It’s official. I’m adding a 13th animal to the Chinese zodiac calendar. Instead of the tiger, I say we change 2022 to the year of the sheep. Let me explain.
Less than a month ago, our daily lives here changed overnight. Prior to the announcement in early December that zero-Covid was changing to a more scientific and dynamic policy, we lived a life that ensured we would be safe from the virus. For years, we’ve stood in lines in all kinds of weather to get our daily COVID test. The results of which were bound to our QR code.
Getting our COVID tests in all kinds of weather
I didn’t take this photo, but it circulated in our chat groups on a typhoon day here in Zhuhai when the brave weathered to storm to get their daily COVID tests.
This code is something needed for everyday life; from entering the grocery store, to crossing the bridge on my commute to work at a checkpoint, to entering our home. The code would remain green if you were negative, yellow if you had crossed paths with someone who might have also crossed paths with a COVID positive person, and red if you were positive.
My green code
Close contacts would be sent to a quarantine facility for up to 14 days, and secondary close contacts would have their entire building locked down. We were only in this situation one time in three years when there was a secondary close contact in our high rise. Around midnight that night we had a team of hazmat workers knock on our door, asking us to all come downstairs for a COVID test. The next morning when I took our dog down the elevator to go outside to pee, the building was locked. I went to the basement. The door to the garage was locked. I tried the back. It was locked. I saw someone in a hazmat suit outside the window and typed into my Google Translate app: “My dog needs to pee. Can you please unlock the door? My test came back negative.” I then held the translated message on my phone up to the window. Mr. Hazmat just shook his head no and walked back to guarding his post. I had a Chinese friend call the apartment complex for advice. They apologized, but said due to safety, they could not unlock the door until they were sure everyone in the building was COVID free. Perhaps he could pee in the lobby? My friend suggested the roof. The roof it was. And thankfully, 12 hours later we were free. Not too bad, but it was the day that started my anxiety. Okay, I wish I could blame all my anxiety on that day. I’m just an anxious person in general, but I started becoming a Doomsday Prepper. I had a suitcase packed by the door with 12 cans of spaghetti, powdered milk, a box of cereal, a box of Pop Tarts, paper bowls, 4 spoons, eye masks, ear plugs, a first aid kit, a bivvy, books, and an emergency packing list for each person in the family. I also had a Doomsday thumb drive with at least 40 hours of movies on it for me and the kids. Why? Well, if we were to one day be sent to a quarantine facility, I would be prepared. I would ensure my kids would have food and entertainment. It sometimes took over 12 hours for our PCR results to come back after our daily tests, and I would obsessively check the results before being able to fall asleep each night. I’m not ashamed to admit I sought medical help and started some anti-anxiety medications and more regular therapy during this time.
Why didn’t you just leave? (You might be wondering). Other than the fact that we couldn’t due to closed borders… We love it here! We really do. Did I mention we have a sea front apartment with phenomenal sunrise and sunset views every day, in a tropical weather environment? Did I mention Rob and I love our jobs and our kids are getting an excellent education? That we’ve had the opportunity to walk along the Great Wall with a dusting of snow coming down, or that we were face to face with the Terracotta Warriors, or that we were never able to afford a trip to Disney before moving here, but now we’ve been to Disney Shanghai and Hong Kong? And as much as the zero-COVID policy gave me anxiety, it worked. So we went with it. It’s a wonderful life here after all.
So imagine living in a way that involves scanning a code multiple times a day everyday, standing in line for daily PCR tests, and constantly wondering if today would be the day you would need to use your Doomsday suitcase; and then overnight you find out the policy is gone. The first few days were surreal. Everyone was walking around in a bit of disbelief. Was this real? But that afternoon when we didn’t get our temperature taken to enter our apartment, and the next day when I didn’t have to drive through a QR checkpoint on the way to work… It definitely became more real. It was as if the past three years were all fading away. And then it hit. The wave of sheep. Within one week I started noticing sheep emojis popping up on Chinese social media. I found out the Chinese word for ‘positive’ (yáng 阳) has the same pronunciation as the word for ‘sheep’ (yáng 羊). So people were indicating they were now COVID positive with the use of a sheep emoji. Within 2 weeks, several people at my school were sheep. The next week, so many people were sheep that we had to move to online learning again. And just a few days later my family also became sheep. On Christmas. I was a bit surprised by how quickly we became infected once the floodgates opened, but I’m glad to get it out of the way.
Because I know that most of you have already been sheep, I won’t go into detail about how awful this virus makes us feel. It has not been fun. We also had to cancel our anniversary/New Year’s Eve trip to Macau. So I get why we were shielded from it for so long. But soon this will all be a distant memory and we will be able to travel again! Quarantine for international arrivals is ending on January 8, and the world will once again be our oyster. We may plan a trip next month to Thailand or the Philippines. We even have a flight booked to come home this summer for the first time in four years.
This experience, living here during such an interesting and sometimes scary time, has changed me and my children for the better. I truly believe it’s made us more resilient. I love the quote from Mr. Rogers: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.‘” This was true in every single instance of scary times here. China possess a unique strength in the fact that there are helpers everywhere. So many willing to help when needed. I took this photo below on one of the days when we were stuck in a COVID testing line during a sudden downpour with no umbrella. I wanted to remember the moment because in the midst of being upset about yet another frustrating COVID moment, a very kind Chinese gentleman behind us in line simply extended his umbrella over our heads and walked that way with us until we reached the testing tent. He spoke no English and we only spoke enough Chinese to express our gratitude. He got soaked, I’m sure. But he was a helper. And I’m happy to join that flock of sheep.
Look, I know what you’re thinking. This guy never blogs. It’s been what… half a year? It is kind of hard to be a full-time blogger though when I’m also a PROFESSIONAL VOLLEYBALL PLAYER. Many of us have the dream of being an independently wealthy sports athlete, and I just happened to make that dream come true. By playing volleyball. On my university volleyball team. I got paid a small stipend to be on the team. Therefore, I am a professional volleyball player. I’m still working on the whole “independently wealthy” thing though.
I’ve played on the university volleyball team every year that I’ve been in China, save for last year when my shoulder decided that I shouldn’t be sporty during the fall sports’ season. I’m on a team of faculty and staff who play other’s schools’ faculty and staff in a tournament. A Chinese tournament. A Chinese tournament that makes absolutely zero sense. Until this year, we’ve never even won a match, just a few games here and there. Why? Well, firstly, we’ve never been very good. And secondly, the Chinese take their volleyball VERY seriously. Most of the school’s we play against have coaches barking orders during the matches. And they all have uniforms. I’m out there in my workout clothes looking like the 40 something has-been I really am.
I was on the IR for most of 2022. But, do to my extensive rehab and intestinal fortitude, I was given the okay (reluctantly… by my wife) to rejoin the volleyball team this year in time for the mid-November tournament. Our first game, on a Monday… was rained out. Our second game on Tuesday… the court was still wet from the first rainout and we once again did not play. Finally, on the third day… Wednesday, my teammates and I took the court.
Let me try to explain this tournament bracket as best as I can remember. Here’s a picture of part of the schedule:
Look, I understand tournaments. I’ve played in tournaments. I’ve even scheduled some tournaments. I watch tournaments on TV. I am obsessed with March Madness. But this tournament…. the Super Duper Chinese University Volleyball Tournament… I surely did not understand. I think there were 16 schools playing. And the first few games, you play some schools. Sometimes you play one match a night, sometimes you play two matches. When you win, you play more. Then somehow, there’s an Elite Eight, and then a Final Four. But then one of the four teams is the P.E. School, which, because they’re all super good, really can’t be allowed to play in the tournament. But we still play them, kind of like an international friendly. So, that leaves three teams out of the final four to be crowned champion. At this point, the tournament, inexplicably, switches to a points system, where you get points for winning. The team with the most points is champion, with the other two teams coming in second and third. Are you still following me? I’m pretty sure they just made up new tournament rules each night. I never knew who we were playing, why were playing, how many matches we would play, and what it meant if we won or loss.
Let’s return to the actual matches. Like I said, we’ve never won a match. But this year, we had a few ringers on the team. One of our faculty stands a stout 6’9″. We also have a husband/wife duo both close to 6 feet each. We have a tiny guy who runs around the court like a freaking cheetah. We also have a member of the Communist party on the team. She will smite people if they don’t so as they’re told. And then there’s me – I’m serviceable. We also had a nice squad of quality benchwarmers who could come in to deliver quality serves and kills. Speaking of that, when did those terms change? In 8th grade gym class, I learned bump, set, spike. Now people are like… ” YOU GOTTA SAY PASS…. YOU HAVE TO SAY KILL…. IF YOU DON’T, YOU’RE A NOOOOOOB.” We also had a great fanbase. Many of the faculty and staff who weren’t playing, along with a ton of our students came out to cheer us on. Most of them cheered in Chinese, so I have clue what they were saying. But I assume, when translated, it sounded something like “Rob is the G.O.A.T. of Chinese Volleyball.”
