To Get Here.....

To get into China and to where we are right now, we first had to: 

✅ Obtain a visa  (see my other post about that)

✅ Secure flights 

Since China has decreased flights into the country dramatically, and continues to cancel them at will, flights are so difficult to obtain and extremely expensive. There are only a handful of airlines allowed to fly into China and only once or twice a week with limited capacity.  We only paid $8200 per ticket; we have seen prices upwards of $19,000 per ticket.  After we had purchased flights, China told the airline they could only bring 40% of their booked 70% capacity.  I guess we were some of the higher paying passengers and we kept our flights.  We heard while en route that they cancelled the next flight out of Dallas, so we were lucky to not have ours cancelled.

✅ Pass several series of Covid testing

Including chest x-rays, blood work, PCR as well as antigen tests.  These all have to be done at authorized testing agencies and since there are few of them, they are taking advantage of that.  For one person to get all of the testing done the week before the flight is $650.  We arrived at the testing location for our appointments a week before our flight only to find out that we had to pay in cash.  No exceptions.  We scrambled for the $2600 because of limitations on how much you can withdraw on a debit card in a day,  but we got it.  

✅ Get the blue health code from the Chinese Embassy

This included a long list of documents as well as temperature records from the past week and your certified test results.  Because we spent much of the day before our flights trying to help a lady from Mexico get cash to pay for her testing, we were behind on all that needed to be done for the health code submission.  That evening was quite stressful because it had to be done exactly right to obtain the authorization and we had trouble getting all of our test results back and in the right form.  We didn't get them submitted until 9:00pm and our flight was at 7:55am the next morning; you can't check in at the airport without that authorization code for each person so the time was critical.  Miraculously all four of us passed; we saw many people at the testing site trying to fly the next day that weren't on the flight.  At the cost of the flights and testing, that must have been very sad news for them.

✅ Fill out endless amounts of paperwork

This was something we weren't anticipating.  Tom was very well read on all of the processes to get through all of these hoops, but because most people traveling to China are either single foreigners or Chinese, the paperwork wouldn't have been a problem so no one wrote about it in the online forums. The sheer time to fill it out for each person was costly.  And there were questions on there we did not have answers to--like a phone number for a local contact.   With the time difference, we couldn't get the number for our contact here, finally we just put the phone number for the company Tom will be working for.  We thought we had plenty of time to make our flight, but it turns out we got to our gate just 20 minutes before.  Thankfully that was enough time to go to the bathroom and grab something to eat.  

Then there was more paperwork at each stop in the Shanghai airport to get out of there---each one x 4 people became very time consuming.  I think there were 4-5 checkpoints there.

✅ Manage your luggage!  

This one was so tricky.  We found a few days before leaving that our shipment couldn't be sent until we had a work permit.  A work permit cannot be given until your month of quarantining is over.  So we had to carry everything we thought we would need for the next 3-4 months with us.  SO MUCH STUFF--16 pieces of luggage total.  And they were heavy and we were super awkward with them.  We were way too noticeable.  This picture is in Salt Lake when we got carts and were way more graceful than any other time!

✅ Get to your quarantine hotel

Once we arrived at our hotel, we had to fill out more paperwork. and unload the impedimenta.  Whether the Chinese are not allowed to help us because of Covid or it's not their culture, I'm not sure, but they all just looked on while we struggled.  At least their entertainment was free!  And struggled we did as the surfaces were not even and stairs had to be navigated. We knew that Tom and I wouldn't be able to quarantine together and we were prepared to respond if they said that Tessa could not quarantine with us. But when that came up, they said they didn't have a room big enough for all of us but would put us in 2 rooms.  We were so thankful Tessa would not be by herself.  So thankful!  

✅ Get to your room

This may seem easy, and by comparison to other things we've been through, it wasn't much, but it is looming large in my mind.  Greta and I were told we needed to get up to our room by ourselves.  Sounds easy enough, but it wasn't.  We had 8 pieces of heavy luggage and we didn't want to offend and we do want to comply with their wishes. We were told that we couldn't make multiple trips and that once we got into the room, we couldn't leave until we were released.  We made it to the 7th floor with only a few mishaps, but getting down the shredded carpeted hall in one load was impossible.  Finally Greta got down to the room but left the smaller pieces of luggage there and came back and helped me with the 4 biggest pieces.  Then she went into the room while I pushed everything in before entering.  A huge sigh of relief!

One final note:  We knew going into China we would be noticed--I had experienced that with my trip to China in 2004, but to come as a family during Covid when so few people are coming in caused even greater excitement.   There were several awed "American family!!" comments.  Even several of our flight attendants stopped to ask about us because they usually only have Chinese or solo travelers.  It truly is an unusual time to be here!