Into the Unknown (where my Frozen 2 fans at??)

We arrived. We made it. We were finally mask free. AND we were starving.  We flew from frigid winter temperatures and landed in Malaysia where it’s always hot and humid (meaning the battle of Natalie vs. Mosquitoes began immediately).  Unfortunately once we were settled into our apartment, it was already midnight, so Kolja went out to find food while I showered and immediately sanitised our suitcases, threw our clothes in the washer and unpacked. **side note, don’t expect much when you send your boyfriend out for food at midnight in an unknown city when you haven’t eaten for hours on end, because welp..... see for yourself the pic of our lovely buffet Kolja brought home 😂**

This first week, I experienced a crazy roller coaster of emotions (and no it was not my time of the month). On one hand, I was extremely grateful to be out of the uncertain conditions in China, but on the other hand I felt unbelievably guilty.  It’s hard to explain it, especially to those at home in the US, because to most people they can’t fathom why I’d feel guilty to get the heck out of dodge when the virus was such a scary unknown.

I guess the only way to put it into perspective, is by trying to put yourself in my shoes.  I graduated university in May of 2015, and in August of that same year I had packed my life up into two 50 pound suitcases and hopped on a plane solo to China.  There were no friends, family, or even housing waiting for me on the other side, simply a long time dream waiting to be fulfilled. If you’d like some insight on my first few months, scroll through the old blog posts from 2015, you’ll get quite a few laughs reading how I attempted to navigate around this foreign place all on my own.

But with that being said, Shanghai is the place that made me.  It broke me down and built me back up a newer, stronger, more independent Natalie, that no longer had fear of asking strangers for help (my Dad will be the first to tell you, that as a kid I always forced my sister, 3 years younger than me, to ask waitresses, shop clerks, etc. for anything I needed, the social speaking anxiety was REAL). I had to rely only on myself (especially because calling my mom at 1 am when I couldn’t figure out how to use the washing machine, didn’t seem like a valid option ), and start fresh knowing absolutely no one and putting my full self out there to meet new people from all over the world.

Taking 4 years of high school Chinese language classes (a joke as many US high school language courses seem to be) didn’t even remotely prepare me for the ability to communicate properly. So taking on studying a new language was added to the list of necessities. And finally, discovering the hard way that my 4 years of studying education in university had not even closely prepared me for teaching in the Chinese education system.

I endured periods of loneliness, heartbreak, frustrations, triumphs, promotions, elation, and loss all while being on the other side of the world away from everything and everyone I grew up knowing. I made friends that are now family, traveled to some pretty amazing places, and fell heels over head for the love of my life, all because I took a chance in 2015 by hopping on that plane and not looking back.

So, in all honesty I felt like I had abandoned my home, many people I loved, and ultimately the life I had built. It hurt, a lot. I really, really struggled that first week. There was so much uncertainty.... we hadn’t been working for a few weeks at that point, and I started to stress about financially paying for our apartment in Shanghai on top of living in this new city for an unknown period of time.  We had to constantly remind ourselves that this was not a holiday, and we couldn’t treat it like one.  If we had we would’ve been broke and significantly heavier in no time.

As that week progressed, I was fortunate to be introduced to the app Zoom that seems to have taken over the world now.  I began teaching online classes to my students, and although I was very skeptical in the beginning, we made it work, because honestly there was no other choice.  With that income stability, having the opportunity to freely move around without masks, spending free time at the beautiful pool and gym at our airbnb, and having a kitchen for cooking our own meals, I slowly started to let go of the guilt and allow myself to ride this crazy wave that we all call COVID 19....

Little reminder from the streets of Kuala Lumpur.

Kuala Lumpur January 31-February 6, 2020

Let the (masked) Journey Begin......

It seems as though no matter how many times you travel, the airport madness never ceases to amaze. There is always commotion, whether it be extremely stressed out moms (lugging 7 suitcases, 3 toddlers, and a husband), a businessman seemingly always in an impatient mood, those headed on vacation with beach hats and flip flops in the dead of winter, or the solo backpacker in their elephant pants and backpack 3 times the size of their own bodies (guilty as charged on many occasions). But nothing can quite prepare you for the madness of an airport filled with people desperately trying to escape a virus that is both highly contagious and extremely unpredictable.

Let me just make one quick *amendment* to my previous post though by saying that everyone in China during this time was actually in 1 of 2 places. 1) Home (as previously stated) where they were told to remain for an indefinite amount of time. Or 2) At the AIRPORT.  And yep you guessed it we were graced with the presence of about half of the city’s population in Pudong International Airport (not lying, check out the video below!)