So yeah, our team was better than previous seasons. We won our first match. We won our second match. We made it to that magical elite eight, and then the final four! Because of the rain, the tournament was broken up between two weeks. I was thankful. as my lower bank, knees and ankles hate me. I mean HATE me. Epsom salt baths, massage rollers, ice and rest did little to alleviate the hate my body parts had for me. But we all made it safe and sound to the finals. We lost our first match there, meaning we didn’t get a point for winning. The next night, we played the P.E. Team, which again, I don’t think it counted. Someone said we could have received a point for winning, but since we didn’t know that, we just mostly tanked the game and relaxed. We then played the other team, and in a lovely three game match, I served an ACE on the final point to win the whole dang thing. By whole dang thing, I am speaking about the match, not the tournament. That other team that beat us also beat the team we beat, so they had more points in the end. You read that correctly. So, we came in second. Which, out of 16 schools, was pretty damn impressive.
Oh… it doesn’t end here.
Immediately following the final game, there was an awards ceremony. Some dude rolled out a portable speaker system on the court and instructed us to all stand in lines. I mean… like… a relay race type of line, with each of us facing straight ahead and one behind the other. They said some things in Chinese, then brought over the 3rd place team to receive a team trophy… AND….. milk… AND…. shampoo. Yes, those were the actual prizes for each member of the team. Next up, was us, in 2nd place. We were given a trophy, and then each member of our team was awarded… milk… and… a bag a rice. If you’re scoring at home, Shampoo < Rice. They then called on the Champs, and that team got a trophy…. and milk… and… wait for it… a GIGANTIC BOTTLE OF COOKING OIL. Again, if you’re scoring at home – Shampoo < Rice < Cooking Oil. Finally, even though they technically couldn’t win, they brought the PE team up to give them some awards too. Honestly, I have no idea what they were given because I was too busy toting around my milk and rice.
Rice and Milk
We all took some pictures afterwards, and now there’s talk of having an end of tournament dinner for the team. And, since I’m a professional, I’ll get a tiny bonus on my paycheck at the end of the month. Maybe next year we can win the whole thing! Or just spring for some actual uniforms! Or finally understand how Chinese Volleyball Tournaments work.
I cried today. I was from working home and listening to music on YouTube, when My Old Man by the Zac Brown Band came on my TV. I cried. Buckets. I’ve heard this song before. I’ve cried listening to this song before. Heck, I cry every single time I hear this song.
Crying isn’t natural for me though. I’m a man after all. I won’t bad mouth my folks and tell you that they forbid me to cry, but growing up, whether it was family, teachers, friends or just society, I was told… as a boy… as I man… I shouldn’t cry. Maybe not even told, but I knew what was expected of me. Now, as a man, I should be strong. I should be Vulcan-like, and keep my emotions, especially crying, in check. You know something? That’s bullshit. Men can and should be as emotional and cry just like women and children.
I cried when that (SPOILER) old man died in Squid Game (Or… did he? Sorry, SPOILER). I randomly cry sometimes when I’m watching America’s Got Talent auditions and some emotional story moment pops up. I cry thinking about just how much I love my wife. I cry when I talk about my children. Tears of joy, tears of sadness, tears of utter despair. I cry them all. But, for the most part, I feel pretty guilty about it. I shouldn’t. And I’m gonna try to stop feeling guilty.
I did some quick research. By quick, I mean Google. I ran across an article by Michael Murphy. It helped me a little. The article says what I was thinking, but in a better way than I can put down in words. So here it is for you, gentleman, and for the women who support you:
5 Reasons Why Men Need ToLearn How To Cry
Men are expected to be very strong creatures who shouldn’t cry but are expected to just “man up” and deal with whatever comes their way. However, there is no law or written rule that says men aren’t supposed to cry, especially when dealing with some of life’s most challenging obstacles.
Crying is often associated with weakness, but that is not the truth — crying shows humanity and passion. It is seen as the norm for women and children to cry, but even at a young age men have been taught that crying is for women or that it makes them less of a man if they cry. This is untrue — if anything, crying truly shows the ability to deal with problems.
Here are a few of the reasons why learning to cry is an important thing for all men.
1. They Can Relieve Stress
Each day of our lives we are faced with something that isn’t ideal, a circumstance that could break us or make us. Sometimes these situations seem as if they are too much, but even when faced with these things, crying can act as a stress reliever and allow for built-up emotions to be released.
Stress is something that we all have to struggle with — from our daily tasks and duties at our jobs to having to afford rent and bills and car notes. It’s all too much sometimes and the best way that you can respond to it is through a healthy manner, such as exercise, crying, or meditation.
2. They Can Prevent The Need To Swear To Express Anger
When faced with adversity, many of us yell out an expletive or resort to anger as a resolution. It’s important to learn that cursing and getting angry or even violent doesn’t solve anything.
Crying is a healthy outlet for those frustrations. No one likes someone with a dirty “sailor’s mouth,” and sometimes crying is the best way, and the healthier way, to release that anger. We are all guilty of using profanity, especially when angry, but if we would only decide to cry instead, perhaps we could prevent that next ?#*@%!
3. They Can Show A Softer Side
Many men put up a tough exterior in order to prove that they are a man, or at least what society has created as the idea of a man. A man can show strength and vulnerability at the same time and crying can link him to his significant other and show that he cares. Crying reflects truly caring about the situation at hand as well as showing care for the person you love.
4. They Can Show Their Children That It’s Okay To Cry
Children look up to their fathers and many boys mirror their father depending on how relevant he was in their life growing up. Men are strong figures in their children’s lives and have to deal with a lot in life — raising and providing for the child, paying a mortgage, etc. This all must be done under the facade of a never-wavering figure who doesn’t cry and just deals with things. However, this is not true — sometimes men have to cry to show their children that it’s okay for them to cry. This shows their children that their father cares, and also shows that their father is human.
5. They Can Show Joy
Crying isn’t always a bad thing, crying can sometimes display joy or happiness. For instance, crying when a child is born or when graduating school. Crying is a healthy and necessary thing for all people — including men. Crying can help to release stress hormones and toxins from the body and aid in soothing certain emotions. So many associate crying with pain or hurt and sometimes crying is not to show those emotions at all but to show sincerity and honesty.
The hot and humid season of summer is almost over here in China. What does that mean you say? Nothing. It means nothing. The area we live in here in China will be sweltering until Christmas. Many folks in this region tend to get away from the heat by heading to the northern or western regions of China where the temps can be slightly cooler and the humidity isn’t constantly bashing you over your sweaty head. So, for our vacation this summer we… well we just went somewhere even hotter. But there were pools. And waterslides. And beaches. And Cronuts. So there’s that.
According to Wikipedia, which I quote here because my history students seem to think it’s the best source for factual information says that Atlantis ” is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato‘s works Timaeus and Critias, wherein it represents the antagonist naval power that besieges “Ancient Athens”, the pseudo-historic embodiment of Plato’s ideal state in The Republic.[1] In the story, Athens repels the Atlantean attack unlike any other nation of the known world,[2] supposedly bearing witness to the superiority of Plato’s concept of a state.[3][4] The story concludes with Atlantis falling out of favor with the deities and submerging into the Atlantic Ocean.”
I’m going to leave all those links in there in case you, like me, sometimes like to slip down the rabbit hole of often unverified information that is Wikipedia. Anyway, yes, we went to Atlantis. No, not the Bahamas. No, no, not the one in the UAE. No, my good friend, the lost city of Atlantis is actually in China. I mean yes, the Atlantis resorts have locations in Nassau and Dubai, but we choose the one in China for obvious reasons that are mostly due to an ongoing pandemic. We didn’t even know such a thing existed. It’s a little different to just search the web for things to do here in China because of many factors, but as I was randomly net surfing last fall, I stumbled upon Atlantis here in China that’s only an hour flight away. Plan A for this summer was to go back to the States, but that didn’t happen so we switched to plan B: spend too much money at an amazing resort and have a kick ass time in the process all while not strangling each other.
