Beijing, Day 6

I recently read somewhere that the pollution in Beijing is 16 times worse than it is in New York City and that it is unusual to see deep blue skies here. If that is the case, boy did I get lucky today. The sky was as blue as blue skies can get and it was a warm 84 degrees with absolutely no humidity. It was the perfect spring day in Beijing and I was very fortunate to be here to experience it. While most of you were going to sleep, our day at Romp n’ Roll, Beijing was just beginning. With a van packed with equipment and an army of 14 (both staff and sales people) we hosted an event at a local, very large, upscale community.
 

The event started at 8:30 am and ended two and half hours later with approximately 120 families being introduced to Romp n’ Roll for the very first time. I am happy to report, but not surprised, that there was not one child without a big smile on his or her face. Miss Jill, Mrs. Clare, Miss Herbie and Miss Nana led the children through a variety of activities like parachute, music circle, airlog, and story time. In another area children were painting, stamping, and coloring self-designed t-shirts. Big Rompy made a special appearance to the delight of everyone (especially the little boy who held on tight to his tail and followed him everywhere he went). In my head, I couldn’t help but singing “and everywhere that Rompy went, Rompy went, Rompy went, everywhere that Rompy went that boy was sure to go” to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb, of course.

We arrived back at Romp n’ Roll around noon to get ready for the preview classes. Since I didn’t write a blog yesterday, let it be known that the preview classes went well. It is an interesting organizational dynamic having a sales force. It was let known to me that they don’t want to bring too many families in until all the instructors move from good to amazing. The conundrum is that instructors will become more amazing with each class they teach so it is a vicious circle that Luyin and I are working through. The Princess class was magical and the gym classes were executed very well.

I learned that Kindergarten starts at age three in Beijing so the mentality of the Chinese people is strict education at an early age. The big challenge for Luyin and his staff is to help the parents understand the power of play. We need to educate the parents that when their children experience our program, they are working on their logical thinking, problem solving skills, imagination, and confidence. All these things are just as important, if not more important than the structured learning they are receiving in the classroom.



On another note, I have enjoyed my ten-minute walks to work everyday. In addition to the many rose gardens well placed throughout the city (yes, I do stop to smell the roses here), I am not able to call anyone so I actually get to enjoy my surroundings and give myself time to complete a thought which in turn brings me a wonderful sense of peace. When I get home I may have to adopt a new no cell phone rule when driving to work in the morning. Ok, who am I kidding?!



The pinnacle of happiness came today as I stumbled across a bakery called Paris Baguette and scored a super yummy, all American Tuna salad sandwich with lettuce and tomato on a multigrain baguette. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Chinese food but too much of a good thing…



A quick funny story before I end this blog. As I was walking to work yesterday, I passed two young men, who stopped talking once they saw me. They smiled politely and in their best effort and with much enthusiasm, exclaimed “Hola!”. My smile back was even bigger than theirs as I held back my belly laugh. I replied with an emphatic “hello”. They both froze for just a minute with wonderment, followed by the light bulb moment, immediately followed with an “ah, oh…. Hello!” It was a precious moment that kept a smile on my face for the rest of my walk.



Tomorrow, Monday, Romp n’ Roll is closed and I have a chance to do some sight seeing. Hmmmm, what site will I choose? Happy Memorial Day! Please someone, everyone, enjoy a hot dog, hamburger and some potato salad on my behalf.

Beijing, Day 4

Today was filled with training and more organization. I am proud to say that the instructors are ready for the preview classes tomorrow and the place looks fantastic! I can’t wait to see everyone in action tomorrow with the children and parents.

I went with some of the staff to a store to get some last minute items needed for the facility. This store has almost everything you could need from treadmills to toothpicks, similar to a Wal-mart but smaller with the same amount of stuff. While I was there I decided to cross over to being a tea drinker for the next few days. They have fantastic teas over here so I decided I needed to make the switch from coffee.

The staff was putting the finishing touches on everything. The rugs were being shampooed as we left this evening and the place was sparkling clean. When potential customers come to check the place out tomorrow, they are going to love love love it.