                                                                           

 Luckily one of my closest and dearest friends traveled from Shanghai to Malaysia the day before us and was able to give us the 4-1-1 on what to expect.  Because if she hadn’t, I’m not sure we would have made it through. First of all, we were told to arrive 4 hours before our flight because there were insane lines not only for check-in, but also to get through customs, security, and to your gate.  We were told to expect serious delays and to be prepared with masks and loads of hand sanitizer.  Fortunately, we had ordered extra masks to Shanghai while we were in Taiwan, because the entire 7 days we were isolated in Shanghai, all masks everywhere were completely sold out.

After checking in and Kolja scoring us emergency exit seats (somehow when he does the talking, we get great seats, but never vice versa). We braced ourselves for a massive line leading to the customs area.  I must say for the virus being so new and no one really knowing how to prevent/detect it, the system for monitoring everyone’s temperatures was as organised as could be.  Our temperatures were checked at least 3 times, again by the lovely airport staff stuck working their long shifts in hazmat suits, and finally about 2.5 hours laters we were hopping on the shuttle to the new recently built terminal in Pudong Airport.

One thing to keep in mind, that now more and more people in the world are becoming aware, is that wearing a mask and trying your very best not to fidget or touch it is extremely difficult. Now, add on the fact that this virus was so new at the time we didn’t know how easy it was to contract, so we were PARANOID on top of it.  At that point we were on hour 4 of wearing them and hadn’t even boarded the plane yet, and might I add they’re not very comfortable if they’re proper N95 filtered masks.

Honestly the airport in Shanghai was scary but we knew what to expect, so in the end not all that bad. We took off on time and arrived in Kuala Lumpur about 6 hours later. Now on hour 11 of mask wearing, we were hangry (because we were too afraid to take off our masks and eat during the flight), dehydrated (because of the masks again), and tired!!

The absolute worst part of the whole trip though was arriving in KL.  We had just come from Shanghai where everyone was overly cautious, sanitary, and the workers were checking our temperatures left and right, and landed in an airport of chaos, with no one wearing a mask, excess people close to each other and maybe I was just hypersensitive and paranoid but there also seemed to be people coughing all over the place.  We couldn’t wait to get the heck out of the airport.


Finally, after swiftly yanking our one trusty yellow suitcase (that we packed about 5 outfits each in, thinking this wouldn’t be that long of a getaway) off the belt, we bulleted out of the airport and hopped into a taxi.  The second we hopped in we threw off our masks FREEDOM, the back of my ears were rejoicing from the constant yanking and chaffing. But wait for it.....

The cheery driver asks us where we’re going and we give him the address, to which he continues the typical getting to know you questions and tells us the drive will be about an hour.  Then, the daunting question we hadn’t prepared for, “so where are you guys coming from?”.  Kolja and I looked at each other and hesitated.  He gave the answer at last.... “umm Shanghai”.  Take one guess what the driver did..... he turned around confused, looking back and forth at both of us then immediately put a mask on, sanitised his hands, and gave a muffled “oh no” reply.  We felt very guilty after that and immediately put our masks back on for his sake *cue wincing and ear pain* and from there commenced the silent hour long taxi ride to our first Airbnb in Kuala Lumpur..................


This post represents the events of January 31, 2020.

QuaranTIME

I hope you’re all still buckled in tight, as I’m sure most people reading this don’t have anywhere to go during quarantine time, anyway! Continuing on with the last post, I just want to make one thing clear. The adventures to follow are all true and real accounts of what we experienced but shouldn’t be used as 100% factual or research based information....

With that being said, I’d like to continue with our time spent being isolated in our apartment in Shanghai.  To say that those 7 days were stressful is quite an understatement. We felt super safe because of measures being taken, but constantly berated with information from the media, the western news, the Chinese government, and then advice (not always desired but surely always given) by our friends and family on the other side of the world.   

It was the last week of January and entering the coldest time in Shanghai.  As most of you probably don’t know there is no central heating in most apartment buildings, and the high humidity makes it almost impossible to stay warm when you are stuck at home not moving very often.  We went outside once or twice a day for sanity and to warm up in the sun, but usually we were given dirty looks for doing so (even though we were covered head to toe with clothing, masks, eye glasses, hats, you name it we had it). In order to even enter the grocery store you were required to wear a mask, and on top of that most places checked your temperature.  All non- essential stores were closed and it felt like a ghost town.  

