Sleep!!! Wow, seriously, it is incredible how great you feel after a long night’s rest. I slept for 10 hours, 4 hours longer than my previous longest night’s sleep, since I arrived in Beijing. I was able to wake up at 9:30 and Skype with Lindsey for about 15 minutes. Great way to start the day! I went upstairs and watched the second half of Game 3 of the NBA Finals with a few guys…go Heat! I am just going to go ahead and make it clear that I am on that bandwagon. It was really great to get to watch a game of NBA, even with the Chinese commentary; it still felt like a slice of home. To top off the “home feeling” that I had started my day with, a group of us went and had McDonalds for lunch/breakfast/my first meal of the day. Of all the things I thought I would miss who would have guessed that cheese and milkshakes would be at the top of the list? Oh, well. After that it was time to start my first day of work. When I walked outside it was raining… great start. There is apparently some great secret to waving down a taxi in Beijing…I clearly do not know the technique, so I took the 20 minute trek down to Lush in the rain. Having been to Lush a few nights ago I had no trouble finding the place, unfortunately Rich had not been specific about who I was supposed to meet there. I hit a bit of luck when I walked in the bar/restaurant/student lounge/concert hall and saw Jade sitting at the bar. At that moment, I was really patting myself on the back for being creepy and googling “Jade Grey Beijing” when I had been home. I went right up to him and introduced myself and Rich joined us a few minutes later. We started out with a simple conversation about being in another country, how they wanted to be a support system for me while I was here (but they made it clear I would not be babied, which I appreciated), and just a little bit about what both of our expectations were for the next two months. It was a wonderful conversation that I felt did a great job in setting the tone for the working portion of my time in Beijing. Jade and Rich left after about half an hour and I was left in the hands of Josh Lally, a native of Las Vegas who had lived in Beijing for about 6 years and does the day to day food management of Lush and Pyro Pizza. I spent the next 3 hours with him talking about the start of Lush, how it evolved into a nightclub that was shut down and turned into Pyro Pizza, and how that evolved into Gung Ho! Pizza. We also discussed various aspects of the company, the day-to-day procedures, the expectations of the company, and the competition that has grown up around in the area since Lush started in 2003. He also showed me around Pyro Pizza, which is literally a 2-minute walk away from Lush, and let me sample the cuisine…I devoured 8 wings and 5 slices of pizza. We then walked about 5 minutes away to the Blue Panda Co. Ltd office or it might be the Gung Ho Ventures office, I am still not really sure on what to call the company when it is talked about as a whole. Anyway, that is where I met John O’Loghlen, Jade’s partner at Gungho! Pizza. I went with him and Rich back to Pyro to listen in on a few details about the company moving forward and to talk about my role as their first intern. I then followed Rich back to the office to discuss the details of my week and what I would be doing on Tuesday. I am going to keep the details of that conversation private so you will be surprised by what I do tomorrow, but it seems like it will be an awesome week and I am really looking forward to my next two months of work. Now it is time to catch up on some rest and get ready for my first full day tomorrow. Here are some websites if you want to check out the company:
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