We’re back

Yes, we made it. We’re back in our home in Nanjing. How do we know we’re really here?

1) Within 3 hours of landing, four people asked to take Leo’s photo.

2) The unmistakable aroma of China air.

3) Having to figure out how to break the Great Chinese Firewall again to surf our blogs and Facebook.

4) Personal space? Is there even a word for that in Chinese?

5) Dumplings, and more dumplings, yum!

6) Jet lag has us awake at 3am every night.

7) Within 3 days of arrival, having the first bout of stomach.. discomfort.

8 ) Squat pots, no Western toilets in public spaces (and no hot water or soap!).

9) Cheerios are $10 a box again.

10) We can’t read the news anymore!

On to round two

We’re going back.  Tomorrow we board the plane for China for the second time in our lives.  We’re leaving from the same airport (Vancouver), saying goodbye to the same group of friends, but it feels so different from the first time around.  We have our own apartment waiting for us on our return. We have a job lined up.  Most of all, we have the Chinese language on our side this time!   Talk about a huge difference in our outlook.

And for those who may not have seen us this summer, our good news is that we have another baby on the way!  Stay tuned for reviews of maternal care in China, both prenatal and possibly delivery.

We’ll do our best to keep our entries frequent here on the blog.  It’s been a great way to stay in touch with all of you States side.  And we’ve heard about so many people we’ve never even met reading our posts.  At the very least, we hope we’re not boring you all.

So on to round two for our lives in China.  We have to admit we’re eager to go back, excited for whatever adventures cross our way.

The half pound difference

We’ve flown a lot this summer. A lot. And we’ve encountered a lot of different airline procedures in the process. Since we chose to fly only on airlines that aren’t charging for the first checked bag to save as much money as we could, this limited us to Southwest, JetBlue, and Alaska Airlines.

We have three suitcases stuffed to the gills with things we are taking back to China this week (yes, we’re going back for two more years!). Each one is right at the limit, 50 pounds per bag.

Checking in at every airport so far has gone well, with ticketing agents seeing us struggling to lug the suitcases, a carseat, a toddler, a food bag for the plane, and JM’s violin. They haven’t once objected to one suitcase being 51, 52, or 53 pounds.

Not once, that is, until our Alaska Air flight from Dallas this past Saturday.

Our bag weighed 51.5 pounds, and the agent with a blasé expression informed us the bag was too heavy. “Really?” we asked, explaining that each suitcase was at the limit already. “Yes, I can’t tag it if it’s overweight.”

Okay. So weighing the next bag showed 51 pounds, but with some jiggling of the scale, it went down to 50.5. “I guess I can tag this one before the number goes back up again.” Thanks.

The last bag was 49.5. Great, some room to even out. We took one jogging shoe and transferred it from the overweight bag. That again brought the scale up to 51 pounds, but with a little more jimmying, we got it to read 50.5. Quick! Tag it before it changes!

What’s ironic to us is that the shift of one running shoe made all the difference in the world to this ticketing agent. We don’t know what sort of policies at Alaska Air force them to take such a hard line, but it can’t help but seem just a bit petty to us. But travelers beware: the half pound running shoe can make or break your luggage allowance on this airline! Don’t be caught unawares, especially if your airport scale can’t be budged off the mark like ours did.

[PS- with all the time it took quibbling about the weight, Alaska Airlines wasn't able to get our bags on our flight in the end anyway. We got them delivered later the next day at our destination. At least they made it, including the two bags holding the divided pair of running shoes.]

Summer in the USA

We’ve been in the US for over two months. Next week we’ll be back in China, and we’re just about ready for it. If you’ve wondered where we’ve been, you could have bumped into us in one of the following cities:

Ann Arbor, Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Fort Worth, Galveston, Green Bay, Madison, Milwaukee, New Haven, New York, Seattle, Steubenville, Toledo, Vancouver

We’re not eager ever to repeat such a hefty itinerary again, but we’ve made such great memories on this trip. Thanks to all you for taking us in on our Odyssey!

Picture of summer

Summer in the U.S. that is:

Volcanic Ash and Flight Plans

We have the incredible fortune to be visiting North America on our summer break! We have just touched down in Canada after a long 14 hour flight from Shanghai.

The flight was extra long, in fact, and not just because we carried a 1 year old along with us. Minutes before push off our flight plan was changed on account of volcanic ash entering the atmosphere. We needed to be rerouted around the ash, which took an hour and a half before we finally pushed off from the gate.

And, the new flight path was two hours longer than originally planned, so we were doubly delayed in our arrival.

Everything went relatively well, though, all things considered. Leo only had one and a half tantrums the whole time. There were even individual movie screens at every seat in the plane.

