We are off!

Mr Ping-Pong himself, Jan-Ove Waldner

Arlanda

After a rather exhausting flight via Copenhagen we have finally touched down in Beijing. We have been shopping for necessities, i.e. warm clothes, the whole day and we are ready to hit the bed by now. It is almost half past nine in the evening China time and thanks to the lousy sleep on the plane we might get into their rhythm quicker than expected.

A first few observations:

- There are only a few cities in the world with the power to dwarf the human being. New York is one of them. Beijing seems to be another. We feel like ants on a huge construction site.

- Chinese people seem to either love or hate us tourists. Either they smile and say hi, or completely try to screw us over. Nothing in between. (Edit: They all try to screw us over anyway).

- We met one of the most well known foreigners in China at the airport. Actually, he is the second most well known foreigner in China after Bill Clinton, no jokes. It turned out Jan-Ove Waldner - once the greatest ping-pong player in the world - was on our flight, and of course I (Toni) ran up to him for a photo. It is funny how the guy is a living legend in this country but hardly known to the rest of the world.

- The Internet connection is surprisingly fast where we are sitting but you will all have to wait for photos - it is not THAT fast!

Bye for now.