September 2, 2015 by trs

I Love You Backpacking Long Time – Part Ten Still in Bali

I haven’t had a hot shower in over a month. I wear flip flops every single day. I wake up when the roosters start crowing. I have mango or papaya or pineapple or water apples or mangosteens or rambutans or some other exotic fruit every day (though durian, soursops, and snake fruit are not to my liking). I feel fairly busy every day although the next day I couldn’t tell you what I did. It is quite lovely.

A stack of Balinese offerings. I made a whole bunch of these one day. Not great for the allergies, but a great way to feel like one of the women.

The bus dropped me off at Lovina Beach, in the village of Kalibukbuk, a suburb of the town of Singaraja, in the regency of Buleleng, Northern Bali on Christmas Eve. There I met a cute guy and decided to stay a bit longer than a few days. After some more days I moved my departing flight back a week. A week later I moved it back even further, checked out of my guesthouse and moved in with the cute guy and his extended family. It was my Eat, Pray, Love move before there was an Eat, Pray, Love.

When I say his extended family, I really mean just about everyone. He lived in a fairly traditional multi-family compound home. The entrance to the home was to the north, towards the beach. As you enter the gate in the center is an open courtyard. To the right of the courtyard there are three rooms. The first is a roofed area, walled on three sides and completely open on the fourth. It is an all-purpose room, there are simple wood benches, and there is a loom. Later, after I have been here some time, I sat with a group of women here to make hundreds of Balinese flower offerings. The second and third rooms are kitchens. I learn later that it is this way because the cute guy’s mother does not get along with one of her daughter’s in law and they refuse to use the same kitchen.

To the south at the back of the courtyard were two bathrooms. They were two large rooms each with a concrete floor, a squatting toilet, and a large cistern with buckets to use to wash or to flush the toilets.

I have to take a deep breath before I throw a bucket full of cold water on me. Usually a few buckets later and I feel quite nice, but I can never quite get over the shock of that first bucketful. And the toilet paper, or rather the lack of it, is rather a mystery to me. No one else uses it but how they accomplish this feat without soaking themselves is beyond me. I can observe the eating with hands (or rather hand, only the right) and sort of copy it and get some of the food within the range of my mouth. But I cannot exactly observe the mysterious toilet paper-less feats. So every week I buy myself another roll or two and continue to look somewhat like an idiot clutching my paper as I make my way to the bathroom.

Seemed like a good reason to stop traveling for awhile…

The left of the courtyard had the living quarters. The southwest portion housed cute guy’s third oldest brother, his pregnant wife, and their two daughters. From their section, the next room was that for cute guy’s parents. The was then a long open hallway where the family gathered for watching television and eating sitting on the floor; it wrapped around with more hallway and two additional bedrooms, one for cute guy’s second oldest brother, his wife, and their daughter, and then cute guy’s room.

Cute guy is named Kadek. Though I usually try not to give away names, because of Balinese naming convention, this actually gives away little. Names in Bali. You can call me Putu. If I were born in Bali that would be my name as I am the first born. In Bali children are named by their birth order and then given another name. If you are first born then you are called Putu or Wayan. If you are the second child you are Kadek or Made. The third is Komang or Gede. The fourth is Kutut. If you are the fifth child, then you are Putu or Wayan again. And so on. The names are for males and females. Kadek is named so because he is the sixth child, but he also has a nickname. However while in school he was called Made because there were already enough Kadeks to go around. His second name is Partama, but until the age of 5 it was something else, until his uncle said it was a stupid name and it was changed. There are no family names. The second name, the given name, is also chosen depending on caste, but it is changing was some children have foreign names. Some people are called by their birth order name, some by their second name, and some by a completely different nickname.

Heading to the temple with the family.

It was amazing to live with this family. I learned a lot about Balinese culture and incredibly was welcomed by and became woven into the lives of the family.

Kadek’s third oldest brother’s wife gave birth to their third child while I lived there. One morning they roared off on the motorcycle to the hospital and a few hours they roared back with a newborn.

Nearly every day for four months I watched Kadek’s second sister-in-law Ngah, from the village of Tenganan famous for its double ikat weaving, sit at her simple wood loom, pumping her legs and snaking her arms in an elaborate and fluid dance until she produced a beautiful piece of finished purple cloth with gold threads. When she, with her sister in law, came to my room to offer me the piece at the family and friends price, I readily accepted it. I felt I belonged.

It took a little time for the children to warm to me, but soon I felt like part of the family. Bodoh tai tunglep, which translates from Balinese to “you are as ugly as chicken shit” is a fond taunt of little children. All the children from three and up regularly call themselves and their friends UACS (ugly as chicken shit). It is a sign of my acceptance by the children that they now fondly call me the same. It is very touching and often brings a tear to my eye to be called ugly as chicken shit, have the child smack me, and run away giggling. Progress it is!

At the community temple wearing the beautifully woven skirt from Ngah.

In my time in northern Bali I had the opportunity to attend a wedding ceremony, a cremation, a tooth filing ceremony, a child’s naming ceremony, and a Balinese wayang kulit (shadow puppet) performance as part of a wedding reception. I also was able to attend important festivals in the Balinese calendar.

Bali is gearing up for the big festival of Galungan, when the deified ancestors return to the family temple and must be entertained with food. This week the family has been busy. Sunday was the day to prepare the bananas. Monday was the day to prepare the caked of rice and today is the day to kill the pig. Ah, nothing like a good animal sacrifice. Okay to be truthful I am not all that comfortable with the animal sacrifice. It unnerves me to hear the squeals of pigs or squawks of chickens in their death throes. It is more unnerving to step outside and see a just roasted pig on a spit leaning up against the kitchen door or to have a chicken with its throat cut trying to make its last getaway throw itself at my feet.

So the deified ancestors are coming and will be around to party for about three days. Three being an auspicious number for the Balinese, as it is for many Asians. I will probably borrow some temple dress from Kadek’s sister-in-law again. Although the last time I was tempted to stuff the top with toilet paper as my bust is a bit smaller than the average Balinese woman’s.

I also experienced the Balinese New Year. This Saturday is New Year’s Eve and Sunday welcomes the New Year 1923. Yesterday there was a procession from the family temple to the community temple and then finally to the beach (or lake in other parts of Bali) to cleanse in preparation for the New Year. I was in my traditional temple clothing, my handmade sarong from Kadek’s sister-in-law. Today people are generally getting the house ready and heading to their home villages if they have not already. Tomorrow there will be a festival of giant monster effigies called Ogoh-ogoh. They were built in competition between villages. They will be paraded through the streets and then burned. Then on Sunday people stay home to welcome the first day of the new year. Traditionally people do not eat, drink, work, smoke, or go outside the home compound, although generally the guidelines are not so strict anymore. Eating and drinking will be practiced in many homes and some people, probably me included, will sneak out for a little while just to see what it is like out on the streets with no one else about. Happy New Year 1923.

An amazing demonstration of a village-made Ogoh-ogoh

It was not all festivals and celebrations of life events. Many of the days there was little to do; it rained every single day in February. But I went on walks, several dolphin sighting trips with snorkeling, I learned to play pool pretty well as that was one of the few pastimes in the local bars and I memorized all the songs to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication because it was the primary soundtrack and go-to playlist for the bars and bands in the area.

Ultimately it did not work out between Kadek and I, though I am very grateful for the time I was able to spend with him and his family and the people I met in Lovina. However, it was time to stop putting off the final legs of my around the world journey.

August 12, 2015 by trs

I Love You Backpacking Long Time – Part Four Hungary to Bulgaria

Hungary got off to a rough start. I dislike arriving in a new country after dark. If I had stayed the night at the unfriendly hostel in Zagreb I would have arrived in Pecs early afternoon the next day. Instead I arrived at Pecs after 9 pm. The train station was a ghost town. No money changers or restaurants or anything at all was open. I had no idea the exchange rate or the direction to go for the hostel. I went to an ATM to withdrawal money. I went with 2000 forint and hoped that I was not withdrawing my life savings. Then I found a taxi.

I arrived after dark with no map of the city and no bearings. I had only the name of a hotel from my youth hostel guide. I probably could have walked – it would only have been about 30 minutes – but I did not know in what direction to go. So I took a taxi and was ripped off royally. The taxi ride, according to the hotel desk clerk, should have cost me only 600 forints, but the driver’s meter moved at a furious pace and it cost me 2000! I was so tired I just wanted to cry because it was all the money I had just taken out of the ATM and I was hungry but I had no money to buy food. The hotel was more expensive than I thought as there were no single rooms. However they were nice enough to let me pay the following day when I could get some money. The hotel was pretty nice and the staff was extremely kind.

