We had a great weekend – so want to get it down before I forget all that happened.
Us with Acrobatic troup, Mr Li, director of school in white, Chris, from ISB in light blue, small older woman in polkadots I believe is director
Starting Friday:
When we first arrived, Celia was super excited to be reunited with her bass guitar. She quickly plugged it into our amp, then plugged the amp into the wall – no converter. 220 V into an amp set for 110 V. Fried. She didn’t realize and plugged our second amp into the wall. Same result.
Apparently our large amp was a big hit for karaoke at school parties at the house last year. We are hosting a staff party at the house this coming Friday – so people thought our lack of a functioning amp was a major crisis.
Dan told me someone from the school was coming to fix the amp. Mid day Friday five men showed up to fix our amp – two department heads and three other men. After changing the fuse and messing with it a bit, they took the amp back to the school with them. Promising we’d have a functioning amp for the party.
Saturday:
Celia and I went food shopping. She hadn’t yet been to a local,what the foreigners call, wet market – so I wanted to bring her to one I’d been to a couple times. They are apparently called “Wet Market” because of the fish tanks there – where fish splash water onto the floor. I haven’t noticed much splashed water, but they do sell fish in tanks – both for eating and for pets – along with everything else possible : from produce stalls, to fresh baked Chinese delicacies, to toilet bowls, plants, antiques, …. And the only foreigners I’ve seen there were the one time I went with a few others. I really wanted to do some tasting, and figured Celia would indulge with me.
Celia driving me on her scooter
In the past I have biked or gotten a ride to the market. This time Celia offered to take me on the back of her scooter. I have to admit I was a bit nervous, but it wasn’t too scary. She did a pretty good job of driving safely. We bought a lot of produce and some barley, and some snacks. Having to do all our communicating in Mandarin and not recognizing everything we see, made it more of a fun adventure than a chore. Plus we had a couple super yummy Chinese fried dough filled with some greens! I wish I had a picture of it!
Sunday morning:
Celia and I did some frantic cooking for Rosh Hashanah dinner. Then we got ready to go to see some acrobats. We weren’t sure exactly what we were going to. Dan had told me someone had invited us to see some acrobats. Other than that he didn’t have anymore information. Dan had put it on our calendar at 10 am – I didn’t realize that was just a place holder. Wednesday I received a message from his assistant that the show was in the afternoon and the director invited us to join him for dinner. I was in a bit of a panic. I had no idea who had invited us, what they exactly invited us for and I didn’t want to insult anyone or be ungrateful but it was also Rosh Hashanah and I didn’t want to cancel our evening holiday plans of services and dinner at Roberta and Ted’s. I explained all this to Dan’s assistant – who also didn’t know anything about the acrobat plans. She got back to me saying it would be okay to go to the show and have dinner another time.
We headed out in the car around 2:15. Dan quickly noticed we were going in the opposite direction from Roberta’s – not the direction he had expected – so our already tight schedule suddenly seemed impossible. The driver told us it would take an hour to get to the acrobatic school (which is apparently where we were going). We were supposed to be there in about half an hour. Not only were we not staying for dinner – we were also now running half hour late. WeChat messages were quickly sent and then we tried not to stress about it too much as there was nothing more we could do.
The director of the school, Mr Li, and Chris, a man who works at ISB, Dan’s school, who was the intermediary for this invitation, met us at the school gate. They walked us through, telling us a little about the school. It’s a boarding school for kids who are training to be acrobats. They enter at age 10 and live and train and do their schooling there. Professional acrobats also train at the school. We then got to a large building and as we entered, the crowd inside stood up and applauded our entrance. It was overwhelming – and I felt like a complete jerk that we were half an hour late, weren’t staying for dinner, and they were applauding our entrance. – not to mention – who the heck are we that they are applauding us? They had set up chairs on the stage – just for us. All the performers circled around the performance space. A group of female performers were spinning plates on multiple poles in their hands.
