First Day of the Real World

• Finally started working for the first time after I graduated college
• My first thought was, "It's about time"
• Travelling around China is fun but once you start seeing your bank account go down and down you start thinking "Ok, it's time to start making money"
• Welcome to the world of non-profits
• So my company Teach for China wanted us in Beijing for two nights just for orientation and there first move was to book us a hostel room
• When I heard that I thought, "Oh man TFC, don't spend way too much money on us now"
• It was actually a pretty nice hostel though and they booked us private rooms
• I had to share my room with another guy but it wasn't bad at all

• It was called the 9 Dragons Home and I would highly recommend it if you're ever in Beijing
• It felt like an actual hotel with free shampoo, toothbrushes, and toilet paper
• Now that we're in Kunming for the BLAST language school we're in an 8-person room for 7 guys
• Luckily everyone is really cool because TFC picked awesome people and they let me in for some reason too so it will be a lot more fun that way
• Then they made us pay for our meals at first but then they covered for us
• I wasn't too mad because I had money but I felt kind of jipped because they took us to nicer places and I could have just eaten good street food for 4 RMB instead of buying a grinder sandwich for 55 RMB
• The food they got for us was really good though and if I was in Beijing as a tourist I would definitely go to these places if I was in the neighborhood
• The one place "Xian Lao Man" 馅老满 was rated the best dumpling place in Beijing and they earned it
• The dumplings were huge and they were the first dumplings in all of China that I could eat with my poor chopstick skills
• The dumplings were definitely worth the price of 7 RMB/long for the cheaper ones and even the more expensive ones only got up to 12 RMB/long
• The second place - Grinders - is a Canadian restaurant in Beijing that has excellent sandwiches for about 55 RMB
• The third place that Teach for China actually paid for was this Chongqing Hotpot place and it was very good
• I got to meet all of the TFC BLAST Fellows (those who need to go to Chinese language school before we start teaching) and I got to meet some Chinese fellows too
• The street that this hotpot place was on was the coolest because it's completely lined with red lamps and there's hotpot places everywhere
• It was called Chongqing Kongliang Huoguo 重庆孔亮火锅 and it was located on 218 Dongzhimennei Dajie, Chaoyang District and I highly recommend it 
• And the world of non-profits is good!
• I experienced more happiness in 4 hours of working at a migrant school in Beijing than an entire summer at any of the internships I've been in
• We went to this migrant school on the far outskirts of Beijing to help tutor kids in English
• My favorite child was Lucy because she didn't want to do anything because she was painfully shy (just like me!)
• All of the 10-year old children gathered around in a circle and they passed a ball around and they would practice their English by saying, "My name is ____"
• When it was Lucy's turn she was almost in tears because she didn't want to say a single thing
• Finally she whispered her name in English to her friend sitting next to her who proclaimed it to the whole room and that made Lucy smile along with every soul in that class
• There was an activity where all the kids split up into two teams and the teacher would say the sound of a letter and the kids would race to the blackboard to write down the letter
• Lucy was literally hiding underneath the desk trying to get away from it but I wouldn't let her (and the duty fell on me because by luck of where the volunteers went I was the only person above the age of 10 on that side of the room)
• I kept on trying to tell her in my broken Chinese "I believe in you" and "I know you're brave" so I got her in line to go up to the blackboard but it was just getting her to the blackboard that was the problem
• Luckily her friend from the ball activity took her by the hand when it was her turn, put the chalk in Lucy's hand, drew the sound for Lucy, and her team got the point and all the kids on her team (probably 5 of them) gave Lucy a hug
• I didn't have enough stickers for all of them but I gave Lucy one and that seemed to help
• So now I know, letting kids help kids is the best way to go
• On a selfish note, my favorite activity of the day was, "Chase the white guy"
• So there was this little boy that wanted to practice Kung Fu on me and I played around with him by sticking my arm out and stiff-arming him on the head (lightly) 
• Well what started out as 1 kid turned into 7 which turned into me running around the courtyard of the migrant school sticking my tongue out at them and making funny faces saying, "YOU CAN'T CATCH ME!" 
• I got my shirt really dirty but it was totally worth it
• The kids would one by one try to tackle me to bring me down but I would just lift them up in the air like an airplane and twirl them around
• I made sure to ask if it was ok first because I knew I would probably be arrested for that in America 
• This lasted for a good 15 minutes so I got a lot of dirt and ice cream stains on my shirt so I just went to the washroom to wash off
• I didn't realize we were going to get on the bus as soon as I was done washing myself so for the entire 45 minute bus ride I just had water up and down my chest which must have looked like the most interesting sweat pattern in the world
• At least I got a lot of personal space on that bus
• Kunming is an awesome city
• Teach for China chose a great city for us to study Chinese because the air is the most breathable of any city I've been to in China
• What they say about this city is true, it is eternally spring here
• It was about 70 degrees Fahrenheit when I landed (I took a different flight from the rest of the fellows) and it was just perfect with little humidity and a lot of Chinese people just staring at me and the ridiculous amount of luggage I had with me
• Plus Kunming is beautiful
• We're staying at the Kunming Upland Hostel (which is an awesome hostel) and it's right next to what's called Green Lake which is beautiful, full of street food, and full of people doing random dancing
• So in short, it's just about perfect

• I really want that last picture with the statue to be my statue someday if I do anything worthwhile enough with my life to deserve a statue
• It's so pimp, I mean a cape in the wind? Your first thought is, "Wow, how awesome must that guy have to have been?"