Getting out of quarantine was a lot like getting in to quarantine – a long line with very little instructions. Luckily, I’ve always been very good at follow the leader and copying what everyone else is doing.
Of course there was more paperwork, all in Chinese, but I was behind the only other person I went into quarantine with that also barely spoke Chinese. Once I had gotten all the paperwork out of the way and WeChatted a picture of it to the Medic, I was free!
Now, I just had to figure out how to get to my new hotel.
I had done some research to figure out where I was and I had chosen the new hotel partly because it was right on a subway stop. (Thank you VPN and Google.) And I had realized that I wasn’t too far from a subway stop in quarantine, but did I want to try to drag nearly 100lbs of stuff through an unfamiliar subway system? At 8:30 at night? Not really.
My other, and easier, option was a cab. I had hoped that there might be some outside the hotel waiting or, at least, nearby. There weren’t. The entrance to the hotel was on a side street, but very close to a major road.
I’d just have to walk to the intersection and I could get a cab, right? Well, not so much. It was one of those weird Chinese intersections with a little section of road between the sidewalk and street for bikes and scooters. So, the cabs weren’t close. And there was a railing at the edge of the sidewalk so going away from the intersection would make it harder to get a cab.
I had two options – try to catch a cab from somewhere a cab would probably never see me or start walking to the subway and see if there was a better place to catch a cab along the way.
I started trudging, praying for a good place to get that cab. Unfortunately, and after several breaks, I found the subway station first.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bigger or cleaner subway station in my life. It looked like it was just built. And massive. And there were no ticket machines in sight. Onwards.
After what felt like 15 minutes of walking, I found a help counter, but it took the person a little bit to join me there. Unfortunately, she and the other two people that came to ‘help’ didn’t speak English. No one was able to understand what I wanted from the few Chinese words I do know (none of which is ticket) and gesturing. I quickly dug through pockets to grab my phone so that Google translate could come to the rescue.
And it did. Big time. I might still be wandering around lost in that station without it.
But, once they all knew what I was looking for, the nice lady came out and showed me where the ticket machine was. It was hiding in a corner another long walk away. And she showed me that the ticket machine can change to be in English and helped me buy the ticket.
Then, it was off to meet the trio by the luggage scanner. They helped me get all my bag on and off the conveyer belts. And I, once again, wished I knew how to pack light.
Most gates that I’ve seen, especially in the US, have a door or passage for large objects to more easily go through. This one didn’t. One of the scanner guys helped shove my big luggage through its own gate. My next luggage will have 4 spinner wheels. 2-wheeled luggage is just unnecessary torture. No more!
But, now, it’s just two short stops and I’m fighting my way out of the subway and walking around the corner to my new home for the week, only an hour after leaving my quarantine room.
Where I met some lovely people, who didn’t speak any English.
My TEFL Adventure 