The next day though I learned the exchange rate was quite in my favor making the 2000 forints only about US$7 and Pecs turned out to be a very pretty town. After two days I headed to Budapest.

A little Buda and a little Pest

I did not write much on Budapest. My time there was a lovely respite after the realities of the Balkans and the coming craziness of Romania. I took day trips to Szentendre and Eger, the latter where I had a glass of the famous local red wine with my Hungarian pizza lunch and then walked delightfully buzzed through the castle. (I rarely drink so one strong Hungarian red was quite the treat) I walked both hilly Buda and flat Pest, crossing the Danube multiple times. I soaked in the Turkish baths and sat languidly in parks overlooking the city. I even eschewed my usual alone time and hung out with several other backpackers from the hostel, most of whom were also taking breaks from the rigors of the road while in Budapest. I played billiards at the hostel and even made out with a fellow backpacker (ha! I bet you were beginning to think I was too prudish for such a thing.) Budapest seemed to be the place to let my hair down.

It was a good thing because Romania was about to test my traveler mettle.

Romania. So far it has been quite a test for me. I took an overnight train from Budapest. When I bought my ticket I picked up a handy flyer on how to stay safe on the train. One tip was not to sit in a train compartment alone. Unfortunately I was the only person in my compartment and there seemed only ten other people in the whole car. I thought other people might come in, but no one ever did. As a result I felt a bit uncomfortable sleeping. The pamphlet mentioned that many compartment doors, when closed, could not be opened from the outside. Not my compartment door. I had a bicycle chain with me to sometimes secure my backpack if I need to use the facilities. I could have chained it closed had there been anything to chain it to. So I made sandwiches I had made and packed and read a book.

I had fallen asleep when after 11 pm a conductor came to check my ticket. He informed me I was in the wrong car. I pointed to my ticket, which clearly showed car 454, the car I was in. He pulled out a book showing the train carriages—there were two cars with the same number! I was told to move to the next car because very soon the train would separate. At the station my passport was checked by border officials and I waited a while. I could feel the train being disconnected, but I was still alone in my compartment and unsure if I was in the right place. I went in search of someone to ask but there was no one else in my car or any of the other cars I checked! I looked outside of the train, in the pitch black of the Hungarian-Romanian border station, and saw no one. I began to panic. I was very tired. Finally, I saw a man with a flashlight and I asked him if I was on the train to Sighosoara. He said no and began to laugh. “Where?” I asked. He pointed off into the distance and with a sinking feeling I came to the conclusion I had been left behind. I lost my cool, kicked the train door, and could feel tears starting to form.

Sighisoara. It does not come off as the hometown of a blood-thirsty prince.

I gathered up my things and got off the train to look for someone. Picking my way along the train tracks in the dark I found some border officials who showed me my train – still there but on another track. Again, I was the only person in my compartment, but I spoke with the other six people in the car. Three were Romanians, one of which spoke English, the other three were Czech or Croatian, two of which spoke English. I tried to settle down to sleep, but this train was in much poorer condition than the Hungarian train. My previous compartment had been warm, the new was one was very cold. We stopped again at the Romanian side for some time for the border formalities.

I woke up around 6:10 am and began to prepare to disembark. The train was scheduled to arrive in Sighisoara at 6:35. The time came and went with no sign of my stop. I asked a woman in my car who told me we had passed the stop some time before. After a minute or two of despair, I decided to continue on to Brasov and just find a place to stay there. Luckily no train conductors came to check my ticket on the train or upon exiting the station in Brasov. I later learned that there had been a time change; Romania was one hour ahead. So when I woke at 6:10 it really had been 7:10.

The excitement of Romania did not end there. From Brasov I took a day trip to Sighisoara, the birth place of Vlad Tepes or Dracula. When I took a bus to the Brasov train station, I had a narrow escape from two overzealous ticket checkers.

I was pulled off the bus by two bus ticket collectors who demanded I show them my passport. I refused and they pulled out some licenses that appeared as if they had been made on a Fisher Price laminating machine and demanded my passport again. My offense was not validating the 20 cent bus ticket with a hole punch machine that looked more like a bottle opener. I refused again. I had after all bought a bus ticket and had given it to one of them. I refused again and tried to walk away. They grabbed my arms and I shook them off and yelled at them. They followed me five or ten minutes down the street threatening me with the police and fines of $1000, occasionally coming close and shoving me. I was nervous but grateful it was broad daylight and I tried my best to ignore them. Finally I turned around and poked my finger into the chest of one of the men, yelled for him to leave me alone, and then turned and bolted down the street, running as fast as I could toward the train station. They pursued for a block or two and then gave up. Whew. I figure they were probably not even legit bus people but had hoped I would be afraid enough to give them money or my passport, which they would then use to extort money for its return.

Despite the great bus ticket chase, I enjoyed my days in Brasov. I remember the amazing beauty of the old town; particularly people watching as I slowly dined in a sidewalk café on the town square. Day trips to the medieval town of Sighisoara and to Bran Castle, getting my Vlad Tepes fix, were in order. Sighisoara, with the exception of some modern conveniences, felt little changed since the days The Impaler took his baby steps in the town. I had lunch at Casa Dracul but kept to a light meal despite blood being on the menu. In keeping with apparent Romanian tradition to try to rip off foreigners the restaurant tried to pull a fast one by sneakily adding the “bread I didn’t order or eat” charge, but I was on to that one. At some ruins before Bran Castle, myself and two other backpackers were stalked by a ticket seller demanding a camera charge – for taking pictures of some low stone ruins on a hillside. I did not relent on that one either.

From Brasov I headed to Bucharest with a stop off to tour the more modern neo-Renaissance Peles Castle in Sinaia. I enjoyed the tour of the palace and the wooded walk back to the train station. A fellow US traveler joined me. He was heading north, while I south, but on the way to the train station he regaled me with a tale of his recent attack by dogs. I was fascinated, but would soon realize that his words were more than apocryphal.

I previously wrote about my own unfortunate incident with a dog attack in Bucharest and departure from Romania in my post A Blast from My Travel Past. It is unfortunate that my eight days in Romania are colored by so many attempts at minor extortion and bribery culminating in the dog attack. Even on departure day, an additional swindling attempt and a fake border official wrapped up my visit. I cannot say I was not glad to put Romania behind me.

The photo is a bit blurry but I liken it to “instagraming” instead because it gives Tsarevets Fortress in Veliko Tarnovo a soft dreamlike feel which it was after Romania.

I traveled five days in Bulgaria with an Aussie backpacker I met my last day in Bucharest, after returning from my dog confrontation. We stopped first at Veliko Tarnovo to visit the historic town and castle that served as Bulgaria’s medieval capital. Then we headed on to Sofia, the modern day capital. What I remember most about Sofia is unfortunately not any of the sites other than the gold-brick streets. I remember an old woman swathed in traditional garb and baggy stockings squatting right in the middle of the road to, uh, loosen her bowels. I remember contacting the US Embassy doctor to see about getting my rabies shots. He arranged to come to the hostel to give me the first shot (he called back later to suggest I wait until arrival in Macedonia as they had the international grade serum for the US troops stationed there, rather than the Bulgarian-made serum). I also remember meeting the US single mom traveling with her seven year old son; they were also staying in the hostel and interestingly enough I would meet them again, six months later, on the north shore of Bali. It’s funny what you remember.

On our last day the Aussie and I visited Rila Monastery. Then the following day we parted ways as I headed to Macedonia.

July 28, 2015 by trs

I Love You Backpacking Long Time – The Intro

I have got the travel bug.

I mean, I have had the travel bug for a long, long time, but it is starting to itch. Just a tad. Ok, more than a little. A LOT! I want a real, honest-to-goodness, vacation.

It is most likely a combination of waiting nine weeks after our arrival in China to take our first mini vacation and then the six-week waiting game for management to approve summer leave ahead of what was expected to be a historically busy visa season. Then after our wonderful but action-packed two week trip back to the US in May, it has been a waiting game again through the long, hot, busy Shanghai summer. At the same time it is because of this blog – going back to re-read my travel stories and journals – that I am also reflecting on past and future travels.

In July 2000 I finished my three years teaching English in Japan and set off on a solo 11 month backpacking trip. I purchased an around the world ticket from Washington, DC to Finland, from where I would make my way overland to Tunisia, where I picked up the ticket again to travel to Egypt, then India, then Southeast Asia, and finally back to the US.

