Ni hao China!, So first day in Beijing, arrived last night and walked down a scary bendy allyway to find my hostel, but its brilliant here! Lots of english speaking folk and the staff do really well. First impression of china is that its bigger than japan! Lots of smog so you cant really see much but the air doesnt really smell all that bad really.

Today i slept in, first time since leaving home! Had an "american breakfast" at the hostel and just decided to go for a walk and get familiar with my new surroundings. The language here is much tougher to learn and understand, but they say if you can get around Paris without french, you can get around Beijing without chinese:)

Visited the closest park to my hostel, JingShan park which has the best airiel veiw of the Forbidden city, absolutely fantastic! Today is also ofc October the 1, for those who dont know oct 1 is chinas National Day sooooo needles to say, its been a helluva first day! I walked around the park, got some good photos and had a huge noodle lunch.

For the entire afternoon i Finally found a ping-pong area! Now this was funny, instantly made lots of new local friends, one very drunk man who now considers me family. Norwegians and Chinese are BROTHERS. Got my butt kicked by a 9 year old girl, and the whole crowd was watching very closely as i got to play the champion. 11-4 to him, still i consider that a victory because he was insaaaane. I have been invited back to play and drink chinese white-wine which one man told me was stronger than whiskey. we'll see.

Relaxing in the hostel now, met some people ill be going out to dinner with and tomorrow will most likely be another walk in the morning, ping-pong in the afternoon and drinks in the evening:). I was worried i wouldnt like china as much as i did japan but seeing how friendly people are (someone gave me a free panda!) and experencing the food, i think the next month will be eventfull and interesting to say the least.

Mattis