China Take 2 - I made it to Beijing! (Update #1)

Monday, December 14, 2020 (when will this ridiculous year end!!!!!)

hey there folks....i have officially made it to Beijing, china - sorry it has taken me some time to write to you, but two weeks of quarantine, followed by another week of soft quarantine and then the craziness of the beginning of school, has kicked my butt the past 2 months. I am just about to finish my sixth week at The Western Academy of Beijing (WAB). And at the end of the week I will be on vacation for 2.5 weeks. But I want to start this story from when I left the USA to get to China, as quarantine in a hotel room in Shanghai was insane for two weeks.....I refer to that time now as the "dead zone"....

Since finishing that two weeks and then heading to Beijing, things have been super busy....from getting my residential permit, to working with kids in person AND online (yes, I am teaching using a hybrid model - not a huge fan of this, and it will probably be going for the year for me)....to searching for an apartment, to trying to organize that apartment (i have been in it a week now)....to trying to find my shipment and when it might arrive, to having a family member contract COVID and stressing about my mom,....to having my aunt pass away a few weeks after I left....it has been insane....BUT i am uber thankful to be in a place that is taking covid extremely seriously, and a place where I can teach kids face-to-face....with a mask of course, but still face-to-face.....i am meant to be teaching in a classroom (like many teachers), and i am soooooo happy i am getting to do that on a daily basis.....

vacation for us starts at the end of this week, but as a new teacher and because i got to china so late in the school year, i am not able to travel even within china for this break....so i will spend my time organizing my apartment, exploring beijing, getting to know my colleagues and hanging with old friends who live and work here now too.....it should be a lovely break....so...on with the stories.....quarantine....it was a crazy time, let me tell you....

This was the way i flew to china.....i was not taking any chances....face shield, mask, away from people....on my first flight to zurich, switzerland, i was able to make that happen...as i literally had a whole row across the plane to myself.....but once i was getting ready to fly from zurich to beijing...all bets were off.....the plane was packed...with mostly national chinese folks heading home....i asked one woman about this, as she said she was returning because china was taking care of people with COVID the best....and with the amount of security and protection they have when you land, they are definitely monitoring everyone and everything that comes onto the mainland.....i got off the plane in the fourth section of people...all people working in the airport were wearing full body hazmat suits and taking huge precautions....i was tested up my nose for covid - and it was painful...people were yelling at the nurses and doctors...kids were crying...it was wild...and everyone was in a hazmat suit.....they got me to a bus and took me to a hotel room....just next door to the airport....no one really spoke with me about any of it...i was just herded onto the bus and brought to my room for the next two weeks...almost no one spoke english, so all of this time i was totally in the dark about where i was going, how much it would cost, how i was going to pay...it was crazy....but i think having been in china before, i knew i would be in the dark, but that it would work out in the end....

i was given breakfast, lunch and dinner....a person would pound on my door at 7:30am, 11:30am and 5:30pm and walk away....they were dressed in a hazmat suit and the food would be left on a little table in the hallway...they did not talk with me at all....i was called twice a day by someone who spoke very little english and they would ask for my temperature, and once i gave it they would say bye-bye and hang up....it was the dead zone.....for two weeks i had no in-person human contact with anyone...except on day 12 when they came and gave me another covid test (a throat swab that time).....above you see what i had for breakfast for two straight weeks....2 boiled eggs, a packaged sweet bread thing, sometimes a yogurt, congee (rice soup) and some type of veggie dumplings/bao....it got to the point where i did not bring in congee, but they kept giving it to me.....but i was sooooooo happy that they could figure out the veggie part and therefore tried to eat much of what they gave me....breakfast was always the meal i ate the most of....

this was my view for two straight weeks....it kind of reminded me of panama, as i was overlooking the shanghai port...so big ships would sail past either on their way to being emptied or having just been emptied in port....this view did change during the second week, as the authorities dug up the green spaces....i am not sure what they were doing, as it was not finished when i left quarantine...but they did add some nice big trees to this view.....it could have been worse i think....

this is what happened three times a day, every day during quarantine....they would drop off my food and just keep going....you can see the table with the food from my neighbor...never saw him, but could hear him through the wall when he was teaching students somewhere in china, english.....we met on the bus coming to the hotel and ended up being next to each other...most of the time i heard no one though....this little table is also where you left your trash when you finished....so much plastic...and this is just one of a multitude of quarantine hotels all over china....crazy times....