It is not difficult to look back at that epic trip with something akin to a Pavlovian dog response – I am literally salivating as I think back to when I had some major time to really hit the road.

At the time I was planning the trip, I had thought long and hard how to spend the $10,000 I had saved from teaching in Japan. I had come to the conclusion that banks would loan me money for graduate school but no one was going to loan me money to backpack around the world. I could spend my hard earned savings seeing the world and still be able to go to graduate school. So I deferred my graduate school for a year, bought the round the world ticket for half the savings, and set about buying travel guides and preparing for the rigors of travel by roaming my little Japanese town with weights in my backpack.

I had no Kindle loaded up with reading material. I had no portable music. I certainly had no cell phone. Internet on the road was still fairly new with Internet cafes popping up in more and more places but in some costing quite the pretty penny (in Venice I recall it costing $25 an hour, which was more than I averaged in total spending per day for everything. I mean lodging, food, sightseeing, and toilet charges. One could not forget to budget for the public toilet).

That is not to say that my trip sans e-books and iPods and smart phones was any better than anyone else’s backpacking trip. Lord knows that those who hit the road 10 or 20 or more years before me had done with less than I had. Fewer guidebooks, fewer made-just-for-the-backpacker-bags, fewer hostels, fewer goodies from home in unexpected places. I read a post online the other day where someone outright dismissed the write-up of a young man just returned from his seven month backpacking journey. Geez, people, everyone deserves to travel the way they want and their journey is no less valid than yours. If they want to do it on an eight day, five country bus tour, then so be it. Just be glad that someone is out there seeing the world, stepping out of their comfort zone (and yes, a crazy guided bus tour with 20 other couples CAN be out of one’s comfort zone) and experiencing another country and culture.

[Stepping off soap box now]

Instead of an e-reader I lugged around five actual books in my pack and when possible I traded it for another book after I finished. It was in this way that I got a hold of my first Harry Potter book, from a British girl in a hostel in the Czech Republic. I also took the one and only English book from the hostel in Vilnius (a ridiculous romance novel that made a Harlequin seem like Shakespeare. However, the loss of a book, such as when I left behind a half finished book in my Tunis hotel, was felt keenly. (I still wonder how that book ended). I also carried around four blank journals, which I slowly filled over the course of my trip.

So I read and I wrote in my journal. I wrote a lot of postcards (do people still do that anymore?). I rode a lot of trains and buses and I looked out of a lot of train and bus windows at the scenery. I took a lot of lovely naps on long trips. I met a lot of people and saw some incredible places. I got sick. I got angry. I got tired. But mostly I was amazed. When I started I had no idea how long I would go. I thought perhaps five, maybe six months. I planned only in general. Itineraries changed. Destinations changed. I never made a hotel reservation. Sure, I still had limitations, but I was also quite incredibly free.
From my few emails along the way (saved by my aunt) and my journals, I have attempted to re-trace and share some of my journey. It has been fun and enlightening, and sometimes even cringe-worthy, to go through my journal entries. I find it odd what topics found their way into the journals and other things I still remember but neglected to write about.

My family and friends do not really know the story of this journey, only bits and pieces. It was an incredible journey that I would never ever give back. It shaped me. I learned my weaknesses and my strengths. It taught me what I could do on my own and further fueled my zest for travel.

I am not sure I will ever have another trip like this. First of all, it is a pain in the rear to explain to every security clearance investigator about this “gap” in my work and education timeline. The first investigator just could not grasp the concept at all. When I tried to explain that I did not recall the places where I stayed as I just turned up and found a place and moved on a day or two or three later. He told me he was going to write I was “in the woods” for five months in Europe, which I explained did not think would be helpful in my bid for a government job.

Second, I will also not again be my twenty-something self, with graduate school and an unknown career ahead of me. I will not be the person I was before I had my daughter. I do not want to be. Yet I am grateful now to be revisiting this part of me. I have absolutely never regretted spending my savings on this trip and borrowing for graduate school. I am fairly sure I would have been told it was a bad idea. Good thing I never asked anyone.

June 7, 2015 by trs

The 2015 USA Tour

Six cities, seven separate hotels/homes in four separate states, 11 flight legs covering over 20,000 miles equals just one vacation back to the U.S., Foreign Service style.

In my pre-FS, pre-mommy life my vacations generally entailed flying a long distance for 1-2 weeks, visiting multiple places, spending 1-2 days in each place. Case in point: my ten day May 2011 trip to France, just a month before I found out I was pregnant and six weeks before I joined the FS. I flew from Jakarta to Nice and visited Avignon, Nimes, Arles, St. Remy, Orange, Le Baux en Province, Uzes, Nice, Monaco, and Antibes. Now however, I spend more vacations back in the US visiting friends and family. The hardest part is deciding who and what to see in the US. On this trip, I embraced my former traveling self and tried to fit in as much as possible.

The first destination was Walt Disney World in Florida for our very first Disney experience together. On Saturday, May 16 we touched down in Orlando at 9 am after some 24 hours of travel time. I had nothing else planned for the day other than dinner with Cinderella. At 4:15 pm. That may seem a rather ridiculous time to have dinner, but faced with the choice of then or a 7:30 pm seating, I reasoned we would more likely be awake for the earlier. Still it was a struggle. At 3:45 pm in the lobby of the Grand Floridian resort outside the 1900 Park Fare dining room I had my doubts we would make it to dinner and I asked if we could get in on the first seating at 4 pm. The kindly let us do so which was a good thing as C valiantly stayed awake to greet Prince Charming, Cinderella, her stepmother and two stepsisters but then curled up in a ball and fell asleep in her chair.

We went immediately back to the hotel where I too fell asleep. We both woke up at 12:40 am. Wide awake and hungry but with everything closed at our hotel, I put C in the stroller and walked thirty minutes to a shopping center with a 24/7 McDonald’s. On Saturday Disney World closes at 2 am, so despite the hour we were not the only people up. There was regular traffic on the roads; we were passed by a jogger, other walkers, and a woman on roller blades.

We were at the park soon after the 9 am opening. I do not quite understand why the park opens so late. If it is open until midnight or 2 am for the night owls, then why not open for early risers or severely jet lagged at 6 am? I felt unexpectedly nervous about our first foray into Disney. All the park options, Fast Pass decisions, and such made my head spin. I expect Disney is overwhelming on any day, but through in some fresh-off-the-plane-from-Asia jet lag and it takes on a whole different dimension. The prospect of backpacking solo through the Amazon seemed less daunting than a day at Disney.

We made it to only three rides (the carousel, Winnie the Pooh, and Under the Sea) and two meet and greets with Ariel and Belle (where C was furious to be chosen as only a picture frame in the re-enactment story) before heading back to the hotel for lunch and a nap. I thought if we slept until 5 we could be on a 5:30 shuttle and be back in the park by 6 pm. Except the nap last 7 hours and we woke up at 9 pm instead. Oops.

Next we spent two and a half days relaxing at a Cocoa Beach condo with my long time friend CZ, her son, and another friend. We played napped, chatted, played in the pool or on the beach. CZ’s son turned one year old and we celebrated with cupcakes and NASA launched a rocket, which we could watch live from the condo balcony.

Next we flew on to Buffalo, NY. There I rented a car and drove to Rochester to stay with long time friend RH and attend the graduation ceremony of my Indonesian friend MF. After two days we headed back to Buffalo where C stayed overnight with her aunt and uncle and cousin so I could get a good night’s rest and spend early Sunday morning running through the streets in the Buffalo Half Marathon. The weather was perfect for a run, in the 60s with a light, cool breeze and I took the course slowly and enjoyed my toddler-free, no-visa-adjudication time immensely. We spent the rest of the day with C’s grandparents, who had driven up from Salamanca, and aunt, uncle, and cousin. On Monday, we had more family time at the Memorial Day fair on the Buffalo waterfront.

Our final destination was Lexington, KY. We spent a day exploring the city on our own with C and I making a pact – C enjoyed 2 ½ hours at the Children’s Museum and then fell asleep on cue as mommy started her one hour tour of the Mary Todd Lincoln house. I only had to carry her sleeping 32 ½ pound self through the whole house. We then spent the next two days with C’s dad.

All in all it was a wonderful trip back filled with friends and family. Icing on the cake was throwing in Disney World, a birthday celebration, a NASA rocket launch, a grad school graduation, a half marathon, history, and lots of Americana. Despite the jet lag, only days into the trip I knew it was completely worth it.

