My Last Post

I read a book recently called China Wakes about the experience of two New York Times journalists in China during the 1990's. When asked if they enjoyed their time in China they pretty much said it was interesting, not enjoyable. In many ways I'd agree. Living abroad is fascinating. I learned basic Mandarin and a great deal about the culture and history of China as well as the cultures of other countries we visited. I saw places I never even heard of let alone planned on visiting.

I went to Tainan, Taipei, and Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Tokyo, Japan. Seoul, South Korea. Bangkok and Koh Chang, Thailand. Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Udaipur, and Mt. Abu, India. Siem Reap, Cambodia. Hong Kong and Macau. Bejing, Xi'an, Harbin, Guilin, Yangshuo, Xiamen, Nanjing, Huangshan, Souzhou, Huangshan, Hefei, Tongli, Xitang, Jiaxing, Zhu Jia Jiao, Kunshan, and Moganshan, China. Danny also went to Lijiang without me. Not bad for three years, especially with the baby slowing down travel plans for the past year. We made friends from China, as well as England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Mexico, and Malaysia and learned about their hometowns too. I saw the Great Wall, Terracotta Warriors, karst mountains, the Taj Mahal, and Angkor Wat.

Our time in Shanghai is finally over. Living far from family, friends and everything I'm familiar with was hard. It took me about six months to really adjust and feel settled. Once I came down from the culture shock in day to day life we have our family and friends and our jobs and life isn't that different wherever you go. The small idiosyncrasies of a foreign culture make things challenging at times but after a while they become routine like anything else. I'll miss the travel but we are happy to leave behind the pollution and Chinese manners and return to the benefits of a first world nation. Most importantly we are happy to bring home Jonah and start a new chapter of our life as a family.

End of Blog... (Unless we move abroad again.)

Why China Eastern Sucks

I have been dreading a flight back to the states with an infant since before Jonah was even born. The week leading up to it our very cranky teething baby spent most of his time crying because I didn't let him grab every item I was attempting to pack. The packing also coincided with Jonah developing his crawling and cruising abilities... it was a stressful couple of weeks.

Jonah trapped by our luggage.

I made sure to reserve a bassinet with a window seat so I could discretely breastfeed Jonah in semi-privacy. When we finally arrived at the airport check-in after our frantic day of last minute packing, a lovely sendoff from our friends and an hour long car ride Jonah was slightly hungry and fussy. The seats assigned to us did not have the bolt heads for a bassinet. The check-in person's excuse was they only promised to reserve the bassinet, not one of the seats where it could be bolted. Seriously! Is Jonah supposed to hang out in the bassinet in front of someone else's seat while Danny and I got our window and aisle seats elsewhere? At least the manager admitted that excuse made no sense. What the manager didn't do was apologize or try to accommodate us. They kept just saying they didn't make the reservation so it wasn't their fault. Awesome customer service. Not once did I hear any sort of apology for not honoring this request which their company promised us in writing a month and a half in advance. I don't usually argue with service people but this is 15 hour flight holding a seven month old... I hate China Eastern. Also they had the crappiest plane I ever flew internationally. It didn't even have personal entertainment centers. Stupid China Eastern.

Jonah sleeping on the airplane floor.

Jonah actually did way better on the plane than I had anticipated. It was a red-eye and he ended up sleeping for 10 of the 15 hours. Part of the time we put him on the floor on his bear mat, part of the time we held him. The other 5 hours he hardly fussed at all, I fed him under my nursing cover during takeoff and he didn't even complain about his ears popping. I'm still mad about the bassinet though.