My better half made all the plans, as is her way. She loves planning and is really good at it, which of course frees me up to be lazy, so its a win/win all around. We planned to stay for a week in the area total, spending a few days in the tourist beach town of Sanya for a few days before heading further up the coast to Atlantis. We hit up Sanya last summer as well, so plans were a little easier this time. I’m not sure if my wife would agree with that though so you better ask her. But at least we were better prepared this time. We had our little green codes on our phones up and ready to show anywhere that was needed – the departing airport, the arrival airport, checking into hotels, going to some restaurants and wherever else anyone is worried about Covid-19. I think many in the US would freak out with these type of regulations, but honestly to me I feel safer and it gives me more freedom to easily go and do what I want. We also have our vaccines. We got the Chinese one of course. Don’t ask me what it’s called, or how effective it is, I just got stabbed in the arm twice so I could travel easier. Side note – I’m not sure, other than saving lives (obviously), what good the vaccine is for. I thought it would somehow make it easier to travel. I had this idea I could just show them my vaccination record and they’d be like, “Cool.. you got the shot. Have at it. Go crazy.” This didn’t happen though. Maybe it will in the future, but right now we’re smackdab in the middle of wherever this pandemic is going to take all of us, so everyone buckle up. And by buckle up, I mean get the damn vaccine.
Okay, back to the vacay. We spent the first few nights in Sanya at a lovely hotel that had a pool directly off our balcony. We booked a family room, because we just wanted two beds instead of one. What family meant at this hotel, was a room that our children would love – aqua-themed pandas on the wall, a tent, lot’s of color, a starry ceiling light thingamajig and numerous stuffed animals. The beds were moderately comfortable, the pool was fantastic and the breakfast buffet had enough western options so my super picky son could get enough calories. We did very little at this hotel other than swim and eat. We did head into town a few times. One trip was to an outlet mall. Yes, they have those here in China. It was kind like Tanger Outlets (for my NC and SC peeps) but much more upscale with a Prada store thrown into boot. On a second trip in town, we went back to the same little entertainment/shopping/restaurant area we visited last summer. On the previous trip, the place was a ghost town as the pandemic was just getting into full swing, but this time the joint was hopping. We went at my son’s favorite restaurant in all the land – Pizza Hut, explored the numerous shops and then, for no particular reason at all, I decided I’d bungee jump off a tall tower. My family was genuinely concerned for my life, but those things are totally safe right? What’s more, it was super cheap. That inspired confidence. Oh yeah – the guy at the top strapping me in and giving me all the safety instructions? He only spoke Chinese. So we communicated through a series of hand gestures and grunts, but by the end of my briefing I was pretty much sure I would jump successfully… to my death. Just kidding, more like only serious injuries. In the end though, I closed my eyes, did a backflip off the tower and bungeed safely down and back up without so much as a stain of pee pee on my shorts.
I have teased Atlantis thus far, but fear not, we are finally getting to the meat and potatoes of this blog post. We got ourselves a DiDi (the Uber of China) and headed up the coast from Sanya proper to the lost city of Atlantis. I keep calling it that because it sounds cooler. I mean, the DiDi driver just used his phone’s map to get us there, so obviously this place isn’t as lost as it seems. We got there way too early to check in, but we were allowed free entrance into their waterpark. So we dropped off our luggage, took some quick pics and then headed on to every waterslide Atlantis had to offer. Ok, I… me… just Dad, Rob… did all the waterslides. My wife doesn’t really like spinning around in circles while getting water up your nose. My daughter also doesn’t enjoy even the casual trip down a lazy river. My son, the champion that he is, did only a few of the slides with me, and then made his way back to the wave pool. So, that left me to do the more crazy stuff, like plunging through a see through tunnel surrounded by sharks (which were hard to see because there was so much water up my nose and in my eyes) all by myself – cue Celine Dion music here. The waterpark itself is pretty amazing though. Instead of actual tickets, or scanning something on our phone, the resort just took pictures of our faces and used facial recognition to let us inside the place quickly and efficiently. They have all the typical waterparky things – the slide that drops you down a pyramid at a mostly vertical angle. It reminded me of my days at the PTL waterpark. Ah, Jim and Tammy Fay. There were a number of other waterslides, the lazy river (that had tiny rapids), a wave pool with a full concert stage in the middle of it, a good selection of western food options, a kiddie section with surprisingly fast waterslides that I couldn’t ride because I’m an adult whatever dumb rule anyway, a dolphin show, a sea lion show, and a Cirque du Soleil type show in the water complete with some extremely attractive Russian performers.
Even with all the offering of the actual waterpark, I was a little worried we would get bored after numerous days we’d be spending there. Thankfully, Atlantis is a full resort with much more to offer than just a waterpark. They have an aquarium, 3 different large hotel pools, the BEACH of course, a train, helicopter rides, a small mall, a Gordan Ramsey restaurant and a bunch of other stuff I can’t remember because I’m old and forget things. We even forgoed the waterpark on a few occasions just to fit in as much as the rest of the resort had to offer.
Here are some highlights:
The Train Ride around the resort – It’s like a backstage pass to all the inner workings. We even got the see the dolphins lazily swimming in a behind-the-scenes area.
Gordan Ramsey Restaurant – This was a date night for the Mr. and Mrs. The food was excellent, but overpriced and there wasn’t nearly enough of it.
The Beach – China doesn’t have a lot of nice beaches. But this one is amazing. You snake through a lovely little path of trees and then the beach just is there, looking lovely both day and night. But they still won’t let me ride a jet ski without some dude attached to my back. Mobius would be so disappointed.
The Aquarium – Lost city themed, so the design is very cool. Most of your typical aquatic life, but they also had Belugas. One of them was being very inappropriate while we were there. I feel like he is my Patronus.
The Cirque du Soleil Show with Hot Russians – Surprisingly good water show with high dives, one of those ring of death things, hot Russians (Did I mention them?), a sea lion and a plot that make no sense whatsoever.
Cronuts – The waterpark had a shop that sold these delectable treats. We missed the craze in the States so it was nice to have them here. VERY good, and even my son craved them.
A full on Water Concert/Laser/Fire Show every night – Remember that stage at the wave pool? We saw a magic show, the hot Russian performers and then a wild DJ dance party where my kids proudly displayed how white we all are.
The Hotel Pool in the evening – a nice way to wind down with kids activities, a band playing Richard Marx tunes, and an excellent place to smash your forehead on the bottom of a pool.
I am the type of guy who usually wants to do something different every time we go somewhere. But I’d be more than happy to go back to Atlantis again anytime. All in all, we had an amazing vacation. The family is now gearing up for school starting in a few short weeks. Both me and my love are transitioning into new (better) roles with our companies and are excited to continue this phase of life. We continue to miss our friends and families in the States and around the world. I hope you stay healthy and happy and you too can one day have the privilege of seeing beautiful Russians swimming in a pool for your personal entertainment.
Greetings from 2021. The holidays have come and gone for most of the world, but here in China we’re still in the middle of them. This includes Chinese New Year, which just ended with the Lantern festival. You eat rice balls, hang out with extended family, and apparently set off a bagillion fireworks. My son recently reminded me more than once that I haven’t updated ye ole blog in awhile so here we are. For those of you wanting a preview – we’ll deal with Christmas, a trip to Beijing, and then the first two months of the year. And probably some other random stuff that may not fit into the chronological nature of this post.
Let’s start with Christmas. The wife and kids got out of school a few days before, but my place of employment doesn’t really do Christmas, so I was scheduled to work through Friday, Dec 25th. I mean, I didn’t. But that was the schedule. I finished up early on Christmas Eve, then joined my family at Zhongshan Hot Spring Resort. This was the place I wanted to bring the family since I visited there with my co-workers back in the fall for a dinner. So, the resort is a big hotel/hot springs/restaurant thingamabogger. Yes, we checked into a hotel on Christmas Eve. Yes, we had a Christmas Tree and presents under it at home. As well as that annoying Elf on a Shelf. But I drove separate from the kids and wifey, toting all stuff, sans Christmas tree, in the trunk of my car. It was a lovely quick stay-cation as it was only about 20 minutes from the house. The place was a little old, but our room was great and it even had a hot tub on the balcony that overlooked a koi pond.
My work hosted our Christmas Eve dinner at the resort’s restaurant (Its why we chose to stay the night in the first place). This was the same type of setup I’d had a few months earlier where I was forced to down a lot of Chinese alcohol, though this time, as an upstanding husband and father, I was able to just eat the food there and relax. They did make us all randomly sing Christmas songs. I went with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer when they handed me the mic since its basically a sing-a-long and my kids could get into it. The food, as always, is delicious at these types of shindigs. Though I don’t think my son was all too thrilled with this type of food. It also doesn’t help when they bring a chicken or duck out, the head comes right with it. Yes, I put a chicken head on my son’s plate and took pictures of it.