After work, Ms. Jill and I went to the gym. I was able to get a membership for a week for free. I love free. It was a small place but that didn’t matter because there weren’t many people there. I have been told that working out at a gym is not very popular. That is ok by me. I don’t have to wait for a treadmill.

We grabbed dinner after the gym and I proceeded to eat my sixth straight Chinese meal in a row. It is all very good but I need a change -- I am seeking out Italian tomorrow.

Beijing, Day 3

Oh, the adventure. At 1:00 am Thursday morning in Beijing, as I was getting ready to go to bed, I noticed that the two boxes on the bathroom wall flipped up and there were outlets inside. I was very excited about this because Wednesday morning, I tried to plug my hairdryer into an outlet in the main part of the apartment only to discover that the plug didn’t fit. Seeing these two new plugs, I grabbed my hairdryer and anxiously tried to plug it in. With a bit of a wiggle, in it went. I turned the hair dryer on to test it and snap.. crackle.. pop. After a few sparks flying, I managed to wipe out the electricity in the entire apartment, including the air conditioning. Being that it was too late to call anyone, I decided to open the window and try to get some sleep. It would have been fine except that there is a building under construction right outside my window. Finally at 3:00 a.m., I fell asleep when the workers took a break. My alarm clock was the jackhammer that resumed at 6:00.


With no hope of falling back to sleep, I decided to get dressed and head out in search of coffee. Surely Starbucks would be open. Not in Beijing. Luckily I found a McDonald’s (Michael can’t believe those words came out of my mouth) and I sat there with my McCafe waiting for the Starbucks to open at 7:30 in order to get internet access. It is a helpless feeling to be sitting in a pitch black apartment 7200 miles away from home.


With help from a lot of caffeine, I stayed at Romp n’ Roll until 12:30 and got to do Tumble Tunes training with the instructors. They sounded really great and I was very proud to see first hand all the hard work they had put in to learn how to conduct the musical activities. I was able to take a nap around lunch and then I headed back to Romp n’ Roll for more organization and training. I have taken pictures of the gym that I wanted to share with you.

I left work with Ms. Jill around 6:30 and we went to the massive shopping mall across the street. We were able to get just about anything at a store called Carrefour. After a bite to eat, we made our way home only to find that we came out of the wrong side of this section of the mall and couldn’t find our way back. After a lot of walking in the rain, we finally found our way home. Thursday couldn’t come soon enough.

Two interesting facts I found out today:

1. Owning a gun is against the law here. Police officers aren’t even allowed to carry them. Only bank security guards are allowed to carry guns.

2. There is one day between Monday and Friday that each car is not allowed to drive. It is all indicated by he number your license plate ends with.

Zai Jian (Good-bye) until tomorrow.

Beijing Day 2

It has been a busy day in Beijing. My day started at 6:30 am when I put my walking shoes on and decided to discover my neighborhood by foot and find a good cup of coffee. There weren’t a lot of people out at that time of day and the few that I did see were for the most part, either street vendors, cooking breakfast, or exercising. It was very peaceful. I was feeling a bit helpless because everything was in Chinese characters. I was very excited to finally see a 7-Eleven until I realized that the 7-Elevens in China don’t sell coffee. After walking around for another half hour, I was so incredibly happy to see another American brand...Starbucks!!!!

With a venti coffee gripped tightly in my hands I was ready to do some more walking before I headed back to my room to Skype with the family and then head off to Romp n’ Roll. I took some photos of street vendors and a picture of an older more traditional storefront nestled in between modern buildings.  Miss Jill and I plan on checking it out tomorrow.

The rest of my day was filled working at Romp n’ Roll. I did instructor training followed by helping get the facility organized. At lunch the Chinese instructors took Miss Jill and I to a really cool “food court” in a big shopping mall. I saw a man make homemade noodles. I had to take a picture:

He was very excited and proud to have his picture taken by an American. The next picture is of me at lunch with the Romp n’ Roll instructors.