We then watched one of the most amazing acrobatic performances I’ve ever seen on the floor below the stage. The young men performing were already professional acrobats. After they performed for half hour or so, they had us get up and they moved our chairs to the floor in front of the stage and the show continued on the stage. The girls who had been spinning the plates when we arrived were still spinning the plates. Their arms must be burning! They were students. They performed for next half hour or so. Also mind bogglingly amazing – walking up and over one another while still spinning the plates. At one point they were dancing on their toes without toe shoes – in shoes similar to ballet slippers. Celia wondered what it does to ones face – smiling all that time. When it was done, the performers came around us and the director said a few words in Mandarin, which Chris was translating to Dan, about how it’s such an honor to have us here, how Dan is the head of this very important school… And then he asked Dan to say a few words to his students. Luckily Dan is good at making speeches off the cuff. We then asked the performers some questions – which the director and a woman I assume was the choreographer – answered. Then they walked us back to our car.
Driving to Roberta and Ted’s was faster than expected, so we made it with a few minutes to spare before the service started. In all communication about the Rosh Hashanah plans, the location was obscured, no one would say where it was. We were confused for a while and then realized they didn’t want authorities to crack down on the gathering of so many people – despite there are currently ZERO cases of Covid here in Beijing. It’s a different world here.
Roberta led a lovely service in her side yard and then we carried our chairs inside for dinner. Roberta makes incredible challah and Ted made a fantastic vegetarian matzah ball soup. Food and company are always lovely there.
This morning, Tuesday, there was a breakfast for parents of juniors and seniors. It was lovely but one thing that I struggle with at these things – and Celia says it is the same at school- is how not to have events segregated. I walk into the small restaurant and there is a buffet set out for us. All but four of the parents appear to be Chinese. The few Westerners are seated together. I don’t want to insult anyone but decide to sit with some Chinese mothers I don’t know. They are lovely and we chat a while but their level of English is varied and my Chinese is certainly not enough to hold a meaningful conversation. Eventually they start talking on their own in Mandarin and I turn to a Western father to my left and chat with him. I try to reengage with some other Chinese parents, but it’s hard to enter when they are engrossed in conversation in Mandarin. I then go talk with a couple Western mothers I know a bit. At one point I look up from my conversation to notice I am talking with the only other person woman in the room. We are here to experience China but integration is hard.
To change our visas from a short stay visa to a long term visa I had to go get an official medical exam. I had to go downtown to the official medical facility. ChangYang, who works at ISB, and I waited for the place to open and then hurried in, to get ahead of the line. We ran in, she registered me on the computer and then we waited my turn. After being called, I signing in, appropriate green codes were checked, paperwork completed, questions answered, and I payed the fee. Then I was sent upstairs to the medical maze. I was sent from area to area – a rat scurrying through – to get the appropriate stickings and scanings. One spot they took blood, another – a chest x-ray, another they put circular stickers all over my body with wires that connected to a monitor (any doctors out there know what this was for?), yet another they took my blood pressure … It was all very officiant and felt quite crazy! With that completed, a few days later the kids and I went to the Chinese visa office, had our official pictures taken, met individually (I couldn’t be near desk during kids meeting and vice-versa) with the visa agent. They took our passports and said they’d return them when the process was over. That was a bit unnerving but a week and a half later or so our passports were returned with our new year long visas. We need to reapply every year – though I believe without the medical experiments.
On a completely different subject, a couple Fridays ago we went to Roberta and Ted’s for Shabbat. Roberta had just come back from going to a more remote area of China to have many women (I forget the number but it was impressively high) get tested for the HPV virus. She told an incredible story of how they got so many women tested. Normally we get undressed, go onto the table, put our feet in the stirrups, and a doctor gives us a papsmear. Using this method would take too long to get so many women through the process. To be more efficient, they had a large number of women come into a room and get into a circle around a table. Then, through some laughter and group encouragement, they would get the women to drop their pants and under garments, squat and take their own samples. So amazing, crazy, and brilliant. Why don’t we do that?! – though not sure about the group aspect. All the more incredible as I have learned that tampons are not part of this culture – they are very difficult to find here. … . .…. OTHER RANDOM EVENTS:
MY NEW LOOK
I went to the hair salon. They insisted on blow drying my hair. They promised they were drying it curly. This is me with ”curly blown dried hair”! The kids couldn’t even look at me. I took some silly pictures then quickly washed it out.