We wrapped up dinner and then headed back to our room, the kids getting to sleep early since Santa would be arriving. I believe we had a conversation about our hotel room not having a chimney, but our house doesn’t have one either… so… there. Once the children were nestled all snug in their beds, I…. went back out to the car to silently haul in all the presents, and that Elf. I arranged them as I surmised the Big Red Guy would have, then climbed into bed, thankful I did not have to continue handing out presents to the rest of the world. Christmas morning went smoothly. The kids got mostly what they wanted, and we were able to reach out virtually to friends and family to celebrate a bit with them. We had breakfast at the resort’s “western restaurant”. It was not very western, let me tell you, but I think we found enough for the kids to eat. Abby just kept feeding her scraps to the cats the were roaming around. FYI – China has a lot of cats. No, I have no idea if people eat them. Dogs on the other hand…. no I don’t know about that either. Anyway, we had free passes to tour the hot springs. They have a bunch of them there. Even one where you stick your feet in the water and fish nibble off your dead skin. In the end, we were tired. So we totally just skipped going to ANY of the hot springs. We can come back again sometime. We needed rest anyway, as we were scheduled to fly to Beijing the next day to finally visit… The Great Wall of China.
Alanna makes our travel plans. I don’t enjoy doing it, and she could spend hours just mock-planning random things if it were up to her, so yeah… go Alanna. We were originally going to do this trip last summer, but were told the area was a no-go because of the pandemic. This time around, we were OKed to give it go. Alanna, through her extensive travel research, found a spot on the Great Wall that would not be crowded with tourists. One of the reasons was that it was winter and super cold. But hey, I’ve lived in cold weather, right? Montana, Chicago, Iowa, New Jersey. We should be used to it? Ummm… no. It wasn’t any colder in Beijing than than those US States I mentioned, but I guess we’ll never get used to the shock. It was mostly single digit temperatures when we were there, and the highs didn’t get much out of the teens. We’d also been living in a tropical region for over a year, so our bodies, and clothing attire, just weren’t prepared. We rustled up some winter gear before we left our hometown, as we knew it would be cold up on the wall, but that still didn’t protect us. We left our hotel in Beijing at the crack of dawn and had a taxi service drive us the two hours up to that particular spot on the great wall. This area was up the mountains a bit, so it was even colder. As we arrived and then got out of the van, I wasn’t sure how we would be able to make it. We were all freezing our butts off. Walking helped though, and by the time we’d bought our (cheap) tickets, walked through the village, hiked up a steep hill, rode a gondola up a mountain until we finally made it TO the Great Wall, we were warmed up enough and plainly too excited to be cold.
I’m gonna go ahead an drop this truth bomb on you right now – being up on the Great Wall of China, with a very light snow falling, with no one around us at all, was… one of the most amazing experiences we’ve ever had. And we’ve had quite a lot of these types of moments. As we got to the top, we waded through more cats, climbed the stairs and slipped onto the walking path that is the Great Wall of China. To our left, the wall steadily climbed for miles up into the mountains of China and disappeared to the west. To our right, the wall continued on as well, but that was the direction we were heading, as this section of the all provided me with some thrill-seeking entertainment at the finish. More on that later. As a family, we spent a good hour on the wall, walking along, taking pictures, stopping at each guard tower, taking more pictures, stopping to rest, stopping to let Alanna cry because all of this was “overwhelmingly beautiful.” And it really was, but I can’t pass the chance to make fun of my wife. Logan also had a massive nosebleed half way through the trek, as well.. what would a Staton family outing be without some kind of misfortunate incident? My youngest child soon became tuckered out though, so her mother took her back the way we came, as Logan and I continued on to our final destination. Now there are a few ways up and down the wall. You can take the gondola either way, you can take ski lifts, you can even walk up some trails to get there. But there is one special way down that we wanted to try – and that was the toboggan. Yes, they built what looked like a mini-bobsled course off the side of the Great Wall that would eventually feed you out at the bottom area again. It was one of the main reasons Alanna picked this part of the wall, just so I could do this. In the end, it wasn’t too wild or crazy, and felt mostly safe. Logan and I both had a great time on the way down, and even got a souvenir picture of our experience. We met the ladies at the bottom of the mountain for a quick coffee, then Alanna and I had a fabulous Chinese lunch at a local place in among the shops. We then went to… Burger King. Yes, all the way up here, in the mountains next to the Great Wall of China… is a Burger King. Oh, and more cats. Which Abby once again fed her scraps to once we went back outside.
We spent the next few days in Beijing, planning and scheming. Covid was rearing its ugly head again. They were slowly shutting down districts in the city, meaning, if we wanted to safely travel back home, would couldn’t go there. We have these QR code things on our phones as a Covid procedure. To get into places like malls, or tourist places, or on planes, or go to back or or school, you need to be negative for Covid. One way they work this out is through this QR code thing. Basically, it spot checks where you go. If you stay in the areas where there is little to no Covid cases, your QR code turns green. You just show that to whoever needs to see it and you’re good to go. There’s also a Yellow level and then a Red Level, depending on which places you been that have have a current outbreak. We’ve never had anything other than Green on our QR codes, but we were worried that if we went to one of “those” districts in Beijing, we’d get a bad color. So, we cut out some of our tourist destinations while in Beijing. Honestly, it was too cold to be hanging outside at most of them anyway. We did make it to Tiananmen Square, which is in Central Beijing, just across from the Forbidden Palace. I won’t get into the history here, you can look it up yourself. But security was super tight here. Metal detectors, automatic weapons, dogs, the works. We made it through unscathed, though I’m pretty sure we were the only white people in Beijing that day. Seriously. It’s the dead of winter. It’s the pandemic. No one outside the country is really travelling here. We got into the large square, found a virtual Geocache (yes, I’m a geek), took loads of pictures, then stood in front of the Forbidden Palace to take pictures there as well. We had some of Alanna’s teacher’s friends tell us that they had to wait in line for over an hour to get into the palace, so it was cold, we don’t like lines, we skipped it. There’s so much to do in Beijing. We missed 95% of it and still had a great time. We also spent quality time at our hotel – ordering American fast food delivery, and swimming in their indoor pool. We did a little shopping here and there, and Alanna and I even snuck out for a little date for our anniversary. It wasn’t anything fancy, as literally this whole trip was our anniversary. Alanna was also deathly sick the whole time. Did I mention that? Yeah, she was. Not Covid sick. Just… nasty flu/I’m gonna die sick. I think we all passed it around a little those weeks around Christmas, but my better half got the worst of it by far. But she was a trooper and still managed to make her family have an awesome Christmas vacation.
We flew back into town right before New Years, and even with a green QR code, somehow they made Alanna and I go to Hospital Number 5 (I’m a VIP there by now) to get Covid Tests. Thankfully, they only did the throat swab. I’ve avoided the throat swab test somehow every time. The test here cost like 20 bucks or something and you get the results back in a few hours. Like I always say, China’s medical system isn’t warm and fuzzy, but it is damn sure efficient. We celebrated New Years like true champs – our kids falling asleep before the ball dropped and us two not really caring about it much either. China has a muted New Year celebration, as their big holiday is the Lunar New Year that happens sometime in early February.
I went back to work for 3 weeks in January, teaching some English workshops at the university and volunteering to sing in some kind of Chinese New Year’s talent group… thing. I dunno. We sang Auld Lang Syne to an acoustic guitar, then sang some quite catchy Chinese song that I have no idea what the lyrics meant. We looked good doing it though. Alanna and the kids were back in school for about month as well before we all stopped what we were doing again for the Chinese New Year. Alanna and the kids got a two week vacation. I was off… well… I got about a month and a half. I ain’t complaining.
Let’s talk about New Years resolutions, kay? Mine was the same – lose some more weight. I’d lost a good bit of it in 2019, then had the shoulder injury. 2020 was a wash, so with 2021 I kicked it back into high gear again. I’m smashing my goals so far and haven’t stopped with either the workouts or the eating healthy habits. Alanna wanted to learn to play the guitar. I’m not sure if that was her New Years resolution or not, but her birthday is mid- January so I bought her a guitar anyway. She’s doing well with that too – she can decently strum “Free Fallin’ ” and “Sweet Home Alabama”. She is talented that one. The kids have done well with the break too. My youngest has learned to ride her bike and is now becoming Ms. Independent. My son? Well… he’s gotten even better at video games, taken up photography and is even getting in some physical exercise in the form of jogging at school.
What else? Here are random things we’ve been up to:
In no particular order –
Online Shopping, Trivia Nights at the Bar (we either win or crash hard), A quick one night stay-cation at another hotel we like, hiking in a few different trails around town, professional development for me, Alanna’s family celebrating Christmas two weeks too late, a new Pizza Hut opened very close to us (Logan is happy), Wandavision, Watching the Superbowl at a bar at 7:00AM, failing to complete a 6 ghost pepper wings, 6 beers, in 6 minutes challenge, ripping my left big toenail off, we got a pet hamster named Ashley, rollerblading at the coast, playing Dungeons & Dragons, playing Scrabble, playing chess, playing Go Fish, getting bruises from a massage, ordering a LOAD of wings as often as possible, Alanna dancing with dragons, quite a few dinner parties, lunch parties, still wearing a mask when we need to, watching America be…. America, VISITING ANOTHER CAT CAFE. TOO MANY CATS IN CHINA, V-Day Flowers, watching the Rumble in the Jungle in a hotel, enjoying the once every few months rainstorm, and literally freaking loving our crazy nomadic life one day at a time.
