Back home in Hangzhou
What an experience this Mission Back to Happy has been! I write this from our “home town” of Hangzhou, specifically from our friend Charley’s apartment. Booker sprawled on our guest bed, happy to be stationary for more than a half hour. I’ve had two cups of coffee and I’m kicked back to relax for a second. Kim is safely tucked in at her quarantine hotel in Guangzhou. Our life appears to be calm for a minute! Now that Thanksgiving Day has come and gone in America, we remember that it is a great reason to count our blessings. We are truly thankful for where we are right now. A few days ago, this was not the case.
How we’ve gotten where we are
Let’s review: I flew here from Thailand first so I could complete my quarantine and be available to take Booker while Kim quarantined. It all started with this post. The next segment in our Mission involved Kim and Booker getting from Thailand to China. A more detailed account of this process involves them leaving our home in Chiang Mai and preparing to fly out of Bangkok. Kim had a lot to do on her own.
While I was jumping on my bed in Shanghai, she was sleeping on Booker’s blanket in our empty bed in Chiang Mai, having sold our sheets. I wrote blog posts and Facebook updates, she posted all of our belongings in some local groups to try to sell as much as she could before she left. In addition to wrapping up our lives there, she also had to get sweet Book re-certified as her emotional support dog. She needed to stock up on his heart medications. (They support each other.)
Who’s up for a road trip?
She planned their trip from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, no small feat with Booker’s small feet clickety clacking along every step of the way with her. It can be a little unnerving traveling on public transportation with him. Even though we do the research and get all the required documentation in order, it’s never a sure thing until he’s on the train or plane beside us.
Thankfully, the wonderful man who is renting our Thailand home after us enthusiastically volunteered to drive them the 431 miles/692 km. The trip would take nearly ten hours. Who does that, for someone they just met a few weeks prior??? (Stay tuned for another blog post written from my hands and knees, as I am eternally grateful to the kind souls we’ve met in so many countries.)
While in Bangkok, Kim needed to take two Covid tests (up the nose and down the throat, just like I had to do before I could leave Thailand) within the very specific time limit that the Chinese government demanded. Once she had her results she performed roughly two hours uploading her personal and health information in an app on her phone. Then someone in the government could see this information and press a button that would give her a literal green light to fly, her green QR code. She also needed to run Booker around the busy city to the department of agriculture to get him certified and cleared to leave the country with clean export paperwork.
While they were hustling in Bangkok, I was settling in a little at Charley’s and making plans to get myself to Guangzhou as affordably as possible. I needed to be there when their plane landed so I could intercept Booker before Kim was escorted to quarantine. Because their flight landed at 9PM, I would need a hotel for a night before hitching a (very complicated and stressful) ride back north to Hangzhou.
I’ve been flying (by the seat of my pants) for two years now
I think I’ve said this before: we’re never really certain of much. It’s taught us to be flexible and we’ve developed excellent flight-by-the-seats-of-our-pants plans. But just because we can handle urgent demands doesn’t mean we enjoy it. Sometimes it would be nice to have a clear idea or plan and to see it actually come to fruition. I knew I needed to be near Kim and Booker but I wasn’t sure if I could actually receive him at the airport.
Remembering my experience when I landed in Shanghai, I was a small fish in a big river that carried me from place to place. I could only move in one direction, forward. Unsure if Kim would be able to step to the side for a second, even to hand Booker off to a employee so they could give him to me, I did not know what would happen.
Which way do we go?
I wasn’t sure about our other option of grabbing him at the hotel. Incoming guests walk right from the bus and do not stop until they reach their hotel rooms. We had been watching other expats with their pets and some had said they handed them off to friends or family at the airport. Some had said they’d done it at the hotel. Others had employed a pet relocation agent. Still unsure of which option would work, I asked two agents from different pet relocation companies in China. One told me I would have to do it at the hotel. The other told me I could do it at the airport. Hours and many conversations later, we still didn’t have a clear answer.
All aboard!
At least I knew how I was getting to Guangzhou. We found a $47 train ticket. It was overnight, in the hard sleeper car. I left Charley’s apartment around 4:30 PM on Sunday. My train left Hangzhou at 6:30 PM and would arrive in Guangzhou at 1:30 PM Monday. Kim’s plane would land at 9 PM Monday, so I would have time to get from the railway station to the airport. I strongly dislike rushing anywhere. It is better to be two hours early and have time to sit and wait than be five minutes late.
Ask Kim: whenever we fly, I just want to get to the gate. I always overthink security and have visions of us running flat-out to the gate, only to miss our plane. When the girls and I flew back to Maine from Costa Rica a couple years ago, we had a connecting flight that we had to haul ass to. That was(n’t) fun!
My train ride was soothing because it forced me to relax. There’s no rushing the train. It swayed and rocked me like my mom before bedtime. My 14-hour bedtime, in this case. My “seat” was a correctly-advertised HARD sleeper cot, hung at eye-level and attached to a small ladder. I had the option to occasionally sit in a fold-down seat across the aisle. There were six bunks in my area and two seats, so we took turns in the chairs. While reclined, I napped a little. I read a book. I wrote in my travel journal. And during my seat time, I snacked on some dry ramen I’d brought, leftover from quarantine.
Last stop, Guangzhou
I arrived in Guangzhou with wild hair and several hours to get to the airport and plot our next move. I also had my normal Monday night “class” with a former student. Her parents want her to learn more real-world phrases and sentences. I was in the perfect location to talk about travel and what to take on vacation! So we chatted for a half hour while I waited for Kim and Booker to land.