this was one of my last lunches...i think by this picture i had lotus root with both lunch and dinner for 10 of the 14 days....followed closely by cabbage and broccoli....i was sooooo excited on this day because they gave me carrots...it was the only time i got them....and of course, rice with every meal....

this was literally how far my balcony door opened....i left this opened the whole time so i could get fresh air and hear noise from the outside world....it was hard to see the balcony and not be allowed on it...

my last lunch....lotus root, broccoli, cabbage, bok choy and rice.....with some iced tea and a banana...that was one of the things that really saved me...i was given a piece of fruit with every lunch and dinner...usually apples, pears or oranges...but i got a banana three times as well....i also brought along some instant camping meals, instant noodles, instant soups and lots and lots of snacks...nuts, dried cranberries, chocolate, granola bars, breakfast bars, peanut butter and packaged cheese and crackers...i was just fine....

this was my room....only one of the beds had sheets and covers...but it was a lot of space and i could walk around all day long....i had to get at least 7,000 - 10,000 steps a day...i walked around this room quite a lot....went a bit crazy....

this is me having just come out of quarantine....14 days in isolation...i learned i would never make it in solitary confinement and i am hopeful i will not need to anything like that again...but i did it....and it was not uber hard, just was not fun in any way.....

this is me and first beer out of quarantine....i went with a couple of newbbies to a brewery....the craziest part was that those of us just out of quarantine, couldn't eat much of our food and most of us got a bit sick from eating non-chinese food....but boy did that beer taste good!!!!

when i got out of quarantine in shanghai i had to fly straight to beijing to start doing my second quarantine before being allowed on campus...beijing is where the government of china is located, and therefore rules here are very strict...most countries still cannot fly planes directly to beijing...most fly to another city, quarantine and then send people to beijing....once i got to beijing, i was put in a temporary apartment by my school while i took the time to shop for my own place...this was my first sunrise....

this was my bathroom in the temporary apartment....a japanese toilet - always amazing....and a urinal???? which was the sink?!?!?!?! the sign above it says hand-washing....ummmmmmm, no!!! the apartment was fine for the short term, but i am glad i am no longer there, as i tried really hard not to fully unpack, knowing i was going to move in about a month's time and i did not feel like packing everything up again...

the temporary apartment is located outside an art district in beijing, called the 798....i have now had dinner there a bunch and some coffee and walked around checking out the art...one of my favorite pieces is this transformer....it is about 4 stories high....love it!!!

one of the reasons coming to beijing has been fun, is because of these folks in the picture above...i arrived on a monday and we all had dinner on thursday...this is an awesome bunch of folks who work here in beijing, who i had the pleasure of working with in shanghai....me, Josh, Lis & Shannon....Josh & Shannon work at ISB and Lis works at WAB, like me....

this is the front gate to WAB....as you come in the elementary school is in the front, with the early years kids having their own space off to the right....after you go through the elementary school....you walk along the field space to get to the middle school building(not where i teach) and the HUB - the building i teach science in....this is also the arts building and the design building...i love that my lab is in this building....but i do share space with other teachers and do not really have my own space anywhere....this can be very stressful at times....but i have been mostly going to the cafe in the HUB and can have a coffee while prepping - very nice....

this is a shot of the front entrance of the hub....in one of my upcoming updates, i am going to show you all of the cool art on our campus....it is amazing....this building houses the gym on the right...one of the main places to get food just in front...the arts classrooms and theater, and the science and design labs....

this is the bridge...it connects the high school with the rest of campus...and yes, it is a bridge that goes over a lake - duck lake...i have heard it will freeze over and you sometimes will see classes out on the lake skating....kids also can canoe when it is warm....gotta love this on a school campus...i do hope at some point we will do a lab or two with the water of duck lake....

this woman is making my favorite breakfast of all time - jian bing....this is a crepe, made with an egg, spices and flavorings, as well as crunchy, fried, tofu skin....and here in beijing, i have found some jian bing makers who put lettuce on their creations....this woman did...and what a tasty addition to the traditional version....still my favorite breakfast....you just can't beat a jian bing!!!