If you need clarification on any of that lightning round stuff I just spewed forth up there, hit me up on social media, email, or just comment here. Hey… Happy New Year.
Rob’s been asking me for awhile now to be a guest blogger on his site. I feel that he always has the best words, and is certainly far more entertaining than I am, so I’ve yet to take him up on this offer. Until now, because this post is about him.
You see, it seems that we now have an annual tradition for each November to bring forth turkey, stuffing, and major surgery. Last Thanksgiving he was recovering from reconstructive shoulder surgery after his scooter accident.
On Thanksgiving Day this year, Rob had part 3 of a root canal procedure. He called me from the dentist’s office because the dentist found something on his X-ray that they felt needed to be addressed at the hospital. Of course this worried me because it accompanied bad translations like “blood clot,” and “hospital, now.” It wasn’t a blood clot, but it wasn’t just a cloudy tooth either. A full day and a CT scan later, I get this text:
Okay, so yes I worry a lot. My mind immediately went to cancer. Because large grey growth that isn’t supposed to be there is scary. See that large grey circle where the arrow is? Yup. See why I was worried?
I’ll go ahead and get to the good ending now. it wasn’t cancer. But it was a full week of worry and recovering from surgery before we found that out. He was admitted to the hospital the next day, and they ran all sorts of tests on him for two days prior to his surgery date: more CTs of his heart, lungs, other organs, etc., more bloodwork, an EKG in which they had to shave his chest and wrists, endoscopies, of course COVID, etc. … all to rule out “other possibilities.” Oh, and because surgery was to be in the facial area he had to shave most of his beard. While doing that, I also had a COVID test done so I could get permission to visit him in the hospital. Thankfully, it only takes one day for results to come back here, so I got to visit on day 2. I was quickly greeted by a nurse upon my arrival who was eager to tell me to go buy him a proper nose hair remover because his nose hair was not up to surgical standards. I looked at her like, ‘say what now?’ Yes, she gave me a piece of paper with “nose hair remover” written in Chinese and told me to go find the store near another little store where they could give me one. I did not walk in to the right store at first, but a kind man directed me to the nose hair remover store, and Rob successfully got his nose hair to appropriate surgical length.
In order to have that thing removed they had to put him under general anesthesia and take it out through his nose. They also sent some of it out for a biopsy. Here he is right after:
When we did a video call with him the day after surgery Abby started crying because she was shocked by his black eye and bloody nose. His nose continued to bleed non-stop all week.
Throughout the rest of the week Rob endured a few more painful sinus endoscopies to remove surgery padding, clean out the surgical site, and put fresh dissolvable padding inside his face- wondering each day when he would be released from the hospital.
Meanwhile, I was only able to visit him twice this week because I got so incredibly sick with flu-like symptoms and was down for the count at home. I’m sure it was from the stress of it all. So I won’t be able to tell you all of the fun details of being in a Chinese hospital for a week. I’ll leave that up to him. I know it wasn’t fun. Finally, he was cleared to come home today! Although we don’t have official biopsy results yet, the doctors have told him from all the other tests and from everything they see, the growth looks to be benign.
So as usual, the Statons come out of situations like this on top. I feel like we’ve been able to prove time and time again we are resilient, so I’m not sure why these reminders need to keep popping up. Nonetheless, we endure. And this Thanksgiving, even though we had to cancel our little dinner, and postpone putting up the Christmas tree, it kicks off the Christmas season with an extra sprinkle of thankfulness for each other. I have a poster in my office that says “Nothing is worth more than this day.” It’s true friends. Now go hug your loved one.
Over my 10+ years of on again/off again travel blogging, I often find myself apologizing for months of no new content. So, yet again, I apologize non-constant readers, for my lack of new content. But behold, I now bring you a new blog post!
So what has my clan been up to the last 3+ months? Oh you know, same old same old. After our summer tour of China, we settled back into our hometown. My daughter had a birthday at the end of July, so we celebrated that by getting her some weird flamingo cake, a GIANT stuffed animal and, just as we did with my son, another visit the the trampoline park. Only this time, I forced my wife to join us all on the trampolines. Pro tip – wearing a skirt, even a long one, is not the best when jumping on trampolines. We ended the birthday festivities with a make-up tutorial and a sweaty dance party back at the crib.
August was mostly getting ready for Alanna and the kids to go back to school, though we did have our own sets of non-school related ups and downs. At the beginning of the month, we stumbled on two abandoned 15-day old kittens in a shoebox. Someone had left them outside our complex, in the rain. So, of course, we had to take them. We initially named them Mario and Luigi, but once we got them to a Vet, we switched that to Mario and Zelda for obvious reasons. The vet said the kittens were both sickly, had a few cat diseases and that he wasn’t hopeful of their survival, but we did our best to care of them anyway. They both seemed to be making great improvements but then about two weeks later, one of them faded and died, and the next week the other one did the same thing. Losing anything like that isn’t fun. It was hard on the kids, even though we thought we had prepared them by not giving false hope. In the end, we gave those two strays a warm, safe place to stay for their short lives. We are all okay with that.
Thankfully after that we focused the kids attention on family activities such as board games and outdoor exploration, as well as refocused them on getting ready to go back to school. China is pretty much in the clear as far as Covid-19 right now. Masks are worn on the school bus, but other than that, there is very little that’s different from anything that happened before the virus. Seriously, international schools are the bomb diggity. I’m sure there are plenty of bad apples out there, but the schools we’ve enrolled our kids in have all been pretty awesome. It also helps that I’m married to the principal of the school. I can send my complaints directly to her over dinner. The kids being back in school also gave me a little more free time, as my university didn’t really get up and running again until September. Even better for me, I am only teaching Freshmen courses this semester, and they didn’t come to campus until after the Mid-Autumn Festival in October. In addition to all the back-to-school prep, Alanna and I also randomly began to play in a pub trivia league. Our team came in 3rd the first time, and then we won the whole dang thing at the next event. Our prize? A massage package for both of us! Massages in China can be a bit extreme. Even though they started and ended with pomp and circumstance (some kind of hand washing ceremony at the beginning and a tea ceremony at the end), those massage ladies gave both of us a workover. I was sore for a week. We also celebrated my birthday in September as well. No big deal. 45. I’m middle-aged. Woohoo.
Before I got back to work, one of the university administrators retired. Her name is Mrs. Hu. No, I can’t pronounce it correctly. She was a nice lady that I rarely saw, but always smiled and spoke to me when we passed by each other. They gave her a retirement dinner and invited all of us to attend. I didn’t go to many of these functions last year for one reason or another, so I felt like I should make the effort for this one. Many of the Chinese staff I knew well were going, so I felt safe enough to give it the old college try – literally. They were even having it at a fancy schmancy hot springs resort. We weren’t actually going to the hot springs, just the hotel restaurant, but I did some scouting for Alanna, cause she will want to be going there soon. I bummed a ride with a co-worker to the event, as the chartered bus that they rented seemed like it was going to be crowded, and with our own ride, we could leave early if we wanted. So, we got there a little early and waited on the bus. I quickly knew this was going to be a little different of an occasion when the bus arrived and everyone filed off of it one by one. I learned from a quick looksie that I was the only white person in attendance. Everyone else was Chinese. Most expats are still stuck in their home countries, trying to get a visa and flights back to China. So there are a precious few of us working here in China, and I was the only one in attendance at the retirement party. Mrs. Hu came right up to me, thanked me for coming, and made some small talk about how our summer had gone. We then went inside. I tried to join my Chinese friends at their table, but then I was told that Mrs. Hu had requested my presence at her table. At this head table, sat basically what you would call a board of directors of the university. I really didn’t know any of them. I’m sure they make more money in one month than I make all year. They gave me a chair right next to Mrs. Hu and from there, the night got a little fuzzy.
Traditional Chinese dinners are served “family style”, with large plates of food being brought to our big round table. In the middle of the table, is like, I dunno… a lazy Susan type of turn table thing? So, they just sit the food there, and we all spin the thing around, using our chopsticks to grab portions and put them on our plates or in our bowls. I made sure to watch what everyone was doing first, as I am very cautious about doing anything stupid and breaking some unknown Chinese rule of eating. Apparently I was taking too long though, as Mrs. Hu just began to scoop things up with her chopsticks and drop them on my plate. I want to tell you about how amazing the food was. It really was. I think. But I wasn’t allowed to spend any measurable amount of time enjoying the food because of the constant toasting process. Everyone at the table individually toasted Mrs. Hu. They would say something in Chinese, and thankfully the Chinese professor on my left spoke some English and would give me a rough translation. So yeah, they’d toast, then we’d all drink. In between these toasts to Mrs. Hu, everyone at the table also came up to me, one at a time, and toasted me. Now, I get what’s happening. I’m literally the only white person there. I’m the elephant in the room. The white elephant. I had heard rumors of how the Chinese enjoy their drinking at parties like this and, truth be told, I was eager to see the process in action. So I took it as a bit of a challenge. I toasted everyone back. I drank every time they did, or they told me to. I am not smart.