Keep in mind Shanghai is a city of more than 24 million (over 4 times bigger than NYC) and is continuously growing, so to see the streets barren was absolutely mind blowing. It also goes to show you how effective the government in China is at laying down the law and how obedient their citizens are. To say that was the safest place to be, scared my family and friends, but I honestly still believe it to be true as we made no contact with any other people day to day, most Chinese people who had plans to travel for the holidays cancelled them immediately, and everyone (I MEAN EVERYONE) obeyed the orders to stay home.

The stress of hearing that China’s border could soon be closed for an extended period of time finally freaked us out to the point of no return.  On day seven of the quarantine and driving ourselves crazy, debating multiple times a day what the best move was (go to Germany where Kolja’s family was, go to the US where mine is, or stick it out), we reached full panic mode when many airlines decided to cancel all flights to and from China.  And to top it all off my sister who was planning to visit in late March’s flight was officially cancelled.... womp, womp, womp. 

We talked to some friends and decided the best place to go was Malaysia because it has very good healthcare in the capital city, we had friends also there, and it was close to China so the flight wouldn’t be extremely long and hopefully safer.  After considering countless options we finally made a decision to fly out the next day to avoid any cancellations. 

The travel experience from Shanghai airport to Kuala Lumpur deserves a post of its own because the chaos of flying out of a country, that has a rising epidemic, along with people on the verge of hysteria, just makes for one thing.... a GREAT story.

Until the next post..... stay safe, wash your hands, stay home, and remain positive!!


Shanghai January 25- January 31, 2020

RATS BATS and CORONA, OH MY

I’M BAAAACK.

How fitting of a time for me to rejoin the blogging world, as during a global pandemic situation there is nothing but time time and more time! It has been quite a while since my last post, and although I’m not sure I can even begin to make up for all of the lost time, travels, and craziness of the past 5 years, I’m going to start fresh today with what’s been going on in this current year of the RAT.  As some people know, the Chinese New Year doesn’t start on January 1, because they follow the lunar calendar. So this new year actually began for the Chinese on January 25. And let me tell you, it has been complete and utter CHAOS.  No exaggeration whatsoever.  Let’s start with some happiness and positivity though.

During the Chinese New Year holiday celebration my boyfriend Kolja (new one since 2015 😂) and I were in Taiwan hiking in the beautiful Taroko National Park, and then celebrating the wedding of two of our Shanghai friends.  One of those friends being Taiwanese, gave us the awesome opportunity to really experience Taipei like a local, and we were lucky enough to be invited to their Chinese New Year dinner (similar to American Thanksgiving feasts). We had an absolutely epic time and ate far too much per usual!

Little did we know that the end of our trip would come far too quickly and bring with it a lot of difficult decisions and fear.  We were informed that many, many people were getting sick in China and that the Chinese New Year holiday was being extended.  People were told not to come back to Shanghai and rather stay put in their hometowns, because the government didn’t want the virus to spread..... little did we know this thing had already been spreading like crazy.  However, we decided to take our chances and head home. Luckily, we had scored the last pack of N95 masks in a pharmacy before heading to the Taipei airport where, as soon as you entered, a sea of people in masks (looking quite scared and staying far away from other people) were waiting. It was quite refreshing at first because, often times in Shanghai, it seems that people have no sense of personal space and are always right on top of you.  (We joke about feeling like sardines squished in a can anytime we ride the subway during rush hour) So rather than stress about this rare occurrence, we embraced having our own personal bubbles, kept our masks on, washed our hands at every restroom we saw, and avoided people.

Upon arrival to Shanghai though, things started to get real. We were immediately greeted by what looked like scientists heading into a toxic wasteland, fully geared up in hazmat suits from the toes clear up to the top of their heads.  It was our first indication that this thing was much more serious than we had thought, and we felt very uneasy from that point on.  Our temperatures were checked a few times from a distance and we slowly but surely made our way through customs and into a taxi heading home. As we arrived at our apartment, worry started to set in that maybe we had made the wrong decision to come back so soon.... many of our friends were extending their holidays abroad and there was an unsettling letter taped up in our building explaining that we should not leave our apartments. Shanghai, for the most part, would be remaining closed (as most things were already closed due to the holiday).

Now keep in mind this was back in January my friends......... so BUCKLE UP because this is just the beginning of our crazy journey........

**This post and all posts that follow are dedicated to my PAPU whose encouragement to continue writing might one day lead to an awesome documented story **

Taiwan January 17- 25, 2020