Ni hao from Beijing

We won't bore you with the stories about hours at airports, bad weather delaying flights and missed connections in Hong Kong. Instead let's tell you about our first day here in China.

First interesting fact is that blogs are also banned in China (as is Facebook and Twitter) so our posts are coming to you with the kind intervention of one or more of our children. Just as well we didn't give them too hard a time in the Mother's Day post.

Curiosity 1: Despite using her best charm Louise has been unable to obtain a cup of green tea here in China at either breakfast or lunch. And the shopping trip to the local supermarket where we thought we might be able to secure a box of tea bags proved challenging as we don't actually read Mandarin and couldn't recognise the leaves. None of the staff could help us when we asked and in fact ran away shaking theirs heads saying no no no! So next trip we will bring our own Jasmine tea from home.

Our first impression is that everything is VAST and on a scale we are not familiar with. Hardly surprising given that the population of Beijing is more than the total population of Australia. Today we visited two iconic landmarks in Beijing: Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Tiananmen is bordered on one side by the recently renamed Chinese National museum - it used to be the Revolution Museum until just prior to the Beijing Olympics. Our local guide 'Frank' (who is also fluent in Swedish)  told us it needed a more international name. And the rest of the square is all about Chairman Mao lying in state on one side and pictured on the great heavenly peace gate on the other side!

 If you keep walking through the square you arrive at the edge of the Forbidden city. So imagine you are the Emperor of China in 1400 and you are tired of living in sub-standard accommodation. No problem: just arrange to spend 1/3 of the country's budget and get 2 million Chinese over the next 16 years to build a modest 9,000 roomed palace in 400+ buildings over 72 hectares to house you, the Empress, your 3,000 concubines and 10,000 eunuchs.

 The intricate detail on doorways is beautiful and it's such a bonus to have a few phoenixes for extra protection

Every visit to a palace deserves a selfie.......

Curiosity 2: the Chinese government gives 4 and 5 star ratings freely to its establishments...

We ate a tourist lunch of Peking Duck in a huge restaurant

 No not that duck........

And Louise got her visit to the silk factory which is a relief for all of us to have that out of the way so early. Briony and Kylie were just as fascinated as Louise about the brief and productive life cycle of the silk worm......

Instead of silk weaving Louise and Zoe chanced their hands at making a silk quilt, which Kylie thought was a must have and no challenge at all to bring home on the plane.

Liz nearly here - she appears to have landed at Beijing although due to a hydraulic issue she is still in the plane on the Tarmac. Men with bolt cutters approaching plane now......