I have been on quite a few public buses now here in beijing, as i am always surprised when i see an ashtray when i am on the bus....this one actually had a cigarette butt on it...i normally do not see people smoking on the bus....the buses are fast, clean and very cheap....however, it has become cold these days....so i try to take the school buses, as they go right to the door of the school and drop me close to my apartment....temperatures are around -13C/9F....brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....I haven't been in temperatures this low in awhile.....

one of the food i really missed outside of china, were dumplings....this shot above is from a pretty famous dumpling shop...and they dye their dumplings with natural colors (purple from purple cabbage, green from spinach, etc) and they dye the dumplings different colors so you know what is inside of them...being a vegetarian, i really appreciated this...i knew i could eat the green and half orange ones....yummy....so happy to be here where the spice is hot and always available....

a couple of weeks back we had our first snow in beijing....it snowed again this past saturday night...so pretty...but neither time did it last....the ground was a bit too warm....when it snows, the clouds hold in the pollution...but today the storm had blown out and it was a cold, clear, blue-sky day...i have been here for 6 weeks now and we have only had a handful of high pollution days...they seem to happen when a storm rolls in...which is not too frequent here in beijing.....it is a very dry place.....

and although this looks like a lot of pollution....this is just an interesting angled sunset shot of the summer palace from the pearl market....where we were shopping....i love this shot for the color and the temple and the mountain in the far distance....

the reason we were at the pearl market was to see what was behind this door.....behind this door is a knock-knock shop....not only do you have to knock to be allowed in (super secretly hidden with the vines - not)....but it is also a store filled with knock-offs...i got some fake doc martins, fake uggs and fake new balance sneakers...all for less than $100...and they are comfortable and seem to be holding up ok....this is me coming out of the knock-knock shop with my purchases...which have come in handy in this cold part of the world....

this is my science classroom....i am teaching 7th & 8th grade science this year face-to-face and have 6th, 7th and 8th graders who i am working with online....online is soooooooo much more challenging than in person in my opinion...plus, i am teaching three different levels of kids all together and most of them are learning support....just a huge challenge.....i am hoping this will end in january, but i do not really think it will...because china just passed a rule that people who are hired to come and work here, can no longer bring families or spouses that do not have a job as well....i am not sure how embassies will deal with this, plus, i am not sure how long it will go on....but this ruling will definitely change things for my school and any other in china, for getting new families....they are not allowed into country....so i can see WAB making a choice to stay online....a bummer...but i can/will do it for a year....they have supported me through everything to get me here....so i will follow through and work both in person and online....

and so my last shot is not of me and a beer...but instead of me and the bottle of champagne i just took off the brunch layout....i figured we had enough people to justify having the whole bottle...and a slice of pavlova....and no i did not eat this....i just had a forkful of my friend's....people from australia and new zealand disagree with who owns the rights to calling pavlova their national dish....i just think they are tasty...

ok...so that is my story at the moment....sorry i did not include pictures of my new apartment, but i will send them out with the next update....which i hope to get to in the next three weeks, when i am on vacation....so here's to that!!!!

things here in beijing have been great to start....and things just keep improving now that i am out of my temporary apartment.....it is good to be back in a country that has a mail system that works...my mom and i are currently testing it out to make sure it really works before i pass along the address and stuff to others....plus, it has been fun scouting out some of my favorite types of chinese food - sichuan, yunnan, dumplings and hand pulled noodles....

and in my opinion, the hawking a loogie, which i used to hear everywhere all the time (and if you have lived or visited china for a long stint, i am sure you can just hear the sound as i say this)....but what is amazing is the noise/action does not happen frequently anymore....yahooooo...it was my least favorite thing about china...and i do not know if it is because of covid....but it is so nice not to hear that noise at every turn....yay china!!!!

so this is how things have started for me in china....i am sooooo happy to finally be here and for being back in the classroom (masked, but live)....i am having a fun time exploring beijing and am in the process of meeting and making new friends...it has been a weird year to start a new school....that is an understatement...but i am glad i am here and seeing kids in person everyday....

if you have any questions from this post, please do not hesitate to ask them...i am hoping to get the next update out before my break is over...in that one i will put in pics of my new apartment and things that i spot or experience as i explore beijing....thanks for reading through my post...i hope you enjoyed it...i am well and happy and i hope you are too....i wish you and your family/friends a happy holiday season, no matter what you celebrate....

peace out....dani