Chinese drink a liquor called Baijiu. It is a clear grain-based liquor that is not unlike vodka or gin. Perhaps its a little sweeter. The “strength” of this liquor though is quite high on the old alcohol by volume list. Pretty much everyone at my table was drinking baijiu, but also had a glass of red wine. Neither of these glasses were ever empty, for as soon as you finished it, someone at the table or a waiter would immediately fill it right back up again. So yeah, each one of these distinguished guests came up to me, toasted me and made me drink their crazy Chinese alcohol. I would thankfully gain a small reprieve now and then as someone would come up with only their wine glass for a toast. But even then… you are… okay… I was… expected to “empty my glass” after each toast. The default toast in China is “ganbei” (sounds like: “gon bay”) which literally means “dry cup.” Yes, each time I would drink they would tell me to FINISH IT.
GANBEI! GANBEI! GANBEI!
There were also a LOT of people at my table. Honestly, I can’t tell you how great the food was, or even how memorable the hotel resort was due to the fact that the rest of the evening seemed a bit of a blur. I do sort of remember someone asking me to visit them in the their office for tea and another couple inviting me on their yacht to watch the pink dolphins. Thankfully I had a ride home and was no worse for the wear the next day.
I’m back at work now full time, no online teaching for me. Live classrooms are so much better. I helped run the Freshmen orientation program this fall for the university. I spoke at Convocation. They even invited my better half to give the keynote speech at a special conference day. It’s a LOT of work. Imagine your normal college orientation program, but with students who have never spoken English on a regular basis. Most Chinese students are taught English from a very young age. While their reading and writing of the language can be okay, their speaking and listening usually aren’t, because its just not something you practice. So looking at those kids faces on the first day of class, knowing many of them can’t understand what I’m saying, can be quite the challenge for both professor and student alike. One of my courses this semester is your general Public Speaking class. One of the first class exercises I do is an eye contact lesson where each student stands in front of the class, makes eye contact with 3 different people, and says…
One Mississippi…
Two Mississippi…
Three Mississippi…
Look, I can’t speak Chinese. Like, at all. Every time I try to say something in Chinese, people give me the “huh?” look, or many times just laugh at my mispronunciation. So, I may have had a little bit of sick satisfaction listening to ESL learners try to pronounce a word than many Americans rarely even spell correctly – Mississippi. Chinese pride themselves on being perfect. And for them, this was such a hard word. Most of them stumbled through the exercise at best, but seemed to enjoy themselves when I made them understand not to take the exercise too seriously and just have fun. So, yeah… we’re back in the swing of things here in China. Heck, I even have a Chinese volleyball tournament I’m in next week. I was in it last year. We lost all 3 of our games. This year though… probably the same. Who am I kidding? Hey, you folks in the US of A, errr… good luck on Tuesday. I’m very happy NOT to be there. Y’all take care.
China. Two Weeks. Over 3000 miles traveled. Terracotta. Disney. 2nd Tallest Building in the world. Tropical Beach. I’m tired.
Our summer vacation, which we began setting up in the fall, turned out to be drastically different than we anticipated. Thanks, Obama. Kidding. But really… Thanks, Covid. Let me just preface this post by saying though – we actually had a summer vacation. Most people probably aren’t getting one, so we are very thankful for our situation.
Our original vacation plans were to travel to Italy and France this summer. I even had an inkling of a notion to slip over into Spain and run with the bulls. And the… Covid. Currently, we can’t even leave China. If we do, like many of our colleagues, we won’t be allowed back into the country until who knows when. So, we scrapped any out of the country plans. No going to Italy and France. No going home to the US for a few weeks. We can’t even go to Hong Kong or Macau, which are technically part of China. Plan A was a European vacation. Plan B was an American vacation. Onto Plan C… a Chinese vacation. Which of course, turned into a Plan D.
Plan C was simple – hit up all the touristy Chinese vacation spots – The Great Wall, Terracotta Army, and finally Shanghai… cause you know… Disney. My better half does all the planning legwork. I just sit back and argue about it when she brings up an idea I don’t like. She quickly had us lined up for Beijing to visit the Great Wall, but then it fell through. There was a “flare up” of Covid in Beijing and we were warned to steer clear. So we did. Maybe next year for the Great Wall. We then moved to plan D – Which would be Xi’an (Terracotta Army), Shanghai (Disney and tour Shanghai), then there was an option to visit Sanya, which is a tropical island in southern china for some beach R&R.
Before our trip could begin, we decided to teach two weeks at my wife’s school for a summer camp. Cause… they would pay us. So even though I can barely tolerate my own children sometimes, I signed on to teach a whole butt load of them. Two weeks of crazy humidity and crazy, but surprisingly well-behaved elementary children later, we were done, had pockets full of cash and were ready for our summer adventure to begin. We had a few travel options – one of them being by train. China has an extensive rail network with bullet trains, sleeper trains, all that jazz. And we’ve never taken a train as a family. Yes, we travel all over and back again and have never been on a train (Subway doesn’t count). Did we take the train this time? Nope. Maybe next time! We had some people tell us and read some reviews about their train experience, so we decided against it, for now. And besides, flights are DIRT CHEAP at the moment. I mean, DIRT CHEAP. The wifey found us some super inexpensive seats to Xi’an, and we were on the plane bright and early on a Monday morning.
This city has some history. It has, on multiple occasions, been the capital of China, since its founding around 200 BCE. They even have a WALL around the city. No, it’s not the original wall, but a re-constructed 14th century version of it. So, it’s not an ancient wall, but a Medieval wall. It still looks really cool. We stayed in a hotel that was a stone’s throw from the wall. We had only planned 2 days in Xi’an, though now I wished we would have had more, if nothing else than to eat all the delicious food there. There’s also a Muslim quarter, which came because Xi’an was a major hub of the Silk Road. There are three main streets (more like big alleys) that we walked through – food and collectibles abounded in this area. We also visited the Drum Tower – which has all the drums that were used back into the day to signify things, such start of the work day, end of the work day, storm approaching, etc. The drums were huge. Modern technology has made them obsolete but it was still neat to see them well preserved.
Day 2 of Xi’an is when we headed out to the Terracotta Army. Its about a 45 minute trip out of the city, but our taxi driver got us there in under 30 because he drove like an absolute maniac. We were totally confused when we got there though – where to go, where to buy tickets, do we pay in cash, do we need masks. We finally got all sorted out and then headed inside the giant complex. It’s a nice 5 minute walk from the road, through a lovely park area, and then you arrive at the “pits”. There are four of them, each at different levels of excavation. Pit 1 is the most famous, and largest, with mostly everything already excavated. The other pits are in various forms of excavation, with some of the pits only half way completed. It truly was an amazing experience, a must-see for anyone who is into history. The army was buried with China’s first emperor in 210 BCE. Yeah, like a long time ago. I won’t bore you with more history, but this was one of the main things I looked forward to when we knew we were going to be living in China. It did not disappoint. And to make our son happy, there’s a McDonald’s at the complex. But they didn’t have Chicken McNuggets. How can you be a McDonald’s and not have McNuggets???
After another night in Xi’an, we packed up and headed out uber early for our flight to Shanghai and Disney. Traveling right now is kind of hectic. China is broken up into provinces (think States), and each province or sometimes city wants you to have a special health code that they can scan on your phone to make sure you’re Covid free. You basically scan a QR code, fill in your information and you’re good to go. It’s not that simple though as most of the time the language is in Chinese or it’s just confusing in English.
We had to show these QR codes everywhere – getting on planes, coming into a hotel, going into Disney. We “thought” we had it all figured out as we waited in line at our gate to board our flight to Xi’an. We get to the dude that scans our tickets and he tells us to step aside for a moment. And then we were racially profiled. For being White. Or American, one or both I dunno. Even though we had our QR codes, and my wife even had a printed note (in Chinese) of where we live/where we’ve been, they still grilled us about everything. It was awkward and annoying, as everyone on the flight was staring at us like we had a disease. In retrospect, it was a mild inconvenience and pales in comparison to what other people go through all the time. So I’m not complaining. Silver lining – when we take these flights, my better half sits in a three seat row with the kids and I’m stuck sitting with strangers in the row across. On one of the flights, the two ladies beside me weren’t too happy sitting next to me, and in fact, waited until I had finished my plane-served snack and put back on my mask before they took off their masks and touched their food. But on another flight. I was sat next to a Mom and her son. As I looked over to my son to give him the Vulcan “live long and prosper” sign, the Mom and her son laughed, and then commenced to trying to make the sign with their hands. Through broken English/Chinese, I schooled them in the ways of the Trek and as I left the flight, we exchanged a Live Long and Prosper salute to each other.