New Family Member
Celia finally got a cat! Celia picked it up from it’s foster home one evening. We had guests over and they knew the cat. It had been rescued not far from our home and had been through two foster homes. It came with the name Toto – which Celia instantly switched. Dan wanted to call it Chairman Mao ze Dong. I suggested Chairman Miao. Celia calls the cat Milo. The cat doesn’t answer to any of these things. It spent the first few days hidden inside a tiny bathroom drawer. We couldn’t find him for about 24 hours – when Celia opened her bathroom drawer and yelled with surprise. Now Milo comes out to pester Celia at night, but spends most of his days hidden in bedside tables or the back of closets and he’s very skittish. On a regular basis we are doing something like putting our clothes in our bureau and the cat comes bounding out in a fearful panic from the tiny crack below the dresser. Hopefully he’ll adjust to us. But Celia is thrilled to have him.
First Day of School
Two weeks down of new school. Kids are overwhelmed with how nice the school is. I have never seen a school with such nice facilities! I am enjoying the beautiful indoor tennis courts and swimming pool. Kids are enjoying the fantastic school food – breakfast, lunch, and endless snacks – and being able to go hang out and eat free snacks in Dan’s beautiful glass cube office. Celia can’t believe how light the schedule is: four classes a day with a couple study halls and no PE, vs. the eight classes a day she had in Brooklyn. Of course the real school work hasn’t really started yet – school eases kids back for first two weeks – so we’ll see if her tune changes once the real school work kicks in. Celia is also enjoying that her classmates are, across the board more academically engaged, than in Brooklyn. Morton has signed up for a plethora of at school after-school activities: volleyball – indoor and out, table tennis, golf … They kick in next week. And he’s trying to get a biking club set up.
At Forbidden City
A couple Friday nights ago we invited a few families over for dinner and to watch The Last Emperor. I hadn’t seen it since it’s release in late 80s. We projected it on the wall of our playroom and took breaks for dinner and dessert (it’s a long movie). It was a great prelude to our Sunday morning trip with the Rubin family to the Forbidden City.
Celia in an Olafur Eliasson art installationAnd who doesn’t love a cat video?
After going to the Red Brick Museum, and getting a wonderful tour from a curator there, I returned to show Celia the place and the show. There was a beautiful Olafur Eliasson installation and then a really interesting video show. And then we walked through the small garden and ate in the restaurant there. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more beautiful, well thought out garden. Ever step we took there is another magical surprise – every viewpoint has been considered.
Last Thursday I went to an art show of an adult class where they copy traditional Chinese silk paintings. The care with the brush strokes were unbelievable – like Indian miniatures. It was so interesting to see. And everyone was very warm and inviting to me. It was lovely. The gallery space is in a mall and the manager ran after me as I was leaving to offer me a tour of the building. There are many fancy restaurants in the building, a small art gallery, a Japanese food market, and an entire area of fish tanks where fish wait to be ordered by customers at the restaurants upstairs. The building was finishing being built when Covid happened, so a lot of the building that looked like it would be a fun farmers type market and another area that should have been a beer garden, sat empty. It was a shame. The next night I did bring Dan back to have dinner at one of the restaurants. We had these amazing croquettes.
This past weekend was Zhongqiujie – Mid Autumn Festival. Everyone eats moon cakes – which are usually individually sized cakes that come in many flavors. Many people gave them to us. It was so nice – though Celia and Morton may have eaten a few dozen too many! Sunday the Wang Family, the dad is on the school board and one daughter is a school graduate and the other is an eighth grader, invited us to a fabulous 10 course vegetarian meal. Most of the dishes I couldn’t recognize, but were so beautiful and delicious. Morton opted out of this meal. Sitting at a meal for three and a half hours didn’t sound bearable to him.
This week I took Morton to have his eyes checked. Maybe they do this in the States, but I’ve never seen it. They figured out his new prescription then had him wear the new lenses in these funky glasses for ten minutes or so before we could go to make sure they didn’t give him a headache. I thought they were super fun science time travel type glasses!
