Day 14

Day 14

I am so excited to be leaving and going to Beijing. I chickened out of taking a shower knowing I would get a good one in the evening. My bag was packed by 7am. 

 Started the day by making planes out of extra foam we had.

 Had to take a picture of my llama shirt and RayBans I picked up at the Pearl Market.

 This is my two girls. The one on the right is Mary. She grew a ton this week. She went from being shy and crying about not being included in her group to more confident and talkative.

 The parents and pictures makes me smile.

 End of camp selfie. We look so happy.

 This is a picture of the golden ticket.

 So before I left camp, Mary wanted to be we chat friends. This is one of her posts. She also messaged me and said good night.

 Dinner was a success for me but a fail for Danielle. I had fried dough with fried steak and chicken dumplings. We had DQ Oreo blizzard for dessert.

Before I left for China I didn't pay much thought for lost in translation but after being here for a while I get it. This is proof that some things don't mean the same thing.

Day 13

Day 13
One more day until we head back to civilization. We are counting the hours even though it's only Thursday. I had a chance to wander to the path behind my classroom. If this does not scream Lost. They should do a Chinese version here. I could help.

They should also do a Chinese children of the corn. This is about 500 yards from my classroom. 

It was crime scene day.

This picture of a picture a student drew of the TAs warms my heart. It did mean a lot to Brian, he was my main translator. He wants to come to American. I told him he should be a computer science teacher. He is trained as a programmer and teaches classes at Roborobo.

We made catapults out of stuff we had laying around. The goofy kid won again.

Crime Scening.

Next door to my class was a tea class. I so badly wanted to jump in and be with them. They all laughed when I took a picture.

So Camford School does tons of camps. There come by the bus loads. This group is Chinese bad kid boot camp. They stand outside the cafeteria and have to recite something before they can eat. Then it's a free for all. You might also notice the lack of pictures of lunch. I haven't had the heart to take any pictures of it. I am trying to forget some of them. They do have rice and rolls.

This is the bathroom near my classroom. I noticed the shower and lack of a drain anywhere. Another weird thing I can't explain.

There is a small store in one of the dorms. The kids were awesome today and I bought them all ice cream. They said this one is a Beijing treat. It was a fruity Pina Colada taste. Very refreshing.

It was laundry day. I will never ever gripe about doing it at home again, not that I do gripe. I am going to hug my washer and dryer.

Hockey and figure skating practice in the mall.

Tonight, we learned two things about ordering dinner. 1. Go to a place with pictures and English. 2. If it is a place with a card you have to fill out to order always order multiple even though there is more in the picture. This stuff was spicy.

Sunset. Gives me hope.

This is from restaurant #2. Tonight was a learning experience. Tomorrow is FriYAY!!

Day 12

Day 12
Hump Day
I started to develop a theory about China. It plays with your emotions. The high are very good and lows are bad. I realized that is the yin and yang working. You have to try for a balance and remember that.

These are some of the drawings of the kids did of their friends. I found it cool most of them drew camp friends. They also drew the kid with the lipstick. He ended putting some lipstick on his forhead like Harry Potter. They still laughed at that.

This kid was goofy but won every design challenge. Above is his spaghetti bridge that held a large 2.5 liter bottle of water.

The TAs are getting worn out. They are with kids 24/7. I would be worn out also.

We headed down the subway again. The amount of people is crazy. Of course we hit rush hour which lasts until 10pm.

We found a cool BBQ place in the mall with grills on every table. It was a do it yourself place but we had a personal chef. I can't imagine why we weren't allowed to do it.

I thought of Winter and Indi with all the handles. They love American Ninja Warrior. They could have swung from these. 

Day 11

Day 11
So for the first time since I have been here, there is blue skies. I took a picture just in case I forgot what it looked like. I think China was trying to tell me something but more on that in another blog.

 The day started with these guys building paper towers.

 Indi and Winter wanted more pictures of what we were doing and since I couldn't upload pictures to the blog I sent them a selfie. On another note, selfie sticks are everywhere here.

 Doing some blood typing.

 We had a finger print activity and it wasn't working with pencils so we broke out the paint. What could wrong with Chinese kids and paint. Keep in mind it is rare for them to do activities like this.

We also did lip prints, so the guys had use some lipstick. It turns out this was one of the funniest moments of the camp. Everyone had a blast and this will probably be one of the things they remember most. 

This was my moment of zen. After my worse day, this happens to change my outlook. It was another good day with students. 

 This is a picture of a clothes dryer in Beijing. This will be me later in the week.

After class, my teaching partner Danielle and I said to heck with it and traveled down to the Olympic Park. The IBM tower is one of the coolest looking buildings ever. 

 The Bird's nest is huge and amazing to look at. The day of our cooking class Arsenal played Chelsea.

 The cube. I believe Phelps won 8 medals here and maybe a world record or two.

In true Chinese fashion I had to flash the deuces with one of the Olympic mascots.

 The scale of this park/area is incredible. I have no comparison other than hella big.

 More Cube. You can pay and take tours.

This is the indoor arena next to the cube and farthest down is the civic center. Kinda reminded me of Denver a bit in the shape.

 One of the towers at the end of the park.

 I believe this is the flame tower.

 After the Olympic Park, we were close to my number one place on my bucket list. This is one of the best breweries in Beijing. I would put it up against any brewery any where let alone China. This place had atmosphere and great beer. It was in the middle of a hutong so it was fun trying to find it.

 This is a lil general IPA.

 They don't have food at the brewery so you have to order in.We saw a woman at the bar with pizza and we couldn't resist. Pizza, beer and great atmosphere refilled our souls.

 I bought a t-shirt.

 Coach Leek pointed out to me on Twitter that they use military time, so I have changed my clock to military time as well. It seems to help.

 This was a cool door in the hutong.

This is what the subway looks like at almost 10pm. The weird thing is 9 kids in a classroom are 50 times louder than this subway car jammed to the gills with people. Almost all of them are on their phones.