Some additional thoughts:

On traveling with my 3 year old toddler:

I think the biggest pain in the rear traveling solo with a toddler, a car seat, a stroller, two suitcases, a duffel bag and a toddler backpack is getting from curbside to check in or from the luggage carousel to curbside (or the rental car to the terminal or vice versa). I appreciate the airports having luggage carts available but not all that thrilled that they tend to have a $5.00 rental charge. In most cases one could receive 25 cents upon return of the cart (oooooh, how generous!), though how one is supposed to leave luggage and toddler to return said cart is a bit of a mystery. I spent approximately $50 total in luggage cart fees, often just so I could push my bundle of stuff between 50 and 200 feet.

The second hardest part was the number of times C asked to go home. To China. Every time we got on another flight she asked me if this one was the one to take us back to Shanghai. This means that 1. She is comfortable in our home and life in Shanghai, which is fantastic, but also 2. I made the right decision to decide to cut back on travel during our tour here (though I had hoped I might be wrong).

On my brief taste of US freedom:

The first thing I did upon landing in the US was turn on my iPhone (not used in China) and update my Facebook status. I could do it RIGHT THEN. Oh, the freedom! No waiting for the lengthy lag to get my computer started (which slowed after our arrival in China) and then log on to the VPN. Just doing that made me realize the accommodations I have made to enjoy our life in Shanghai. We DO have a nice quality of life in Shanghai. But it was great to use my iPhone and Facebook. It was great to not think about checking the air quality monitor. It was also really great not having everyone around us taking photos of us (ok, my toddler, no one cares to take pictures of me anymore) discreetly or otherwise.

We are glad to be home. Now only the four months during the busy, sultry, Shanghai summer stand between us and our next big vacation.

April 5, 2015 by trs

Hanging in Hangzhou

“Above there is Heaven, below there is Suzhou and Hangzhou” ~ really old Chinese saying

Well, I wouldn’t go THAT far, but it turned out better than expected given the weather.

Murphy’s Law: The day before, even the day of, our departure to Hangzhou was lovely. Then once we were on our way it wasn’t. Our first trip outside of Shanghai since we arrived 9 weeks ago and the weather was terrible. I cannot be exactly sure, but it may have begun to rain the minute our high-speed train departed Hongqiao Station.

And it kept raining.

Through the train journey. Through the ride in the taxi to our Hangzhou hotel. Through the night. And through our first day.

I had wanted for years to visit Hangzhou and had certainly been looking forward to this trip (almost desperately) for weeks and now…

Queen Elsa and Princess Elsa seem as disappointed as I contemplating the poor weather.

We had breakfast in our room and I poured over the Hangzhou tourist brochure looking for something, almost anything, that we could do on a rainy day. But even the tea museum had an outdoor component. So I gave in.

I decided our first day would just be a relaxing day at the hotel. Just C and I. And I looked at the bright side.

I managed our first trip in China. Getting C and I to the train station on the metro and then to Hangzhou with the two of us sharing a single seat on the one hour journey. I managed, with the help of my little spitfire, to get us from the Hangzhou train station to our hotel. Surrounded by taxi touts refusing en masse to use their meters and tossing out crazy, inflated numbers. As I walked away and they followed, C yelled at them “Leave my mommy alone. BU KEYI!” Yes, in Chinese she told them to basically buzz off. (Well, she said “Cannot!” but I know what she meant.”) I negotiated from 80 RMB ($12.80) to 50 RMB ($8). (Though of course, as I learned later, the real meter cost is 12 RMB or $1.92).

We had a lovely lunch at the hotel and then we went to get a foot massage. Or rather I did while C enjoyed the adjacent chair – in our private room! – with her iPad and then fell asleep for her nap. This is the first massage I have had since a post-partum one within a month of C’s birth. I also read a book. Gasp!

We enjoyed an hour swim together in the hotel pool and then dinner. The hotel had a Tex-Mex promotion and did not do half bad. Sure, I had never before had Mexican Lasagna, but it was very tasty.

When I threw open the curtains on day two to find another overcast, grey day however, I felt a bit defeated. I debated just cutting our loses and heading back to Shanghai whether I received a refund on the third night at the hotel or not. I did not know however if I could get a ticket back on the train. It was a holiday weekend after all. And then, through the clouds, I saw a little glint of sunlight hit a nearby building. So I threw some clothes on C and myself and we headed out.

I thought I would first thing get a taxi to Hangzhou’s famed West Lake. But down in the lobby I thought to the glimpse of greenery, a park perhaps?, I had seen across the street with what looked like a traditional Chinese bridge. We would head there first to see and then back to the hotel for a taxi.

We did find not only a park but a canal filled with upgraded traditional dugout canal boats. In a little exercise park by the canal, friendly grandmas and grandpas getting in some workouts and moms and their kids out for a stroll, came over to check us out and chat us up. They were curious and sweet, testing my Chinese and practicing their English. One woman told us rather than head back to our hotel, why didn’t we head to the little canal boat dock on the other side of the bridge, and head down river a ways?

So we checked out the bridge, where we again became the subject of much kind interest and then over to the boat dock. Turns out the boats are canal taxis. They are fitted with mechanical transport card readers. I did not have a card of course and asked how much. I did not get far as a kind older woman motioned to me and C as she scanned her card three times. It was on the house. (I think it cost 3 RMB, or 48 cents, for a ride)

What a fantastic little trip! We meandered along the canal (or a river with incredibly tamed banks) for at least half an hour. I honestly lost track of time. Our canal trip benefactor took the opportunity to snap some pictures of C enjoying the boat (as did I) and since she had been so nice we both acquiesced to a photo with C on her lap and giving her a hug (because no one gets a photo like this unless C agrees). The canal was lined on both sides with a tree lined walking paths and periodically with covered Chinese gazebos where old people rested and watched the water, did exercise or played Chinese musical instruments. People walked their dogs. Moms and dads walked with their babies and children. The low clouds created a mist that only made it more inviting.

Just some of the beautiful scenes along the boat trip.

We were let off at the terminus where pretty little white houses with grey roofs and red lanterns lined the canal. We walked back a little along the canal path, underneath willows and plum trees in bloom. C ran and laughed. Geez, it was lovely.

Then we made our way on foot several blocks to West Lake. We stopped for lunch and unfortunately the skies opened up and buckets fell. Thankfully it started after we entered the restaurant and by lingering a bit longer it ended before we left. A few blocks more and we found the lake.

The weather was still overcast. Clouds hung low and the opposite bank, even boats on the water, could barely be seen through the mist. Still it was beautiful and, judging by the crowds, we were not the only ones longing for a stroll by the lake.

We walked for hours. C alternated between the stroller and running excitedly ahead. When it drizzled, we found refuge under the trees or in one of the lakeside gazebos or even once in a temple. King Qian’s Temple was a wonderful respite from the buzz of the Chinese crowds. It cost 15 RMB to get in and I was a bit hesitant at first, but I am so glad we took the time to visit. Just off the main path around the lake it was as if we were suddenly transported a long way away. The crowds were gone, only a handful of other people were inside, and it was so incredibly quiet.

Enjoying the tranquility of King Qian’s temple.

I did not make it all the way around the lake. I had no such anticipation when I started as it is expected to take approximately FIVE HOURS to do so. Yet I did not even make it to Leifeng Pagoda. C conked out in her stroller and I too became tired. So I made the decision to head back to the hotel but told myself that Hangzhou is worth another trip, soon.

About as close to the Leifeng Pagoda as we got. Not a bad view, despite the clouds.

I think C enjoyed the trip. The one part though that seemed to disappoint her is that we never did find “Joe.” Seems every time I mentioned going to “Hangzhou” she heard something about “Joe” (zhou in Chinese is pronounced quite similar to the name Joe). Even just now as I write this, while looking over the pictures of our trip, she said, “Next time let’s visit Joe.”

So there is likely to be a next time.

February 20, 2015 by trs

Christmas in Bangladesh, December 1998

As part of my blog I am adding edited excerpts of stories I wrote on/of past travels.

This trip occurred several months before I started my first Internet account, so few if any of even my friends and family know of this story. I wrote part of this story on a few pieces of paper, which I happened to come across while unpacking my belongings in Shanghai! I will supplement with bits from my most-likely-faulty memories.

Last winter vacation I had planned to meet a friend of mine for a week in Thailand. This arrangement left me a week on my own before meeting her. I considered my options. I considered them a long time. By the time I called a travel agent my options were limited. “Where do you want to go?” the agent asked me (after informing me that many places no longer had flights available). “I don’t know. Anywhere. Bangladesh?”