While most people in the U.S. hardly remember there is (was?) a pandemic going on (we checked the online front page of NYT yesterday – nothing about Covid was even mentioned that day) – here it a major part of life. Apparently there currently are 15 cases in Beijing (in a city more populated than NYC) – so all schools had to put up plexiglass between students in the lunch room. Feels horrible but I just have to remind myself – as long as they don’t make school go remote – I should/will be happy.
Lastly for now, Yesterday a friend, Hanbin, took me to another local art museum – the Song Art Museum. The grounds were also beautiful. The museum was showing an exhibit of very young contemporary Chinese artists. Hanbin knew one of the artists’ fathers, so the artist, Zhang Ji, agreed to meet us near his work to discuss it. His work was really engaging – more emotionally driven than much of the work I’ve seen here so far – which I appreciate. Ends up he studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as I did, and under at least one of the same people. His concepts about his art and insights into the current Chinese art world were really interesting to hear about. He had some large scale paintings, with amazingly varied and yummy textures, and he had some more quick whimsical drawings. Below are some drawings he did on tiles that he then baked onto the tiles. I love that idea of the quick gesture becoming a solid permanent object.
The next morning Celia woke early and said she needed to see a doctor. Her throat was killing and she was achy all over. Dan called the local clinic and they directed us to the hospital downtown. The doctors there put Celia on more antibiotics and sent her home. She went directly to bed.
Three days later, no improvement – possibly worse – so I took her back to the ENT at the hospital. He wanted her to stay at the hospital for three days and get intravenous antibiotics. I suggested we go home at night and return for the treatments. Celia got up to go to the bathroom, then turned around, went pale as a ghost, eyes rolled back and passed out. Luckily the doctor saw it coming and got her to an examination chair to land on. A couple doctors and nurses ran around her speaking in mandarin – a bit scary to watch having no idea what was being said. This gave me more pause about taking Celia home but after a half hour or so Celia’s color came back and we decided to stick to the plan: three days of coming to the hospital for intravenous antibiotics, steroids, and glucose and go home at night and then see where we were.
Again, no real improvement and her throat looked worse. The doctor then wanted to keep her in the hospital for five days giving her some completely different antibiotics through IV. I again pushed for going home at night. The doctor spent a while on the phone with another doctor and a pharmacist and then decided there was a different strong antibiotic that Celia could take at home – five large pills to be taken every six hours. Almost immediately after starting the pills, Celia started feeling better and making tons of plans – making up for lost time.
Two nights later was Friday night and Celia was up for going to Roberta and Ted’s house: American’s who have lived in Beijing for many decades and have become the gathering spot for the Jewish community here. They host Shabbat dinner for anyone who wants to attend every Friday night and made Dan feel very welcome during his solo year here. The community was also very welcoming to us and were so happy for Dan that he was no longer separated from us. It was a lovely gathering.
A group shot someone took at shabbat dinner
A few days later, Celia felt up for going to The Great Wall. We went to a section of the wall about an hour’s drive from our home where one can take a gondola up to the wall, walk for an hour or so, and then take a toboggan ride down. It reminded my of going on a similar ride I believe in the Pocconos where my possibly four year old brother, who was riding with my mother, told her not to be scared, to let go of the brake and hold onto him. On the way home we stopped at the local town and got lunch. It was an assortment of inedible (by us), odd, and tasty dishes. One of the dishes was spicier than anything any of us had eaten before.
It was a super fun day!
A little fun in one of the towers along the wall.Toboggan ride down from The Great Wall. MOM – turn your computer volume on and hit the triangle in the middle of the picture above!