On arrival to Canada, culture shock immediately began to set in (clean air, common courtesies like door holding, etc.). While passing customs, a woman said good naturedly to Leo: "What a cute baby you are! Just precious." Leo gave a resounding "Bu yao!" (No!) in Chinese. She simply smiled and said, "I don’t know what you’re trying to say exactly, but I’m sure it must be good and sweet."

We couldn’t help laughing out loud as we walked away.

Shanghai excursion

The other week we made a brief trip to Shanghai at the invitation of a good friend who was traveling through on a concert tour. He let all three of us spend the night in his 5-star hotel room. Wow. We never knew a bed could be that soft!

Shanghai is a lot bigger than Nanjing. A LOT bigger. And we thought Nanjing had a lot of people! By the time we came back, we were happy to be in a city without heavy traffic jams. People in Nanjing walk a lot slower too. Shanghai is nice to visit, but here is where we’re happy to live!

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The trip out west – pictures

It’s been two months since I set out for the frontiers of Tibet in January, and I’m still amazed by the memories of the places I went. The good news is that I have finished a website for my pictures, which I welcome everyone to peruse.

http://tibet09.blogspot.com

Please let me know what you think!

By the way, your baby will be deported

So we went to the police station to renew our visas for the new term. Both of us have student status this semester, since we’ll each be in class at Nanjing University starting Monday. The visa renewal process for us is straightforward enough, with no objections by the authorities.

Leo, however, is on a tourist visa. He renewed it once since arrival, but this is his second time to do so. In passing, the guard on duty told us that at the end of this visa’s term, Leo will have to go back to a Chinese embassy in USA or Hong Kong to get a new travel visa, as the current one can only be renewed twice.

What?? We were told by the university staff that it would be no problem to keep renewing his tourist visa. Surprise! Just as on many other occasions here, the actual story didn’t match the one we’d been told in advance. This has been the case over and over again, so we shouldn’t have been so caught off guard. But deportation for little Leo??

On further discussion, the guard told us that since we didn’t have an embassy-certified copy of Leo’s birth certificate, they couldn’t put him on our visa as his parents. Thoughts rushed back to our mind of standing in the lobby of the Chinese embassy back in the US with a copy of his birth certificate in tow, but no one bothering to mention this little detail to us that day. Rats.

Talking over our options, the guard came around to suggesting that if we had family back home, they could go to the embassy in our stead with a copy of Leo’s certificate, and could get it certified in our absence. Whew! Maybe there’s a way out after all. We just need to find a willing agent and figure out how to mail Leo’s document back home before March. Hopefully this isn’t another tall tale, so we’ll be able to avoid dropping Leo off on a plane and bidding bon voyage. Can someone pick him up when he gets in to O’Hare?

Heisted in Shanghai

Liz, Leo and I made our return trip to Nanjing after the music tour, taking a fast train the last two hours of the way from Shanghai.  It was our first time taking a train together in China, and we were new to the whole process at Shanghai railway station.

People were offering to carry our bags for exorbitant fees, which we declined thinking we could get to our platform without extra help.  People who saw our tickets began telling us, "You’d better hurry," which we though was strange with over a half hour to go till departure.

As we wandered through the terminal towards our train, we discovered it was a rather long way to our platform.  We stepped it up a bit, but were being passed by other travelers who were running at a good pace to make their own connections.  As we neared our boarding area, we saw the same groups of frantic people making their way into our own gate.  Were we really that late?  We still had 15 minutes to go.

What we discovered was that there was still a long ways to go from the ticket agent all the way to the platform.  We huffed it a good five minutes with all our bags to finally reach the stairs down to our train (no elevator of course).  Someone sitting on the stairs saw us, grabbed two of our bags and motioned for us to quickly follow.  We assumed the train was leaving right away, so we followed him down the stairs and looked for our car.  We were in car 1, but were only standing at car 13!  We all jogged down the platform to the first car, making it with a few minutes to go.

The man wouldn’t pass our suitcases into the train until we paid him for his trouble.  Note to self- no service is ever for free here!  I passed him 10 yuan, but he demanded 20.  Without much leverage for bargaining, I conceded to the rather high fee and took a 20 bill from my wallet.  He promptly snatched it from my hand and took off running!  He got away with 30 altogether, and I couldn’t chase him since the train was about to leave.

Feeling rather grumpy, we consoled ourselves by admitting that at least he didn’t steal the suitcases, and we really did appreciate his help getting to the train.  Plus we tried to feel charitable about supplying him with enough money to buy at least a few days’ worth of groceries.  Next time we won’t be so green when traveling, though, and will leave plenty of time for navigating a new place.