Beijing

And so our journey has started!
Beijing is the first stop and I am really liking it!

This is only our second day here but I thought that I could write a little-something!
We flew from Oslo to Helsinki and then onwards to Beijing.. Neither May-Hilde nor I got much sleep and we were quite jet lagged yesterday.. But I was sort of expecting that to happen :D! We took a bus from the airport to a bus stop in Beijing and thought that we could walk to our hotel from there.. That was a very ambitious thought so we ended up taking a cab :P When we got to the hotel we both collapsed on our beds and fell asleep but we could only sleep for a few hours because we had to get used to the Chinese time... We walked around yesterday and ate dinner at the hotel before crashing at 20.00! For me I fell asleep at 20.00 but woke up 20.45 wide awake! That was VERY annoying! But I managed to fall asleep again and today we both woke up at 6.00 (so this will be a long day!)

The hotel that we are staying at is really central because it is right behind the Forbidden City! Yesterday we just strolled around and explored where we were staying but today we went to the Forbidden City and Tianmen Square ( den himmelske freds plass). It was amazing to see all the buildings in the forbidden city. this city is in fact 720,000 square metres!
It is very interesting to be back here in China because the last time I was here I was with my family and I didn't have to fix that much... BUT now May-Hilde and I have to arrange everything! What I find is very strange is that it is so hard to find a normal grocery store (we have been looking for one but we can't find any!!)

Being outside of Norway we have to communicate by English but it is quite frustrating that many Chinese people (or at least the people we talk to) don't understand us that well! On the other hand while we were eating breakfast this morning May-Hilde saw a couple and said "I bet these people are Norwegian" and it turned out that they were! So I guess May-Hilde has the eye for that sort of thing!

Anyway we are going to stay in Beijing for a couple of more days and we are planning to see the Great Wall of China, The Summer Palace, go to a couple of markets and something else (but I can't remember it right now...)

That's it! I'll keep you posted!