She heard “Bangladesh” and phoned me a week later to confirm she had reserved my ticket. It hit me. I am going to Bangladesh. What in the world am I going to do there?
My destination of “choice” was met by mixed reactions with those I shared the news. My supervisor laughed and asked “Why do you always go to dirty places?” The Vice Principal laughed and waited for the punch line. Another teacher nervously told me I just should not go. Another asked if it were too late for me to cancel? The more people appeared to try to dissuade me to go, the more determined I became to have myself a fantastic time . Doing what, I was not sure, but I was going to have a grand time doing it in Bangladesh!

The first time through the Lonely Planet guidebook still left me wondering. It was a slim volume and easily half of it seemed to be taken up by the “Dangers and Annoyances” chapter. The things that stuck most in my mind were the deadly floods, cyclones, tigers, snakes, crocodiles and diseases. The second time through though I realized one week was not nearly enough time to scratch the surface of the country.

Bangladesh is hardly a tourist destination. The country has roughly the amount of tourists in a year that Thailand receives in an average week. The former tourism slogan was “See Bangladesh before the Tourists Do.” The country is one-fifth the size of Japan with approximately the same population. It has the highest population density of any country, with the exception of a few small city states. (and remains so today). Crisscrossing the country are three major rivers, the Padma (Ganges), the Jamuna, and the Meghna, which divide the country into four parts. Every year the heavy rains and the melting snow from the Himalayas inundate the rivers until they overflow their banks, making many places resemble a messy Asian Venice.

The country however also boasts the longest beach in the world, “shark-free” to boot (how they manage to keep the sharks away, I am not sure); and about two-thirds of the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world and home to the last Royal Bengal Tigers, is located in Bangladesh. There are cooler hill areas dotted with tea plantations, the most famous being in Syllet. Around the country there are numerous sites of Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist ruins as well as the crumbling rajbaris, the elegant homes of former British rulers.

Bangladesh has a lot to offer. Unfortunately, I barely made it out of Dhaka. Having flown a very early morning flight out of Osaka, with a five hour layover in Bangkok, I did not arrive bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as originally intended. My first good view of Bangladesh was Zia International Airport, all four gates, with a fifth a crumbling mess of concrete and steel. I could not tell if it was being knocked down or put up. Then I was robbed at immigration when informed my visa would cost US$45 instead of the US$21 I had expected. (The Chinese tourists in front of me paid US$10 each).

I dislike arriving in a new country late in the afternoon. The crush of people waiting outside the arrivals area was both exciting and intimidating. The taxi driver insisted I could not stay in a hostel in Dhaka, they are only for men. I had read much the same, and at dusk I am too tired to argue. He insists he will take me to a nice place. His brother’s place. Or the place owned by a friend of his brother. Or just a place of a guy he knows he calls his “brother.” I am not sure. I give in. He drives me to the nicer part of town, to a multi-story home converted to a guesthouse, gated and with an armed guard. Maybe this is better than a hostel… It is nice to have my own room and even a television to watch all the best Bengali programming.

Welcome to Dhaka indeed. Almost makes you want to just stay in the airport.

Much of the rest of my trip I remember in bits and pieces.

What I remember most is it was Ramadan. At least in December the days were mild and the evenings cool. Yet in a country with such a high poverty rate, it felt particularly brutal to have no food or drink all day. I was not fasting of course, but I felt very subconscious when eating. I went to a local fast food chain called Wimpy for lunch and I was the only person in the restaurant. I felt strange even ordering given the staff were likely fasting as well.

One evening I shared the breaking of fast meal with the owners of the guesthouse. I saw a main part of the meal included puffed rice, like Rice Krispies. So another evening I waited around the market until it was dusk, the time to break fast, and bought a large bag (a several gallon sized bag) of puffed rice to give to a group of hungry kids. I thought it would be a nice gesture, but it turned into a feeding frenzy with children and adults grabbing the bag and pulling until it burst and much of the rice fell on the ground. Still, people were scooping it up off the dirt road. Instead of feeling good, I felt horrible. One small, hopeful boy followed me all the way back to the guesthouse, where I gave him some coins for his trouble. My heart hurt.

One day I decided to try to have lunch at the American Club so I would not be sitting alone in an empty restaurant feeling shameful. I had a bicycle rickshaw drop me off at the gate. I recall it being blue, but cannot be sure. There was a small sliding opening in the solid gate, which made me think of the main gate to the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz. I must have knocked or rung a doorbell as a woman came to open the slit and asked me what I wanted. “I just want to have lunch”. Much to my surprise I was told no. I said, “But I’m an American,” and showed her my passport. The woman told me, “I can bring you a menu and you can order off of it and take it to eat elsewhere, but you cannot eat here.” So much for my first experience at the American Club. I will never forget being turned away.

Another day, returning from a tour along a busy, dusty road into Dhaka, I noted at a stop that there were no sellers in the road. At first I thought this so strange. Every other developing country I had been had roadside sellers who wander through traffic selling gum, snacks, water, single cigarettes, and the like. Then I remembered it was Ramadan. It was then that I could swear I saw the dead body of a woman lying by the side of the road, her bright sari wrapped around her very thin body. People walked around her as if she were not there. We drove on.

I recall I wanted to get out and see a market to buy something “Bangladeshi.” The guesthouse owner flagged down and spoke firmly with a passing auto-rickshaw driver. The owner assured me this driver knew where we were going. About 30 minutes later, it was clear to me that the driver had NO IDEA where we were going. He had driven onto a very narrow road, which barely fit two auto rickshaws side by side. He could speak no English and I no Bengali. I hopelessly blah-blah-blahed the name of the market to to him as he stared at me blankly. Suddenly, a young man approached us, a university student, who spoke English. He spoke with both of us and we were soon on our way to the market. Once there the driver apparently wanted more money than had been initially agreed upon at the guesthouse (where the owner had counseled me to pay a certain amount and NO MORE). I tried to give him the agreed upon price and he refused. He shouted and gestured at me. I blah-blah-blahed back. I put the money on the driver’s seat as he would not take it from my hands. He kept yelling at me as I started to back away. A group of five girls swept up to the vehicle, chattering in broken English, “Miss, Miss, you shopping?” and whisked me away with them. The market was a wash as there were no Bangladeshi handicrafts to speak of and the stall the girls took me to was full of t-shirts sporting Titanic and Michael Jordan themes. But I remember the girls.

My rescuers at the market.

In Dhaka I visited a beautiful old mosque surrounded by a large bathing pool. The only visitors to this mosque, besides me, were men. Walking down the street to the mosque I was surrounded by a shuffling circle of men. They kept a respectful distance from me; the circle started three to four feet out from me, but moved as I moved. I also visited Ahsan Manzil, a former palace and now the National Museum. Though I do remember there were informative English displays inside, it was sitting out on the grass by the banks of the river and chatting with a local family that really sticks in my mind. At the beautiful Lalbagh fort, which made me think of the Taj Mahal (before I visited the real thing), I remember the incredibly beautiful saris of the strolling women and being stalked by a University student “practicing English,” who insisted that at my age I should be married and that he just might be the right guy for me. I searched everywhere for what I think was the Baldha Garden, listed in my guide as a beautiful, hidden must see gem. After probably an hour with an auto rickshaw, and about to give up, I finally located it, only to be rather disappointed. The buildings around the park had built up roughshod above the walls, with laundry and other detritus of life hanging unsightly through the trees. A film of dust lay on all the plants, muting the green. Young Bangladeshi couples giggled amongst the foliage and a mongoose scampered along the path. The mongoose though was worth the trip.

Cleansing outside a beautiful mosque somewhere in Dhaka.

Lalbagh Fort, where I met the love of my life (only I didn’t know it)

To get outside of Dhaka I found a travel group to take me on three trips: Sonargaon, the medieval capital of Eastern Bengal, a tour upriver to see jute production and a former Zamindar’s palace now a university, and also a half day river cruise on the Padma.
Though the buildings of Sonargaon were crumbling, which did make me feel melancholy because such a cultural and historic place should be preserved and cherished, I remember the colors so vibrantly and how good it felt to get out of the capital. The university at Murapara did not much impress me, though I liked the goats I found wandering across the campus. Far more interesting was the tour of the jute mill. Bangladesh is the world’s second largest producer of jute, a vegetable fiber, which, like cotton and hemp, can be spun and woven, and in the 19th century, many British made their fortunes as jute barons in Bengal. On the Padma river cruise I remember most that my travel companions were a Foreign Service family, husband, wife, and young son and that we did get to see two of the Gangetic pink river dolphins.

