In July, my seven years of working at an international school in Shanghai came to an end. We packed up our belongings and moved to start a new job, at a new school in Xi’an. It was not as simple as that sentence makes it appear.
DaddyBird was in charge of moving arrangements. I was in charge of working up until July 2 and dealing with all the paperwork involved in leaving the job. Luckily, it was simpler because we are staying in the country and did not have to deal with closing our bank accounts.
We contacted 3 moving companies and 2 actually responded in a timely manner. We chose Asian Tigers. They have a good reputation and the price was actually lower. On the Shanghai end, they were great. It took them a full day to pack up our belongings and take them off in a truck. Everything was carefully packed (except that we have never found the poles to one wire rack shelving unit). As for the Xi’an end experience, I will get to that later.
We needed to arrange how to get ourselves and the cats to Xi’an. Flying by airplane was not an option. In part, because of COVID19, which made it difficult for humans to fly and impossible for animals. Also, the stress of traveling by air would undoubtedly kill Oliver. So, we wanted to travel overland. Train travel was not an option, because pets are not allowed. Networking solved our problem. DaddyBird was talking to a friend about our moving plans and this friend knew a guy who had a van and could drive us across country.
We were concerned about a long drive (approximately 18 hours) with the cats. Bert would be okay, not happy, but okay. Oliver, however, does not cope well with travel of any kind. So, we contacted the owner of our cat sitting service and he came to give us some instruction on how to train the cats to prepare for travel. This involved getting them used to going into and being in their carriers. Step by step they would be acclimated to being carried in the carrier, going out into the hallway, going into the elevator, etc. Some of this did work. DaddyBird worked with them every evening and they got used to the carriers and being comfortable in them. However, we only had one month to accomplish this training and it was not enough time. Once Oliver went out into the hallway, the howling began. The progress that was made did help, however.
We also wanted to get some Valium for Oliver. When he was in the vet for surgery, he had been so nervous that he refused to eat, so they gave him Valium to calm him down. So, we tracked down the same vet (this is years later, keep in mind) and went to the clinic to see if we could get the pills without bringing the cat in. It was a big ask. Surprisingly, they let us have a few pills.
On top of all the arrangements we were having to make, our Shanghai housing was through the school and they indicated we needed to be out of the apartment by July 15th (actually we were told two dates 12th and 15th). We had expected to have more time.
There was also the delay of visa transfer. The HR on the Shanghai end was less than professional, in my opinion, and this caused us misery. Thankfully, the HR at the new school was quite professional and efficient and managed communicate with her to get things moving. We had to give over our passports to have the visa cancelled and a 30 day temporary visa, then when we arrived in Xi’an we would need to get a new long-term visa. This all meant turning in our passports at a time when we would need the passports for other things. Also, when we turned in our passports for the visa cancelation, the estimated time would be longer than the deadline for getting out of our apartment. You cannot check into a hotel without a passport. Lovely catch-22 situation created by an HR staff who couldn’t see the consequences of her actions. Happily, it worked out as we were able to pick up our passports and temporary visas on the Tuesday before we left.
One thing I was contemplating was how to get the wheelchair to Xi’an. Should it go with the furniture or with us in the van? Would it take up too much room in the van? All of this became moot. I broke the wheelchair frame. In the first year of having the chair, I have broken it three times, twice with my own strength. I was standing next to the chair. I needed to pick up something from a table on the other side of the chair. I reached over while placing my hand on the armrest of the chair and leaning on it, in order to reach the thing I wanted to pick up. I heard a loud POP! The frame had snapped. I had my Chinese assistant call the store we had purchased the chair from. At first, they said bring the chair in and they would replace the part. Later, they called back and said that the company wanted to see the chair themselves as they had not seen such a break and wanted to investigate it. So, we ended up packing the chair up in a box and shipping it off to the factory for repair. The factory then shipped it to Xi’an, so it was already there and waiting for me long before I arrived. The drama queen of a chair got its own trip to Xi’an.
The movers came to pack up our furniture and belongings on Monday. We had Tuesday and Wednesday for last minute errands, like visas and Valium. Then on Thursday, we got up at 4 am, loaded the last of our luggage, cats in carriers, and ourselves into a van to drive all day to Xi’an. There were two drivers so that they could switch off occasionally and drive straight through (1382 kilometers / 859 miles). Amusingly, they showed us how we could recline the seats and go to sleep. However, they talked LOUDLY the entire time so that even when we were drowsy and wanted to sleep, we could not. I finally resorted to my noise cancellation headphones and an audiobook to block them out. We had worried that Oliver would be loudly howling and disturbing the drivers. They didn’t even notice any noise Oliver made due to their own sound level. The driver had asked us if it would be okay if his sisters traveled with us as they had not been to Xi’an before. We said “no” and thank goodness we did, if it had meant that there would be two more people talking incessantly at the top of their voices the whole way.
The drive was mostly smooth and uneventful. They stopped at every restroom/gas station stop. Some were ghost towns with no one else in sight and others had a convenience store and other customers about. We arrived in Xi’an after 9:30 pm. That is when the nonsense began. The apartment compound is completely pedestrianized and our van was not allowed in. It was also considered too big to go into the underground parking area, so we had to find a way to take all our luggage from the main gate to our building, which is about a 10 minute walk. There was one flatbed trolly at the guard house we could borrow and most of our luggage had wheels. DaddyBird, one of the drivers, and our school representative who was there to greet us, took most of our belongings in multiple trips while the other driver and I stayed with the van and the cats. The driver went to take the cats out of the van and set them on the sidewalk right away and I had to stop him. No reason to have them setting there being even more traumatized than they already were.
We had had an Ikea bed delivered earlier in the week, but it was not assembled, so we unwrapped the mattress and slept on the floor. The cats were glad to be out of the carriers, but Oliver was quite nervous. He cowered under the bathroom sink for a few days.
Asian Tigers were to arrive with our furniture the next morning at 9am. The same “no truck” policy was going to make this a serious mess. Asian Tigers had contracted with some other company for the unloading of the truck. Unfortunately, they did not choose well and did not do a very good job of contract writing, it seems. The local movers tried to scam us and refused to do more than unload the truck contents onto the sidewalk at the main gate. They didn’t think it was their job to actually get the contents into our apartment. After a lot of arguing, they brought the small stuff into the apartment, but they wanted a lot of extra money for the large furniture pieces. DaddyBird was livid. This was resolved by telling them to get lost and hiring someone else who was willing to do it for 300 yuan.
Having moved into a brand new building, we experienced some inconveniences, like no internet connection and unstable electricity. The electricity went off and on several times during our first Saturday. Apparently, workers who were remodeling some other apartment only knew how to turn off the electricity for the entire building not just for the one apartment. After much complaining, that was resolved. However, there were several compound-wide electricity shut downs due to problems with the neighborhood grid. Unfortunately, they chose to do these shutdowns overnight, which for most people would be the less inconvenient time, but if you need a CPAP machine to sleep, it is a real inconvenience.
Paying utilities is all different here. The natural gas is done with a prepaid card. Electricity is prepaid through an app. Our electricity use is charged to the account daily. It is about 20 yuan per day. The water bill comes every three months with the maintenance fees.
Living in a new city has provided DaddyBird with challenges of finding what we need, exploring the neighborhood, and working out how things work differently here. My challenge has been adapting to a new job. That story is a whole other can of worms for another time.
Despite the struggle to get here, we are happy. We have a lovely, large apartment. The electricity has stabilized. We have internet connection, finally. Things are working out.
Living the Travel Channel 