Other highlights from last couple weeks:
Checked out the local Sam’s Club. Pretty different foods than in US but the largest chip bag I have ever seen!Dan and I were invited to a sari party. When I mentioned the party invitation, Dan actually thought we were going to play the game Sorry. Despite there being no Sorry playing – the party was really special – a wonderful welcome to the community here!Kids and I went to the Summer Palace. Trying to purchase the tickets was crazy difficult. I told Celia to purchase the “combo” tickets as I understood they were for the grounds and the buildings. When our tickets didn’t get us through the front entrance and someone was found who spoke some English, we learned we had bought tickets for the next day as there were no Combo tickets for Monday, as the buildings are closed on Monday. We decided to explore the less developed part of the grounds, as we figured we’d return on another day to go into the buildings. The grounds and the day (not to mention my company) were incredibly beautiful!A bridge on the Summer Palace grounds.Kids are at the top of this crazy steep bridge.Unbelievable lilly pads that were blowing in the wind.
A couple days later Morton and I went to the Temple of Heaven.
On Friday we all went to the kids new school before heading to the visa office to apply for our permanent residence visa. The school facilities are AMAZING! – like nothing we have ever seen before. I have been enjoying the indoor tennis courts. The rock climbing wall looks fantastic. Dan brags about the choices at the cafeteria and all the playgrounds are unbelievable!
Us in the school’s new Great Wall play houseJumping on the trampolines in the school playgroundOn one of the swings
Friday night Dan and I went out on our first real date in about a year and a half! We went to Stanliton – a very hip neighborhood – which preCovid was full of weiguaren (foreigners) – but is now mostly full of locals. We went to a lovely restaurant and wandered around. The buildings lit up in crazy lights in alternating patterns and the stores were top notch designers. Dan has his eye on a flying car that was on display – an actual full scale flying car!
Saturday I biked out to a local ”wet market”. Apparently they’re called that due to the live fish splashing around. It was fun to check out all the local foods and other merchandise for sale. Unfortunately I have found that when I speak to local people I can’t keep hitting “Replay” to hear and then decipher each word as I can when I am studying Mandarin. I look forward to bringing the family back there to sample more of the foods.
And Today (yeah! I’m just about caught up!) Dan, Morton, and I biked out to a local neighborhood where I had been told I could do some shopping and there would be no other waiguaren. It made us feel a little sorry we aren’t living – at least for a little while- in this area. The conditions are a lot less posh than where we are living – but it felt like the real cultural experience we came here for. Again, we struggled a bit conversing, but we enjoyed ourselves exploring a bit and tasting a few different snack.
Days are passing/events happening and I am not writing things down.
We have now been in Beijing for two and a half weeks. Definitely the most challenging part of being here is getting the WeChat app to work so we can function. Everything is done through WeChat. Anytime you walk into a neighborhood, a store, or chew some food – you need to scan a code and show that you have a green health code which indicates that you have tested negative for Covid in the last 72 hours – and as we learned at the Shanghai airport – things don’t always run flawlessly.
Celia getting her regular Covid test across street from where we live.Morton exiting Covid testing area. Apparently lines used to be terrible. Now I have never taken more than five minutes to get in and out.
On our first day here we put new Sim cards in our phones, got our new Chinese telephone numbers, and then Dan and I went to a local branch of Chinese Construction Bank to get my WeChat hooked up to pay for things. Ends up joint accounts are not legal in China. We spent a couple hours setting up an account for me – we needed to use my phone to do this and it wasn’t getting reception in the bank – made it difficult – but we eventually walked out my having a bank account and what looked like a linked WeChat pay.
Maybe the next day Celia wanted to go meet a cat. She had been cat shopping online while in quarantine. Ended up the cat owner lived about an hour drive from us so I thought we should do something else on the trip so we weren’t just driving an hour, meeting a cat and then turning around. The famous Beijing art neighborhood 798 was some what on the route, so we went there. We planned to wander the area for two hours then go meet the cat. We were so excited. The neighborhood looked like it would be fun to wander around and Celia quickly had me photograph her to show her friends how cool it was there. Then from that high moment, it all went down hill.
Checking out a funky chair in the 798 district.