A stroll in Sonargaon

Bangladesh was an unexpected vacation, yet it lingers in my mind as one that delivered more than anticipated. There were some clear hardships for most of the local people that were impossible to ignore and which made my heart ache, and yet the vast majority of the people I came across greeted me with kindness and brilliant smiles. I would like to visit again and see more of the country.

February 9, 2015 by trs

The Diplo-Cats Journey to China

Kucing and Tikus (“Cat” and “Mouse” in Indonesian), my two cats, have at last joined us at our apartment in Shanghai. They are diplo-pets, about to start life in their fourth country of residence.

Getting them here to China has been a bit challenging, a story of logistics and miscommunication, incarceration in the quarantine facility and finally freedom.
It is never really easy to uproot yourself again and again and it is not any easier to do this with pets, but this trip really about did me in.

Indonesia to the U.S. was the cats’ first international trip. It was no cake walk, but once I found the pet shipper (the fantastically named Groovy Pets) and paid them a load of money, it did not turn out to be so bad. I had to fly over the Pacific using United Airlines, per the Fly America Act, but there was something tricky about them joining me, so I booked them on KLM cargo. They also flew out a few days before I did so as to arrive on a Thursday afternoon when quarantine facilities at Dulles Airport would be open. My aunt picked them up at the airport and they seemed in very good spirits, the KLM cargo person cooing at them affectionately. They also had a layover in Amsterdam, so I expect their flight was a sight better than mine.

It cost $400 for the two of them to fly cargo and another $800 in charges to Groovy Pets. When I asked for an itemization of this fee I initially received pushback. But after I pointed out a taxi to the airport and departure fees could hardly cost so much I was informed that some of this would amount to “gifts” to various officials. Oh, I said, you mean bribes. The woman pursed her lips and responded evenly, we prefer to call them gifts. I let it go.

To and from Mexico proved to be an even easier proposition. K and T only needed updated rabies vaccinations. I had all the documentation on the seat next to me in case Mexican immigration authorities stopped us, but no one did. Returning to the US we also encountered no problems.

China however has strict pet importation regulations and a “one pet per passport holder” policy. (Sounds reminiscent of the One Child Policy, right?). Pet import rules also vary by city, and unfortunately Shanghai’s is a littler stricter than some others, including a minimum one week quarantine at a Chinese facility at $320 per pet.

I did not like it, but I was prepared to do it.

Three weeks from departure I sent an email to the Consulate to check again on the requirements and that is when I learned – oops, sorry, it turns out it is one pet per ADULT passport holder. Basically I was being told that I would have to leave one of my cats behind. I could not believe it. I replied asking if there were anything that could be done. The reply was, no, our hands are tied.

I freaked out.

My sister could not take one of my cats as she is highly allergic. My parents could not for the same reasons. My aunt could not, although she loves cats to pieces, because she said she would have to choose between my cat and my uncle. (My uncle is quite the catch, so I understand her choice)

I put up a status on my Facebook and a Facebook group I belong to and I had some pretty great responses – from people (complete strangers) willing to watch my cat for a few months until I returned in May on vacation (with a plan to try to import the second at another time) to several friends offering to foster my cat for the entire two years if necessary. I was heartbroken and yet really, really touched.

The next day however I had another email from the Consulate informing me that one of the locally employed staff (a Chinese employee of the Consulate) had taken it upon themselves to call the section chief of the Pudong International Airport Quarantine Office, and according to him, the section chief, it would be no problem to bring in a one pet on a minor’s passport. However, the Consulate contact informed me, this was no guarantee. I emailed back: I am bringing both cats.

Not that the idea the information could be wrong did not worry me. It sure did. But I had a lot on my plate right then – from my Chinese test to packing out to my mom’s health – so I decided to take a leap of faith and hope it all worked out.

I booked both cats as in-cabin pets on United (the primary reason I chose to take United Airlines vice the contract carrier American is due to United’s more pet friendly policies). This was far less expensive than flying the cats as checked luggage or cargo.

Less than a week before departure I took both cats to the vet. It is a requirement for most places that rabies shots are no more than one year from importation and no less than 30 days (I had taken care of that the month before). Another requirement is that a vet must issue an international health certification no more than 10 days before importation. That certificate must then be endorsed by a USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) veterinarian. The closest USDA-APHIS Service Center to Washington, DC is in Richmond, Virginia.

Yeah, that is the closest. Because that makes sense, right?
(There are no offices in DC, MD, or DE)

Instead of chancing a round-trip FedEx, waiting and hoping it would arrive back before the flight, I decided to make the four hour round trip to have it signed. It literally took five minutes. I mean I put my car into 30 minute parking across the street, waiting impatiently in the security line to get into the building, hoofed it up to the 7th floor, had it signed, and returned to my car with minutes to spare. A crazy trip, but I had APHIS Form 7100 signed.
Then there was the flight – just myself, three year old C, my wheeled carry on, a large handbag, C’s backpack, an umbrella stroller, and two cat carriers. My cats are no lightweights either. Tikus is 10 pounds and Kucing a pudgy 14. (Diet commences for them now)

I am lucky my sister works for TSA since I had to travel without my mother unexpectedly. I did not know how I would carry two cats through security – since you need to take each cat out of their carrier, put the carrier through the x-ray machine and then carry the animal through. I called the Dulles Airport customer service line to see if any of the volunteers could help me – but while they could help me get to security, they could not help me through. My sister however, with her super TSA badge, could.

On the plane I tried not to concern myself with what may or may not happen upon landing. My immediate concerns were making sure they were comfortable and did not meow the entire flight and how in the world I would get them from the plane to quarantine after picking up our four suitcases at baggage claim.

The plane landed at a gate located approximately 10 miles from baggage claim. OK, that may not be true, but when you are jet lagged and herding a jet lagged toddler and all the crap I listed above, then it does not take much to feel far. I would like to thank all the people who offered us no assistance. Because that would be everybody. I get it, no one made me bring all that stuff, you have your own place to be, still… But despite jet lag C was a trooper and she walked the whole distance. And although it was not 10 miles, it could easily have been one or more. Thankfully about half way there were some small luggage carts, which did help things along, until we arrived at the elevators.

Carts could not be taken down the elevators to the immigration hall. At that floor there was a crush of people exiting from all planes to enter a single gate funneling us to multiple immigration lines. This was bordering on “every woman for herself” territory. There was not deliberate pushing or shoving but it was such a steady mass of people that for the first time I felt concerned I would lose C in the crowd. Again, no one helped. They stared, but did not help.

But we made it to the baggage carousel and it was deserted. We were (not surprisingly) the last from our flight to pick up our suitcases. I began to have visions of myself walking right out of the airport past quarantine without having to stop. I had heard others had managed to do this – simply walk out with their dog or cat without anyone being the wiser. The cats were quiet – they had apparently accepted their fate – and the pet carriers just looked like luggage…

But I saw the luggage carts. They were tiny. There was no way for me to get our four large suitcases, my carry on, and the two cats on one and how was I to push two carts and keep track of C?

This is when Quarantine Lady showed up. I knew she was quarantine lady because she wore a white lab coat. And she asked if I had some pets. Foiled!

But Quarantine Lady was super helpful, pushing my second luggage cart, not only to the quarantine office but also then out to the arrivals area where thankfully my sponsor was waiting. (Quarantine Lady also spotted my name first on my sponsor’s card.) She spoke English and she and her staff seemed very professional, which did put my mind at ease some. The only issue related to C being a minor is that the quarantine officials gently insisted she sign her own form, so I put her on my lap, the pen in her hand, and guided her to write her name. Done.

C took our leaving the cats much better than I expected (no tears, no questioning my assertion that they were going to see the cat doctor) and, I think, better than I did. Leaving the office without the cats made me anxious.

For the first few days I did not worry; I had enough else on my mind getting over jet lag, stocking the fridge, and hiring a nanny. But by the fourth evening I woke in the middle of the night from a nightmare involving the cats and quarantine.

A week after we handed Kucing and Tikus over to the quarantine officials at Pudong Airport (almost to the hour) I find myself standing outside the main building of the Shanghai Animal and Plant Quarantine Station. I was not allowed to see where the cats were kept, but instead was directed to the main building where I presented our passports and paperwork, then signed a paper. The woman then made a phone call.