There are two Chinese girls who call themselves Nana and Herbie (their American names) and Miss Jill who came from America to work at Romp n’ Roll for a whole year.

When I arrived at Romp n’ Roll , I noticed that the graphics had been put up on the outside of the space and looked spectacular:

I am so used to seeing Romp n’ Roll’s in strip malls, that having a Romp n’ Roll on the third floor of a retail and office building takes some getting used to. According to Luyin and by what I have witnessed it is very typical. I took some pictures of the gym and of the instructors practicing teaching a gym class with the sales staff.  The classes are a different dynamic in China because Herbie, Miss Jill’s assistant, has to translate most of what Miss Jill says. Although many people speak English, some still have difficulty understanding it. Herbie is there to make sure that our educational value doesn’t get lost in translation.

There are many things I love about the construction of this location. However, my two favorites are the lobby and the shoe closet. What gal wouldn’t like a whole room dedicated to shoes. Now if I could only have something like this in my house.

Tomorrow I am conducting more training with the staff as well as helping them with additional organizational tasks. Tomorrow is one day closer to the Grand Opening excitement. Tomorrow is going to be another good day.

Zai Jian (Good-bye) until tomorrow.

Day One in Beijing

After a 13 hour and 40 minute flight, I landed safely in Beijing at 2:30 pm on Tuesday afternoon. The flight didn’t feel as long as I expected it to feel. Between napping on and off, watching movies and reading, I managed to fill up the time nicely. The thing I wasn’t expecting, but it makes sense to me now, is that it never got dark. Everyone on the plane had his or her shades drawn and my seat was positioned over the wing, which resulted in me not being able to see very much. When the TV monitor indicated that we were over the North Pole, I had to open up my shade and look. From what I could see around that ginormous wing, it was a glistening sheet of ice.

The airport was stunning. I found out later that the whole airport was renovated for the Olympics. I was not sure about their laws about taking photos in airports so I wasn’t able to snap one. I didn’t want to cause problems first thing into the country. After an easy breeze through the foreigner security check, I picked up my bags, exchanged my currency and met Luyin, our Beijing owner of Romp n’ Roll.

Beijing is a lot like what I had pictured but less crowded, at least in the area that I am staying. Luyin has explained that the area where Romp n’ Roll is located is considered to be the Silicon Valley of Beijing. I am staying in an apartment building, an eight minute walk from Romp n’ Roll, in the equivalent of an extended stay hotel. My address if anyone wants to check it out on googleearth.com is Unit #502, Bldg. 5, Feng Niao Community, 33 Wan Liu Zhong Road, Haidian District, Beijing, China 100089.

Immediately after Luyin picked me up from the airport we drove straight to Romp n’ Roll. It is located in an office building on the third floor

The Romp n’ Roll sign will go up behind the desk tomorrow and the next few days will be spent organizing the art room.

Tomorrow I will be observing the gym instructors and doing further training on the classes. I am planning to take some more pictures of both Romp n’ Roll and the everyday sights of this area in Beijing. I should get some sleep now since it is 3:00 in the morning. 再见 (goodbye in Chinese)

Traveling to Beijing to Open the First International Romp n' Roll

Tomorrow starts my big journey to Beijing to help put the finishing touches on the first international Romp n' Roll followed by the Grand Opening a week later. My flight leaves Newark, NJ at 12:10 pm and is due to arrive in Beijing at 1:50pm on Tuesday (Beijing time). It is a 13 hr and 40 min flight. I am looking forward to all this time to myself. I have a date with at least one movie, two books, time to configure and experiment with my new MacBook and lots of time to nap. With the 12 hour time difference, most of my American friends and family will be tucked in bed sound asleep as my plane touches down in China.

- Mrs. Babz

Summer Camp

Romp n' Roll is putting the final touches on a spectacular summer of camps and classes. Each week of Summer Camp has a fun weekly theme. The kids visit twice a week for 3 hours each day and participate in gym, art, and music activities. We welcome ages 2 - 6. Visit us at http://www.rompnroll.com/ for more information!