We spent the next two hours struggling with our phones. We wanted to go into a store and our GreenCode wasn’t working.We had to call Dan to send pictures of our passports to try to reset the app. That worked and it seemed like we were back in business. We went into a couple stores with no problem – other than the annoying delay of having to open our phones, get to the correct program within Wechat and then scan the stores’ sign and bring up our Green Code – AT EVERY STORE – and often at the entrance to an area too – anyway…. Celia found an awesome pare of sunglasses at a hip second hand store and we were feeling good – and then I went to pay. My WeChat wouldn’t work. We stepped back out of the store, called Dan, and the three of us struggled to get the WeChat to work – no luck. At this point Celia and I were running out of time at 798 so decided we should stop fighting with the app and see a little of the neighborhood before we would get picked up. The weather was super hot and we really wanted something to cool us down – Celia saw a sign for ice cream. I figured I had emergency cash in my purse and this felt like an emergency. We went in to the ice cream shop probably five times being sent out of the store as our scans weren’t working. When we finally got our apps working correctly we went to order and they said they didn’t accept cash – only WeChat. We were out of luck. We were hot and incredibly discouraged. We listlessly wandered around the neighborhood, popping into a few galleries until it was time to go see the cat. Unfortunately, by this time the traffic had gotten terrible and getting to the cat was going to be an hour – and then another hour to get home. Celia decided to postpone.
The next day, a new plan. We’d go out as a family, have dinner and meet the cat. This plan worked out better. We were given a restaurant recommendation. It ended up being a fancy vegan restaurant. We were brought to a curtained off table with silk flowers covering the ceiling, and although we weren’t exactly sure what some of the things were we were eating – it was all really good.
Eating at fantastic vegan restaurant.Not exactly sure what it was – but delicious!
Afterwards we went to meet the cat. It took us a while to figure out how to get into the neighborhood. The map brought us to a permanently locked gate. Texting back and forth with the cat’s owner, Celia found out we needed to go to a different side of the neighborhood. The owner met us there and walked us through a maze of her neighborhood and up to her sixth floor walk up apartment. The lights were out on the first few floors of the stairwell. We got into her apartment where she, her husband, their cat, at least one roommate and her dog lived. To say we filled the apartment was an understatement. It was nice to talk with the owner of the cat who was lovely and to see how she lived – much tighter than we are used to even in New York. Unfortunately the cat was freaked out by our arrival and wouldn’t let Celia anywhere near it. We waited for an hour and then told the woman Celia would come back over the weekend. Unfortunately Celia woke the next morning quite sick and wasn’t able to get back.
Celia’s still in the market for a cat.
Did I mention Celia got an electric scooter? She’s very excited about it.
Sunday at noon we were scheduled to finally be released from quarantine. That morning all of our Shanghai Green Codes – that allow us to enter the airport – had turned Red. After a number of frantic messages on WeChat, the app that is used here for everything, we were assured it would turn back to Green in the next couple hours.
At 10am, I was chatting on the phone and trying to finish the above painting – before having to pack the painting into the bottom of one of my bags -when the haz-matters came to our door and said we needed to get out NOW. We frantically started throwing the rest of our stuff into our bags. We dragged our eight humungous bags out into the hallway and were waiting for the Michael/Boyle family before loading everything into the elevators. Then another haz-matter showed up and said we couldn’t go until noon. We left our bags where they were and we hung out in groups, reconnecting and waiting to be released.
At Noon we dragged all our luggage downstairs and were told to quickly go outside to do our checkout – they wanted us out of the building as quickly as possible. Outside it was bright – sunny and 96 degrees. Walking outside the hotel – which looked post apocalyptic – we realized the hotel pre Covid must have been quite posh with a golden camel out front.
We spend the next hour outside the hotel, trying to deal with paperwork and what happened to the SIM cards we ordered, where was the van that was taking our luggage, and making sure we had all the correct paperwork and green codes on the appropriate apps. Once all was in order minus our Shanghai codes which we were told would turn Green, we were told we had to leave the hotel grounds. They pushed us out to the sidewalk to wait for the airport shuttle bus. We waited out front, gulped our water and tried to crouch in little areas of shade to evade the extreme heat.
Eventually the bus showed up. The next hour was quite a lovely drive, looking out at Shanghai.
When we arrived at the airport we needed to scan our Shanghai Green Codes to enter but our codes were still red. We sat outside, in the 96 degree heat and sweat.