We stood together on the road leading into the facility. The pollution levels are very high and the haze thick, limiting visibility. Out of the haze a man approaches, slowly riding a bicycle with a two wheeled metal trailer. I can just make out in the bed of the trailer the tops of the cat cages and hear some soft meowing. The man stops in front of me and the woman directs me, in English, to check these are my cats and they are ok. I feel a giddy nervousness overcome me and I look into each carrier.

$266 vet examination and rabies shots
$248 vet examination and International Health certificates
$76 USDA-APHIS form 7100 endorsement
$250 for United in-cabin pet fees ($125 per pet)
$640 for mandatory 1 week Shanghai quarantine ($320 or 2000 RMB per pet)
$28 taxi ride to and from the quarantine facility

My diplo-cats back with me = Priceless.

February 1, 2015 by trs

Not the Beginning I Expected

We have arrived in Shanghai. Well, C, the two cats and myself are here. My mom did not make it. The Friday afternoon before our departure, my mom headed to the emergency room with terrible abdominal pain. Though discharged some five hours later, the question of whether or not she would be able to fly with us on Tuesday was up in the air.

I am not going to go into my mom’s condition here, but suffice to say that it is uncomfortable though not life threatening. By Monday afternoon her doctor had determined that surgery would be necessary but that the surgery could not take place until her acute bronchitis and fever were brought under control. (I know, bronchitis! We did not know she had bronchitis)

Obviously this meant she would not be flying with me the following morning. This also meant that our travel to and arrival in China was going to be a very different scenario than I had planned.

I had already been emailing contacts at the Consulate over the weekend to apprise them of the situation and the possibility my mom would not be joining us, i.e. my child care situation had become a bit more urgent. Child care had already been on my mind even with my mom joining us. It cannot be otherwise when you are a single parent. With our arrival timed three weeks before the Chinese New Year when many (most?) workers depart the city to visit family, interviewing and hiring a nanny in that time frame already presented some challenges. Now I would have days and not weeks to find someone.

I notified the Consulate I would need to take at least Thursday and Friday off in order to find child care. A friend already in Shanghai messaged me to let me know, if needed, she could pitch in to help. An A-100 colleague offered to see if her nanny would be willing to watch my C for a week or two until I found someone and my social sponsor and his wife sprang to action, contacting all they knew for nanny recommendations.

Meanwhile, my most immediate issue was getting myself, C, the cats, and our luggage from our hotel to the airport, then from the car to the check in counter, and then through security to the plane. I thought I would just take the hotel airport shuttle except unfortunately it did not start service until 6:30 am; my plan was to depart at 5:15 am. Departure was further complicated by the impending snow storm expected to hit the northeast. Although the snow was not supposed to be too bad in the Mid-Atlantic, there could be no guarantee that flights would not be disrupted.

At 4:10 I woke up and began to drag the suitcases from the room, through the snow, to the car. Then I cleared off the car. My brother drove my father over at 5:15 am and we headed to the airport. My sister, who just so happens to be a TSA agent at Dulles, met us at the curb with two luggage carts and whisked the cats and some luggage inside while I took care of C and the rest of the luggage. As my sister has airport privileges, she accompanied us through security to the gate. There she had to leave us and I had to struggle to get us all onto the plane (C refused to even carry her little backpack), but we made it. A family effort.
The next challenge met us in Chicago where we had to transfer to our second flight. Originally our incoming flight was scheduled to park at C18 and our outbound flight took off at C19. Imagine how deflated I felt as we pulled into C28 instead…

But I managed. Sure, I got a lot of looks, some sympathetic, some “I’m so glad I am not you,” some “I don’t want to be anywhere near the disaster that must be your life;” the last to which I wanted to scream “I am a U.S. diplomat you fool!” Though that response would be neither diplomatic nor shed a particularly awesome light on the Foreign Service and so I, in actually an incredibly diplomatic manner, chose to let those people believe what they would and carry on. You know, as best one could carry on with a cat carrier slung on each shoulder (cats mewing away), pushing a lime green suitcase (thank goodness I got the four wheel smooth rolling kind) with a large shoulder bag and a child’s elephant backpack looped over the handles, an umbrella stroller hung on one arm, and barking orders at a small child to “stay near mommy.” The picture of the consummate traveler I am sure.

Once I finally got us onto our seats on the mercifully half empty plane I felt so much better. That was until C asked me “Mommy, where are the TVs?” Oh dear no! United, why oh why would you put people in the year 2015 on a 14 ½ hour flight on a plane with no in-seat televisions or power outlets? I had a toddler, an iPad with a limited battery, crayons and a coloring book, and a new set of toys. Also, two cats mewing underneath the seats in front of us…

So I sat back to enjoy the next 14+ hours before we landed in Shanghai and the craziness would begin once again.

C and the cats did pretty well on the flight. I did alright too. With only three hours of sleep on the flight (and only three and a half hours the night before the flight) I managed to once again get all of us and our stuff off the plane, through immigration and to the baggage claim. I must have been in an extremely good mood because after fighting our way through a massive bottleneck to get to the immigration lines and then waiting for 20 minutes in line, I took the immigration officer’s suggestion to use the diplomatic passport line next time quite well. I just smiled and shrugged and said ok. I could have broken down into wails of frustration.

At baggage I stared in dismay at the tiny luggage carts and the four checked bags circling the conveyer belt. There was no way. Then the quarantine lady showed up and she helped me to collect, load, and push the luggage over to the quarantine officer where we registered the cats and paid the fee ($320 per cat, ouch). C insisted on opening one of the cages and petting the cat saying “easy, easy boy” which is clearly from an episode of one of her DVDs. Quarantine lady then also helped us to push the other cart back through customs and to arrival where thankfully my social sponsor was waiting.

The next day, thanks to my sponsor’s wife, I had my first interview with a potential nanny and the following day my second interview. I hired the second nanny to start tomorrow, Monday. Whew. That is not how I wanted to go about it but it is what it is.

So though I did not head into work the day after arrival as I had originally expected (and yeah, despite the 13 hour time difference and the some 22 hours of door to door travel time I had thought I would do that), I still sort of hit the ground running. Registration at the apartment complex. Check. Internet up and VPN working. Check. Nanny hired. Check. Signed up for gym membership. Check. Extra furniture removed from apartment. Three visits to the supermarket. Trip to IKEA. C signed up for Shanghai Centre Kid’s Club. Visit to nearby Jing’an Temple. Welcome lunch with friends. Blog post. Check, check, check….

Not bad for a jet lagged single mom with an arrival in China that had not gone according to plan.

Tomorrow is my first day of work.

January 23, 2015 by trs

Shanghai Bound

So the big news is I passed my Mandarin Chinese test. Yes indeed, I am finished with my language training (this go ‘round anyway). Having been tested in the final demonstration of linguistic acrobatics under pressure I came out on top. Hooray!

I think a few days before I knew it was going to happen because I stopped sitting up at night wondering if I would pass the test or not, but rather I lay awake wondering how I was going to get all the other stuff done for departure after I passed the test.

C’s third birthday was the day after my test. I had no presents for her as I did not want to give her a something new and then pack it up to send to Shanghai just a few days later. I actually held back two of the Christmas presents I bought her since she received so many other great gifts from family. It was going to be hard enough to pack those. Instead we met my sister, brother-in-law, and C’s two cousins at a restaurant and I brought two balloons (one Frozen, one My Little Pony) and some Frozen Anna and Elsa cupcakes. Though I had felt a bit bad about not giving her more of a party, she seemed happy with the day.

The next two days I did last minute shopping and prepping for the arrival of the movers.
I have been trying to prep C for our move to China. I bought her the DVD Ni Hao, Kai Lan Goes to China and for the past several weeks she has watched it as I explain that we are moving to China. Recently she has come to saying, “I want to go to China. I want to eat noodles,” as the characters in the show try some Chinese noodles.

I read up on preparing toddlers for a move. Some of the tips just did not seem to apply to our situation, such as trying to visit the new place before the move or having the child say goodbye to each of the rooms in the house or special places that have come to mean something to her. I used the second bedroom as a staging area for the items I bought to take to China; I doubt it holds much significance to her.

At Target I bought some plastic bins with lids and encouraged C to pack up her own toys. She got rather into it, packing up all her Fisher Price Little People quickly, pushing on the lid and announcing “Mommy, I did it! My toys are ready for China!”

