There was that time I travelled to Beijing with my Norwegian friend and "twin sis", Elisabeth. For both of us, it was the first ever trip to Asia, and China sounded like a blast. We had prepared for the Wall, the language, and the weird food. We hadn't prepared for the -10 C degrees though, because in our fluffy pink minds, China is a fairly warm country. But then again who said my 70 cm long hair couldn't substitude as a warm scarft? That's right, no one.

One of the most amazing things we found in Beijing was the Wong Fu Jing Night Market (there's got to be a spelling error in there somewhere!), where all sorts of bugs and aborminations are offered as fried food on sticks. Elisabeth thought it a brilliant idea to give "dog soup" a try, while I found myself drawn to the bug section. The place was a real wonder that I would recommend to anyone visiting (try the big black scorpions - they look badass and tast like crispy chicken!).

There was that time we fell for a classic scam in Beijing. My friend and I had almost just arrived and when we met two nice Chinese girls on the streets, who suggested we have a cup of tea together, so they could practice their English skills, we thought that was a nice chance for a real authetic local experience (did I meation we were quite the newbies in backpacking at the time?).

Of course the girls knew just the right place. They took us to a nice little tea house that to be fair, we never would have found on our own. We had spoken to them about going for something cheap, seeing as we were budget travellers, but we soon realised that their understanding of cheap was not quite what we had in mind. Of course once there the girls quickly started ordering just about every snack on the menu and several different types of tea. We tried to limit the orders, but without luck. By then we new we had been caught in a scam and decided to just go with it, seeing as we were actually having a really good time.

The girls maintained that they were just students who liked to meet new friends. Although it's really convenient that neither of them wanted to have their photograph taken with us, because they were "buddists" (say what?). One thing was certain; that was the first time in my life I had ever paid 35 euros for a few cups of tea.

And of course, on the way back to our hostel we notices several posters hanging around warning tourists of "fake students" who take them to local places to get them stuck with huge bills. They even had these posters in our hostel. How did we not notice that?!

There was that time when we realised that everyone in Beijing seemed to be really scared of polution. It seemed that, wherever we went, people were wearing mouth covers. To be honest, we didn't really know if it was about polution or just a general fear of catching a cold from your neighbour. But we decided to join in! The mouth covers came in all colours and patterns, so why not have some fun with that? Well, this is how much you can goof around in China!