After a little while, the hazmatted guards allowed us to enter just inside the door. Two guards began to go through all our paperwork which showed that we had repeatedly tested negative for Covid and were released from the quarantine hotel. Eight of us, three pieces of official papers from each of us. Two guards. They each needed to check and photograph each of our three official papers. Then each guard needed to repeat the process – asking to rephotograph all eight of us – each of our three papers again. And then a third time. And then a fourth – at which time we sat down. A number of hours had gone by. It seemed like they were just killing time – making it appear they were doing something.
After about three and a half hours one of our codes went Green. We call cheered. Five minutes later, another person’s. Five more minutes another – until all but Leo, the son in the Michael/Boyle Family, had gone Green. Forty five minutes passed. Leo felt terrible. Then Dan started receiving messages saying he had been a close contact and he should not travel. He started to panic. ”If we don’t get through security quickly – we are going to get taken back to quarantine”. He started yelling and trying to push our way through. It didn’t help get Leo in. Security did tell us those with Green codes could go in and get some food and bring it back out. Dan, Celia and Carolyn, did just that. Like a miracle, Dan also returned with beer. Just as we were settling in to eat and passing around a beer, Leo’s Shanghai code went Green. We quickly dropped our drinks – which couldn’t go through security – and ran in. We had long missed our flight but were able to get tickets for one a few hours later.
And from there – things were actually smooth. Short flight to Beijing. Some colleagues waiting to welcome us and Driver Li waiting to take us home.
Just a couple things when looking back I want to remember so putting here. The first is when we were going through security Morton’s bag was pulled out to go through. We couldn’t believe it when we saw the contents!!
I also loved the shower in our hotel. It was a small NYC apartment!
Travel Path NYC->Detroit->Seoul->Shanghai->Beijing Arrive August 7th
8700 miles, 23 days, 5 cities (For reference an old 19th century Clipper ships could cross the Atlantic in 21 days)
10 days in quarantine in Shanghai, which is basically sitting in a nice hotel room for 10 days straight.
Not so funny quirks of COVID China travel—We spend a lot of time getting COVID tested, retested, and proving we have the right testing and a lot of direct flights are impossible due to flight crews not wanting to quarantine.
We’re travelling a bit heavy: 600 lbs. of luggage in 8 bags—don’t ask about the extra baggage costs—and 6 carry-on bags. Going to and from the airport is a total pain. In our defense, we thought the family was traveling in 2021 and thus purchased many things in NY to live for the year and didn’t want to part with them.
Looking forward to getting back to Beijing and being in our own house! Celia has been targeting a new cat (mao in mandarin) which we’re planning on calling Chairman Mao Zecat.
To continue our moving saga: We made it to the Shanghai airport. They have turned what once was one of the world’s busiest airports into a crazy empty maze with completely hazmat suited workers including goggles and taped on gloves. As we pass they quickly wiped everything down including their gloves.
We spent the next 6 hours navigating the airport: down one corridor to show our green code, another to fill out more paperwork, another to get our mouth or nose swabbed, another corridor to fill out more paperwork, then through the slowest passport control ever – there was no line but they checked that each letter was correct. Then we went through another maze to get our luggage, then we navigated through to a holding area for passengers that eventually will be going to Beijing. When we finally released from that area we were led though the maze to a quarantine hotel shuttle. A colleague of Dan’s, on the phone was concerned they were sending us the wrong way. We got one of the hazmats to talk on the phone and indeed, we were put in with the regular population while the colleague had arranged for us to go to VIP accommodations. An hour later we had been rerouted, re-held, redirected, until we were in a different area getting onto a different quarantine hotel shuttle.
We sat on the bus for an hour to our hotel. As we entered the hotel grounds, the weeds were hip high and growing through the driveway, the front door was boarded up and the windows were so filthy you couldn’t see through it. Inside the lobby was also make-shift and filthy. It was shockingly not what we’d think of as VIP. As we were being signed in, it became clear they were going to separate Celia as she is considered an adult in China. Luckily we had been warned this might happen and had her doctor write and official letter, which as had translated into Mandarin, that she could not be separated. The Hazmatters were unhappy about the note and unsure what to do, but they eventually agreed to let Celia and I be in a room together. Dan and Morton were sent to the room next to us and the Michael/Boyle Family got the two following rooms. We went up to the 17th floor – where our rooms were and were quite surprised, considering the lobby, how nice the rooms were.
