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
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