We made it safe and sound to Shanghai and were whisked to a Disney resort to spend a few nights. Covid compliance is in full effect though, so we had to mask up pretty much everywhere on Disney properties, there are no meet and greets with characters, no fireworks, no parades. Other than that, it was Disney as usual. Well… Chinese Disney. At Hong Kong Disneyland, mostly everything is bilingual – in Chinese and English. Not so much in Shanghai. While the signage around the park has both Chinese and English, all the performances, rides, voice-overs were all in Chinese, so there were plenty of times when we just smiled and had no idea what was happening. Again though, it’s Disney and it’s fun.
Here are some highlights of Shanghai Disneyland:
Disney Hotel guests are allowed into the park a full hour before the general public. This let us knock out a whole section of the park each morning before it got crowded. Worth the money.
TRON Lightcycle was a blast. It replaces Space Mountain. You sit on motorcycles in this roller coaster and go both inside and outside at a fast clip.
Camp Discovery. It’s a ropes course. Yeah, I know… a ropes course. I’ve been on plenty, they are all basically the same. This one was awesome. It’s built around a Disney made mountain with waterfalls. There are three different trails you can climb around on. Each trail has different “levels” of ways to go. So, if you’re like my wife, you can take the easy route each time and just walk across simple bridges. Or, if you’re like me and my son, you can literally climb around a cliff edge against a waterfall as water is splashing down on you. This was by far my son’s favorite thing he did at Disney and a total surprise at how fun it was for me.
Blue Frog – Best restaurant we ate at while at Disney. There was a Cheesecake Factory close by, but we opted for this place and thankfully made the right choice. This spot had plenty of western options for the kids. The burger I had was excellent and my wife was able to curb her Mexican food craving as well.
Pirates of the Caribbean ride – Pretty cool experience. You sit in a “boat” and go through the different POTC movie experiences inside a huge indoor facility. They spent a lot of money here as the special effects were top notch. But in true fashion, the ride seemed to have a hiccup half way through – it stopped and we sat in mostly darkness for about 5 minutes before it started up again. They did make some kind of Chinese announcement, but we had no idea what it was about. I blame my wife. She broke a ride at Hong Kong Disney too. That’s her super power – breaking technology.
We rode pretty much every ride and saw most of the shows at Disney, but as this isn’t just a Disney Post, I’ll leave you with those highlights and of course pictures.
After a few days, we checked out of Disney and headed to downtown Shanghai – to the best hotel we’ve ever stayed in. I am not in charge of our finances, so my wife could have paid a fortune for all I know, but this place was the bomb. Have you ever tried a bidet? So here’s the thing. I lived in the UAE for a year. In our bathroom, there was a seperate bidet that sat next to the toilet. I never used it though, other than to wash my feet off. Well, this boujee hotel in Shanghai had one built into the toilet. The toilet seat was also heated, which is literally the smartest idea ever. Back to the bidet – it had a remote on the wall next to the toilet. You just pushed it, it did the business, and even dried you. The western world is missing out on this amazing device.
So, Shanghai. It’s the NYC of China. But cleaner. In 2010, we went to the world’s tallest building in Dubai. Shanghai has the current second tallest building, the Shanghai Tower, so we had to hit it up as well. The observation deck of this building is even higher than the one in Dubai. We did this on a weekday as well, so it wasn’t as nearly as crowded as it could have been. While it was a little overcast, we could see everything pretty well and enjoyed our ride to the clouds. We also heard there was a Taco Bell near our hotel. We got kind of excited. Is Taco Bell the most amazing thing ever? No. But, when you haven’t had some of it in a year, it’s a nice treat. So We headed over… and… it was closed. But wait! There was another location. We ordered for delivery and also got Papa John’s for the kids. We all gained 10 lbs from this experience. We also visited an aquarium while in the city, which is what tourists with kids do. I wish I could have stayed longer in Shanghai, if not for anything other than the hotel’s bidet.
Our final destination was Sanya. We left it as an option, but gave it the green light when we heard back from some expat friends who had a blast there. Sanya is a beach town on the island of Hainan in Southern China. It also happens to be on roughly the same latitude line as Hawaii, so well… we were in. We booked it last minute, so our hotel, although still pretty nice, was the last one we could find on short notice. Long story short – the pool was amazing, the views were spectacular and we still found western fast food for our kids. The only bummer was the watersports. The dude running them would only allow me on a jetski if HE went with me. I turned him down. But still, Chinese Hawaii was a great way to end our trip.
After two weeks and 3000 miles of travel, its good to be back home. We still have the rest of the summer to relax before our schools start up again, in whatever capacity Covid will allow.
Before I get to anything else, let me go ahead and update you on the one thing most everyone asks us about: We are perfectly safe, happy and healthy here in China. The actual risk of any of us contracting the Coronavirus are very minuscule. That being said, since the outbreak began in early January, we’ve been through a series of unfortunate events that I surmise will be fun for you to hear about.
Okay, first things first – a quick Coronavirus timeline for the uninitiated. And please forgive me if this information is slightly inaccurate –
DEC 31. At the end of last year, doctors in Wuhan, China were treating dozens of cases of what they thought was pneumonia. Days later, those same doctors figured out it was a little more than your typical pneumonia.
JAN 11. The first person dies from what is being called the Coronavirus. The 61 year old man was a regular at a wet market in Wuhan. Wet markets here in China are large open food markets with fresh meat, seafood, fruits, veggies and all kinds of other assorted food… things. The markets in my city are pretty similar, with the most unusual things you can buy to eat are turtles and eels. They are alive. Yes, you buy them like that. Then you take them home and do the deed. The Chinese like their food really fresh. The Chinese like many eastern Asian countries, enjoy a variety of fresh exotic foods – like snake and bats. The rumors are that the virus started with a bat, or a snake, that was eaten by a bat or snake, who passed the virus on to the other animal, and then THAT animal was sold at the Wuhan Wet Market , which in turn was passed on to some unfortunate human being. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. China is pretty closed off about information, going in or out. I’m pretty sure they just let the CDC in the country last week, a full month after this whole fiasco began.
On with the timeline –
JAN 20 – First confirmed cases outside of China in South Korea, Japan and Thailand.
JAN 21 – First case reported in the United States.
JAN 23 – The city of Wuhan, which has over 11 million people, was quarantined by the Chinese government. I mean cut off, like… you can’t leave. Go out of your house. Imagine that happening in the US? Ya’ll would go crazy. For reference, in case you’re freaking out and are worried about our location, we’re about a 12 hour drive south of Wuhan. And that’s just a tiny part of China.
JAN 30. – The World Health Organization declares a a global health emergency as there are thousands infected in China and many others in different countries.
JAN 31 – Major airlines stop service to China. The US restricts entry to the US, imposing a 14 day quarantine on people coming from China. By this date 213 people had died and nearly 9,800 had been infected worldwide.
FEB 2. – First Coronavirus-related death outside of China.
FEB. 5. – Hundreds, mostly Americans, were evacuated from Hubei Province and a cruise ship in Japan is quarantined.
FEB. 7. – A Chinese doctor, who tried to warn others, died from the coronavirus.
FEB. 10. – The death toll in China surpassed the number SARS killed worldwide. 40,000 people have been infected.
And on, and on and on. I’m tired of writing the timeline. Since this blog is about us, let us rewind and tell you what WE were and have been doing during all this.
When the whole shindig started, Alanna and I were on holiday from work. Chinese New Year was almost here and the kids were out of school. We had planned on spending a good part of the holiday in Hong Kong, just to get away from the mainland for a bit. We had just began to hear the ramblings of some virus, somewhere in China. Heck, I had never heard of Wuhan until all of this, and I live in China. Everything was still pretty normal where we live as we left China on Jan. 23 and headed to Hong Kong. Sure, some people were wearing masks, but with the air quality here in China, some people are always wearing masks.
We had a great two or three days in Hong, doing our normal touristy stuff – We visited a beach where found a 3000 year old rock carving, visited Hong Kong’s favorite son – Bruce Lee, spent some quality time in a Cat Cafe, and most importantly ate amazing food, minus the Pizza Hut and McDonald’s orders for our kids. But as we watched the news in our hotel room, we began to see the scope of what was happening. And it became quickly apparent in Hong Kong, as within only a few days EVERYONE was suddenly wearing a masks. We also heard rumors that it was now mandatory to wear masks back in our home city. So, we bought masks, or the 4 masks that were still in stock. Many reports today say that these masks really aren’t all the effective. I mean, they aren’t actually tight over your mouth and nose. Those little virus particles can get in. But, we wore them whenever we went out. At any rate, it made us stand out much less than we used to, so… bonus.