They put a table in front of each room with a paper indicating how many people were inside and we went in. Lunch quickly arrived onto the tables: flat plastic containers with five compartments of heavily oiled and salted sautéed food, another container or rice, and tiny drinkable yogurt and an orange.
We unpacked some of our stuff, settled in, and fell asleep. It had been a crazy long trip.
Finally – all our bags checked in at the airport, and at the gate having to get more app green lights from the Chinese government to board- we sat down to wait for our 11:40 PM flight.
11:40 came and went with no announcement.
12:15 we were told there was something being worked on on the plane and soon they would let us board and they’d open two doors to make it quick.
12:45 – Celia fast asleep jammed into a waiting room seat- We were informed they thought we weren’t going to be able to fly but the airline was on the phone with the Chinese embassy to figure out how to deal with our Green Codes that would expire in a couple more hours.
1:15 Announcement to get in line for hotel vouchers, that the embassy would extend our Health Green Codes for 24 hours and they would give us hotel vouchers – AND (the worst part) we had to pick up our luggage (all 8 humongous bags!!).
We were fourth in line and waited a half an hour to get to the front. 350 people were behind us. It was crazy.
2:00 AM We got our luggage and dragged then to where there was supposed to be hotel shuttles – but none arrived – and UBER said there were no drivers available.
We found two car service drivers waiting around that said for an arm and a leg they would drive us the two miles to our hotel with all our bags. Morton and I prayed for our lives as the driver drove us like a maniac to our hotel. The hotel ended up being a dump – with a pull-out couch for the kids – with no pillows or sheets available – but at 3:00 in the morning – we were grateful for a place to lie down!
By the time we woke, it was time to check out – so we – along with the Michaels/Boyle Family that are making the move with us – from Brooklyn Prospect to the International School of Beijing- payed to be able to stay at the hotel until we could check in at the airport that night.
We took a long walk to a diner for brunch – which ended up being closed until August – and then ended up sitting outside a Starbucks for a couple hours, eating, chatting and killing time.
That evening we finally made it onto our plane! We flew 14 hours to South Korea where our flight staff deplaned to avoid having to quarantine in China. We waited two hours on the plane for the new flight staff who then flew us the 2.5 hours more to Shanghai – where we finally were able to deplane. One year, one day, and 18.5 hours later – we have arrived in China!
Greetings from quarantine in Shanghai! I am reviving this blog to report on our new adventure.
We had a wonderful, yet abbreviated summer before setting off to China. First Dan finally returned home! We spent a few weeks at the beach. My brothers, the Kimelia’s, Anita and Chris came to see us before we flew off. Morton went to camp with his good friend Julien for a couple weeks and Celia went to the New York Times writing program for two weeks. Dan ran around spending time with as many people as he could before returning to China. We all went to New York for a few days before flying off -quickly getting some time in with Dan’s aunt Masako and cousin Keiko, doing our final packing, meeting the movers and seeing friends. I am very grateful for everyone who worked in time to spend with me (and us) before we flew out. (I am so sorry that I wasn’t better at taking pictures to mark these wonderful moments)
Above is a picture just before we left our hotel in Detroit for the airport to catch our flight to Shanghai. We had to spend a few days in Detroit, getting a couple PCR tests before we’d get our Green Code from the Chinese government to be able to board our flight.
We spent these days seeing a bit of Detroit, which was super interesting, and, best of all, catching up with Betty, my college roommate, and her daughter Evelyn.
Our last day in Detroit was a panic – when the kids and I didn’t get a Green Code – we got a Red Code. After hours of panic we found out we had submitted pictures of our expired visas from last October!
Finally got our Green Code and we loaded our crazy large EIGHT bags into an SUV car service and went to catch our 11:40 PM flight.
Dan finally home:
time with family and friends (wish I took more pictures!):
Time at the beach:
Suzanne’s opening:
