Travel with 7 year old to China, part 2

You can read part 1 of our trip, Norway - Amsterdam - Beijing, China here.

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We arrived in Beijing at about 0600 on a Saturday morning. Alvilde, my 7 year old daughter had only slept for around 2 hours on the plane, so she was exhausted and was pale as a ghost.

On the airport we had to wait for a long time, going through passport control and getting our luggage. Out in the terminal, the owner of Red Lantern House Beijing waited for us. We had arranged for them to pick us up. On the way to Red Lantern Alvilde was so tired she threw up a little, before falling asleep. A thing that she does quite often when we drive for a long time - gets sleepy - gets nauseous - throws up - falls asleep.

Red Lantern House Beijing is a hostel located in the traditional old hutong area in Beijing. It is central and placed between to subway stations, so getting around in the city is really easy. I've stayed there a lot of times and can really recommend it. You can book a room or just a bed in a dorm. The bathroom/showers are shared, but it's clean and nice. The only thing is that you can not flush paper in the toilet, you have to put it in a bin. But the staff is really good at emptying the bin and I've never experienced any nasty smells.

(Picture from Red Lanterns website - and shows the dining area)

When we arrived at the hostel, the staff immediatly took pity in Alvilde, looking pale and exhausted. The "grandmother" found some warm water, as is custom in China, and gave her, making sure she drank some. Then we got to borrow the staffs bedroom, so Alvilde could sleep for an hour - even though we weren't able to check in since we were so early.

After an hour of sleep, Alvilde was fit for fight and we started our adventure. We took the subway south to Tianmen Square and went through the Forbidden City.

Outside we got a ride with an electric rickshaw, who off course wanted an enourmous amount of money before we started haggling. He drove us to a subway, and we went back to the hostel. We relaxed a bit before exploring the area around the hostel, for that more authentic chinese experience. We shopped some snacks and ate at a restaurant. Alvilde is a bit picky, but as long as we got some rice on the side she was at least able to eat something.

Here's a video from our day 3 in China:
(Norwegian subtitles)