On Tuesday, I dropped C off for her next to last day at Kindercare so that I could deal with the movers, particularly the packing of her toys, without her presence. She is a very different kid from the one who missed out on the packing back in June. Now, if I pick up her Queen Elsa doll to just move it she gets excited “Hey mommy, that’s my doll! What are you doing?!” I could vividly imagine the turmoil that would ensure if she were present for the packing.

The movers arrived at 11:30 and departed around 2:30. Though one of my shortest pack-outs, I still felt quite tired after the movers left. I took two hours to myself and then I went to pick up C.

As soon as she walked into the apartment she said “Oh, mommy! Where are my toys???” She ran from room to room, which in a three room apartment does not take long. I told her that the toys went to China. C did not seem thrilled her toys were gone, but she then asked me to watch the Kai Lan video. All seemed ok.

Except over the course of the next few hours and days she would ask me for certain toys.

“Mommy, where is my wagon?”
“Honey, it is on its way to China.”
“What? I don’t want my wagon to go to China!”

“Oh no! Mommy, where is baby Elsa?” (her Christmas gift from her paternal grandparents)
“Well, Elsa is going to China. The movers packed her. Remember?”
“Nooooooo! Mommy, no! Not baby Elsa. I don’t want her go to China! No!”

“Hey! Where is my Frozen book? I want my Frozen book.”
“C, your Frozen book is going to China. “
“No, mommy, no! That is not nice. I want Frozen book right now.”

C has also started whimpering, asking to be held more and sometimes at night she cries “I want to go home!” even though we are already in the apartment. Though as of today it is “home” for only four more days. This is turning out harder than I thought. I worry about her asking to go home once we are in Shanghai and though I have talked with her about our new home, she will rebel. I have heard that we should receive the unaccompanied baggage air shipment within a week or two, so being reunited with her toys should help. I hope.

Wednesday was a flurry of appointments. In the morning I took the cats to the vet so they could be checked out and there international health certificates would be issued. These need to be completed no more than 10 days before arrival in China. I brought C with me thinking she might find it interesting, especially as she had received a vet set for Christmas. I was wrong. So very wrong. She yelled at the vet “Hey, what are you doing to my cat? Stop it! Share my cat, SHARE MY CAT!” (I think sharing was the best thing she could come up with). That was a long 90 minutes.

Then we headed off to the Foreign Service Institute so I could do some final check out procedures and say farewell. C then had her third birthday wellness check-up with her “regular” doctor (as regular as you can get in this life) in Arlington.

Thursday. C’s last day at the Kindercare so that I could make the two hour drive to Richmond for the USDA Veterinary Services Office endorse the cats’ international health certificates. Although it is possible to FedEx the certificates to Richmond and provide paid return, I have heard of one too many people who did this and then ended up having to do the drive anyway, the day before departure. So I opted for the four hour round trip for the 15 minutes it took for USDA to sign the form (you have to call ahead for an appointment). The trip wore me out, but at least it is done.

Over the last few days I will be taking care of the final preparations, selling my car, cancelling car insurance, packing the bags, filling out change of address forms, putting my phone plan on hold… and trying to relax if at all possible. The next few weeks are going to be busy with getting myself, the two cats, C and my mom to Shanghai and then getting up to speed while getting over jet lag (12 hours time difference, so it will take about two weeks to adjust).

I am excited. I can hardly wait to get to Shanghai, see our new place, get settled in, don our pollution masks, and explore.

November 1, 2014 by trs

Shanghai, September 2002, Part Four

As part of my blog I am adding edited excerpts of emails I sent on past travels.
As I prepare for C’s and my move to Shanghai in January 2015, it seems particularly apt to take a look at when I last visited Shanghai. It’s funny, but I keep thinking that I was in Shanghai “fairly recently,” but 2002 is not recently at all! I visited Shanghai for one week during a break in my graduate classes in Singapore.

I enjoyed re-reading about my adventure to Zhouzhang. I had forgotten how I had met the young woman I went with. Unfortunately, the following year I did not get back to China. SARS hit the headlines, causing panic and insecurity in mainland China, Singapore, and several other countries, almost like Ebola today. I am hoping to visit Zhouzhang, or a water town like it, when my mom is with us in Shanghai.

Yesterday I returned to YuYuan Bazaar, this time actually entering the gardens. They are very lovely and peaceful. I wrote in my journal and read a little in my book while in the gardens sitting by a carp pond. I heard a tour guide telling some tourists that a small pavilion situated on top of a man-made hill used to have a view of the whole city and the river. Now it has views of high rises. Sometimes progress isn’t so great. It is too bad that view could not have been preserved. I also did a little shopping at the bazaar, bought a few nice things. Then I went to dinner. While there a young Chinese woman was brave enough to talk to me. She first came to sit at the table beside me. I could see her looking at me and trying to make up her mind whether to talk to me or not. She finally gathered her courage, took a deep breath, then asked if she could sit with me. I told her okay. Then she asked me what book I was reading. So we talked awhile (though not an easy feat as her English is not so good, and neither is my Chinese) and she asked if she could come with me to the Bund. I said sure. Then we proceeded to get very lost walking around. We stumbled upon an outdoor modeling show, wore out our feet, and gave in to take a taxi. We sat down at the Bund to talk. She is also new in Shanghai, having just come from Zhejiang Province to study at Fudan University, which is one of China’s best universities. She is a very sweet girl who to me looks like Gong Li, the famous Chinese actress (of Farewell My Concubine, Raise the Red Lantern, Shanghai Triad, and To Live fame). So we made a plan today to go to Zhouzhuang, a water town outside of Shanghai municipality region.

I met Can Can this morning. We tried to catch a cab out to the bus station, but unfortunately neither of us knew WHICH bus station. It turned out there are about five. So we just asked the taxi driver who took us to a station near the stadium. It was a long taxi ride and we arrived after 10:30, when I had heard the bus departed, but it turned out to be the wrong station anyway (guess there are probably several stadiums in Shanghai too!) So Can Can suggested we try to find out how much a taxi to Zhouzhuang would cost, but none of the taxis would tell us and just tried to drive away when we asked them. So we decided that maybe if we found the right bus station we could catch the noon bus. So we jumped in another taxi and endured horrible traffic and several close calls to arrive at a bus station at the train station. There we were told once again we were at the WRONG station. Can Can asked the guy how much a taxi would be to Zhouzhuang, and he said it would be 400 kuai round trip. It seemed a lot, but then again it was just about $45. And time was of the essence, so we took him up on it.

Zhouzhuang is really cool! It is a beautiful little town and a UNESCO world heritage site. Rather like a Chinese Venice. It has canals choked with slim boats and tourists, and lots of old buildings. Apparently about 60 % of the villagers still live in the houses that line the canals. There are graceful weeping willows lining the canal, and small high arching bridges crossing the canal at intervals. The houses are whitewashed with dark wood paneling and Chinese red lanterns. The restaurants along the canal have wood deck-type chairs to sit in and enjoy the view. The boat steerers are mostly women, who wear traditional blue cotton clothes, some also wear straw cone shaped hats, and they sing traditional Chinese songs as they pole along the canal. It almost seemed too perfect, as though it were created for tourists, but it wasn’t. It is not as famous a place as Suzhou or Hangzhou, and does not get as many visitors. But that is part of its charm. Iit seems an oasis in China, Chinese and yet can transport one to a more traditional time. Not that the town is not chock full of souvenir shops and old women following you with trinkets and postcards. It is. Last year apparently Jiang Zemin visited and had tea there. I guess that makes it a legitimate tourist attraction.

Our taxi driver followed us around the whole time. Apparently if two women from out of town hire a taxi driver for a long trip, it is like renting a dad. When I ordered a coke at lunch and it was very dirty on top and was flat right after I opened it, he argued with the proprietors to take it off the bill, and eventually they did! When we had told enough people we didn’t want their postcards and they didn’t go away, he shooed them away. He stayed just in front or just behind us, sort of like a chaperone. We even took him on our canal boat trip with us! I thought he would just wait in the car. Maybe he was afraid we would dump him and take the bus back to Shanghai and stiff him the fare. More probable than the friendly father figure, but I would like to think the former rather than latter, that he was watching out for us.

Traffic was slow on the way back and we were pretty tired. It was a good trip though and I am very happy I made the trip. See I was thinking I would come back next year, because I am planning on traveling a few weeks in China next summer, and will probably come in from Shanghai again, see Hangzhou and Nanjing, and swing over to Anhui to see my friend Jill who has just started teaching at a University there. So I think I could pass through Zhouzhuang again next year.

The Wanderlust Diaries

A fine WordPress.com site

travel