By the time the weekend had rolled out, we were getting ready to head back to the mainland, because we were expecting at least Alanna and the kids going back to school. I still had a few more weeks left before I returned. That never happened. Schools all across China were postponed from starting back, and pretty much all businesses began to shut down, save for grocery stores, pharmacies and restaurants. As we traveled back to the mainland, the temperature checks began. At length. This would sometimes happen randomly during a border crossing in China. Now… it was happening at every border crossing. And at the hotel, and at our gate of our complex.
Chinese officials were urging everyone, even in our city, to just stay indoors and avoid contact with people pretty much as soon as we were back in town. We really didn’t have a ton of food in the house though those first few days back, so we ventured out to the closest restaurant within walking distance – Burger King. The city at this point already looked like a ghost town. No one was around, except for security guards, police, a few people here and there, and those poor suckers who had to serve us a Burger King. Of course, we were the ONLY customers there. Normally during lunch time, its packed to the walls. Not that day. and not since.
The next day we took a trip to Sam’s Club. Yes, they have one here. And though its quite different from the American version, it usually allows us to stock up on a bunch of stuff. Not so much this time. You know when they predict a light dusting of snow and there’s no bread and milk on the grocery shelves? That’s how it felt at Sam’s Club. People were scrambling for the last best meats, the eggs, all the good stuff. Or at least the good stuff that we liked. There were still plenty of noodles.
At the beginning of February, the virus was in full swing, and Alanna and the kids were in the midst of online schooling. The Chinese internet is a bit… restrictive here, so anything online is going to be fraught with difficulties. At this point, we were looking at options for getting out of China. There was always a quick vacation destination nearby, such as Korea or Thailand, and we also discussed just making the long haul back to the States to wait all this out. In the end though, we came to the conclusion that, for now, staying put was best for our family. And by staying put, I mean we were going to hang out in Hong Kong for another week. So on Feb 7, we headed back across the border. Hong Kong, unlike mainland China, still has mostly everything open. No, Disneyland and most of the large public tourist destinations are closed until further notice, but the malls, restaurants and the like are all in full swing. So even though everyone walking around with a mask on and worrying about dying, or you know, China pressuring them into being more like China, most Hong Kong people are carrying on their day to to day lives.
Yes, this elderly couple is doing Tai chi with swords.
We stayed in Hong Kong until Feb. 12, doing the same things we normally do – relaxing at the hotel, eating great food, all the jazz. Biggest bummer this time was that, because of the virus, the hotel’s amazing hot tub and pool were closed. We’ve been back (stuck) in our city in China since the 12th. Cabin Fever is a real thing. More restrictions continue to be piled on us as the days go by. We all tried to walk to Burger King one day early last week, and on the way there, they told us only one person was allowed through this makeshift gate. So only I went to BK that day. They are doing this, from what we’ve heard, to restrict too many people in public areas. I mean, really. If they would have left my wife and kids, there would have been a total four 4 people in that area instead of just me. This past week has been more of the same. We are in somewhat of a routine now. We get up and make sure the kids do their online school work, we play games, we run around the house, we listen to music, I clean things because I’m bored. We have watched a LOT of TV and movies, catching up on many things we missed. Alanna says Parasite was just okay. I didn’t watch it. I did watch 1917 though, and Alanna agrees with me that it should have won Best Picture over Parasite. That’s saying a lot as Alanna’s least favorite genre of entertainment is war movies.
We’ve heard rumors just today of a new restriction. They are closing our “side gate” to our complex. Its the gate we can walk out of to get to Burger King. Now, if we want to get to Burger King, we’ve have to talk about 20 minutes out of the way to get there. Also, there’s rumor that only one family member is going to be allowed out of the complex at a time so they can monitor who is in and out. We’ll see how that goes if it happens. At this point, they’ve also shut down mostly all the restauraunts, save for a few that will only do take out.
Hey… thanks to each and everyone of you for reaching out to us. It does mean a great deal to know we have so many of you who care about what happens to our crazy nomadic family. Honestly, to us, it feels like a “first world” problem. We are terribly inconvenienced by what is happening, but it could be a lot worse, and IS a lot worse for a lot of other people. We are thankful for our health. We are thankful for each and everyone of you. And, at least at this point and time, we are thankful that Burger King is still open. For take out.
We stayed mostly low key for the holidays this year. Well, as low key as we can get for our unusual family. We split the last few weeks into two trips – the first to Hong Kong, and the second to Macau, with Christmas right in the middle at home. We had to be home for Christmas, right? I mean, that’s where Santa brings all the presents. And Kevin (our Elf on a Shelf) was there, right?
Let’s tackle the Hong Kong Trip in this blog. From where we live, there are a few ways to get to Hong Kong – with the two most popular being a one hour ferry ride or a one hour bus ride over the longest (over water) bridge in the world. We’ve traveled both in the past, and I can’t say I really have a preference. Okay, maybe riding on a ferry is cooler, so I guess you could say that is my preference. This trip we took the ferry to Hong Kong. And for those of you who are interested, here’s what I typical family trip on a Ferry looks like for us:
Yeah, so that’s our typical ferry ride. Abby is overly excited. Logan is on his tablet, and Alanna? She usually has motion sickness. For the record, she didn’t actually throw up.
The Ferry dropped us off at the HK port where we moved as quickly as we could through customs, though it seemed to take a little longer this trip than most. Yes, HK is part of China. But yes, you still have to go through customs. It seems like people around here don’t like all this rigmarole. Maybe they should protest it. Oh wait, they are. Currently. We avoid that political mess though and move along with our vacay. We stayed at a lovely hotel on the northern part of Hong Kong called Kowloon. We had specific goals in mind for this trip. My main goal? See the new Star Wars Movie. So my kick booty wife booked a hotel that’s literally connected to a huge mall with a cinema. Goal accomplished. And I don’t care if you didn’t like the new Star Wars movie. We all enjoyed it. I got emotional.
My kick booty wife also has 3 kick booty sisters, and one of them just happened to arrange to hang out with us in Hong Kong. Sho (that’s her name) is a bit of a go-getter, so after raising funds by participating in a triathlon in Bali, she and her awesome BoFro George headed over to HK to spend time with the fam. We hit up the typical tourist destinations around the hotel, including the mall, a street with nothing but flower shops, a street with nothing but birds for sale, and then a street with EVERYTHING EVER CREATED for sale. You know, cause its Hong Kong. Sho even sprung for childcare at night so we could all have some adult time. We had some fantastic Sichuan cuisine (hot food) while hitting up the most expat area of Hong Kong, then ended up a local spot for after dinner drinks.
Sho and her Bo headed back to the States and the rest of us continued to relax in the hotel pool/hot tub and/or visit more touristy destinations. We hit up a monkey park. No, not a zoo. A park. Its just a large wooded area with trails that happen to sport a lot of wild monkeys. We didn’t stay long, as these monkeys weren’t the most friendly of creatures. They kept yelling at me when I tried to take pictures. And they even blocked our path in the road at one point. Do they thing they own the place or something? Privileged monkeys! We also took more strolls through the city, finding more weird streets filled with weirder things – like an entire street selling tropical fish and other sea creatures, all in a bunch of plastic bags filled with water. Just pick what you want and take ’em home I guess! We also visited Victoria’s Peak while we stayed in HK, which is the highest spot in the area and offers amazing views. Of course, the day we went it was overcast and the views weren’t spectacular, but still pretty neat. They also had some kind of Monopoly museum/amusement park… thing.. at the top. We didn’t pay to go in, and were pretty confused about what it was even after reading the brochure. We left the peak with a few cool souvenirs though. Okay, we left with two fidget spinners and ONE cool souvenir – a hand painted picture of our family names in Chinese Characters. So touristy but a nice addition for our family’s collection of stuff from around the world.
And on our final full day in Hong Kong, we did what parents do to make their kids happy – Disney. That’s right, back to Disneyland Hong Kong. Since this was our second visit in just a few months, we knew the routine well enough. We hit the rides we wanted pretty early, making sure to do anything we missed last time. I am happy to say it went smoothly, no one was sick, and no child had any major breakdowns. I call that a success.
OK, I’m tired of typing. I’ll fill ya’ll in on Christmas festivities and our trip to Macau next time. I have spoken.
Oh.. wait! Outback! Yes, we went. It was of average taste, smaller portions and pricier than the States, but hey… steak and cheese fries, people!