So as I wandered Baiyun International Airport, Kim expertly navigated her and Booker’s way around Bangkok, Suvarnabhumi Airport and onto their plane. They took off 15 minutes late but arrived in China right on time. I had found a seat with a USB plug that actually worked, so I sat and charged my phone. Your phone is your lifeline in China: obviously it’s a social networking tool. But it’s also a GPS and a wallet. We pay with EVERYTHING through an app called WeChat. So I didn’t want to run out of battery power.
I balanced airport scouting missions with conserving battery. When I went to the international arrivals area, I quickly understood that I would have no in-person contact with anyone. They had built walls up to keep us apart. They posted signs explaining everything I needed to know.
Then everything happened so fast
After they landed, we texted when she was able, when she wasn’t filling out a form or having a swab twirled up her nose. Similar to my experience, she was funneled along to where she needed to be. However, her river wasn’t as smooth as mine had been and she had more wait time throughout her process. An hour at the gate where they deplaned, an hour and a half walking through the arrivals hall and doing all the medically necessary stuff, half an hour annoying the bus driver by refusing to put Booker in the luggage compartment under the bus… .
Kim swam in a river full of obstacles. It was midnight before she rolled away from Baiyun, but I had to stay behind until I knew where she would quarantine. She wouldn’t know where she was going until she got there but would text as soon as she had an address. Then I would rush to get a ride there in time before they rushed her to her hotel room.
It played like a movie,
It was a frantic time. At 12:20 AM she knew a name and sent me a screen shot of the address in Chinese. I got a taxi as quickly as I could and showed him the picture. He was unsure and had to ask a security guard about it but he figured it out and we took off. At 12:45 AM her angry bus driver pulled up to her hotel – after dropping off ALL the other (dogless) passengers at another hotel – just as my taxi was screaming down the other side of the divided highway, unable to make a left-hand turn into the hotel parking lot.
Kim was The Only civilian outside in the courtyard of this place, with all her luggage and poor Book in his little travel bag, surrounded by staff in their white coverall suits, rubber gloves and face shields. It looked like an action movie filmed in slow motion. SO many things happened simultaneously in about two minutes: my taxi pulled up and I went to grab my backpack to exit the taxi and do whatever I could to procure Booker.
and we hoped for a happy ending
I lifted off my seat and looked out the far taxi window at everyone standing there: Kim shook her head and frantically motioned with her hand for me not to come closer. A medical worker rushed toward me with Booker and his bags. I opened my taxi door and she shoved them at me. My taxi driver was confused and for good reason. I hadn’t paid him for the trip yet. He knew nothing about picking up a dog or continuing the trip by taking us to our hotel. He knew no English and I don’t know enough Chinese to effectively convey any thought besides “hello,” “thank you” or “be careful.” I don’t even know how to say “I don’t like duck blood.”
I glanced at Kim one last time as she stood in the courtyard. She finally agreed to the staff’s demand that she go to her room. I watched her as long as I could while saying hello to Book and getting him settled in the taxi. I also tried to pull up my hotel’s address for the driver. While this was all happening I felt an urgency to leave, as if we should move before someone from the hotel decided I shouldn’t have Booker in my possession. As much as I felt pulled away for the safety and security of Booker, I also wanted to stay and see Kim. I felt like a dad taking the baby away from the mom at the hospital when you don’t know if she’s going to make it or not.
Let’s gooooo!
Half an hour away from Kim’s hotel sat mine, one of a small number that accepts dogs. Booker and I checked in while Kim settled into her quarantine room. During that time, she apparently engaged in a loud conversation with a government worker about where her dog went and how he would come back to go into quarantine. The government worker wanted my WeChat information. Did he want to know where we were? Would he come and try to forcibly take Booker from me? And on we went with questions we had no answers to.
The clock ticked 2:30 AM Tuesday at this point. Physically exhausted and emotionally drained, we couldn’t rest yet. In desperation and sheer panic, I reached out to the pet relocation agent who first told me I needed to get Booker at the hotel. I had not hired her. I just friended her on WeChat and asked her a lot of questions. Now I was going to wake her up and thrust her into this stressful situation.
She graciously came through, though, allowing me to give her contact information to the government worker. They talked separately. Soon she messaged me and suggested Booker and I stay in Guangzhou at least until Wednesday. Kim’s initial health report results would be back by then and we would know if Booker was exposed. The government did not want him to have contact with anyone until we knew her results. So we waited.
On the road again!
A friend in Hangzhou arranged transport for Booker and me through a moving company. We needed land transport, as it is a pain to get the appropriate certifications that enable him to fly or ride on a train. I explained that we weren’t going anywhere on Tuesday so we left Guangzhou Wednesday around 8:30 AM. The moving company said the trip would take ten hours – just like Kim and Booker’s road trip from Chiang Mai to Bangkok! I Google mapped it and it looked longer, like 14 hours. Did they know a shortcut?
No, they did not. We rolled into Hangzhou around 2:30 AM on Thursday. Our trip included several rest stops and for that, I am thankful. Booker had ample opportunity to pee and stretch his little legs. We had snacks along the way so no one went hungry. This mission took a toll on us financially but we can make more money. Time escaped us on occasion but with the right perspective, we refocused on things we usually forgo, like writing and making videos. This mission stressed us emotionally but it also made us appreciate our time together that much more. We are thankful that this part of the mission back to happy is over but we also appreciate the things we’ve learned.
Grateful for this mission
Traditionally on Thanksgiving Day, our family gets up early and finds a soup kitchen or somewhere that’s serving free Thanksgiving dinner. We volunteer our time, meet new people and also partake in whatever we’re serving others. Two years ago, moving out of the US mixed up our holiday traditions. It also afforded us the opportunity to create new experiences. It’s been exciting, seeing different cultures first-hand. Most recently, moving to and from Thailand in a span of ten months has REALLY mixed up our traditions. It’s also shown us what we’re capable of. We can do anything we want or need to, as long as we are together in thought and action.