the Xianghe Toll Gate on the Jingshen Expressway in Hebei Province.On our trip to Tianjin, we shared the road with numerous trucks and luxury cars. We noticed that the cars, usually traveling at high speed, often rode on the shoulders and weaved in and out of the columns of slow-moving trucks to achieve maximum forward progress. Driving on the road's shoulder was actually a risky undertaking since the shoulder seemed to be the emergency breakdown lane. The recurring scene was reminiscent of highways at home, especially those approaching big cities. The picture in the middle below is a panoramic view of Tianjin, from the south and west.
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