A rental car had to be useful for something.  The Airbnb had us check out by 11am but our night flight didn't leave for at least another 12 hours later.  With the rainy weather, it made a lot more sense just to drive around the city with all the luggage inside and check places out rather than sit in the airport for an entire day.  Plus I went through all that trouble to finally get a drivers license and a credit card. 

In the end, the rental car was returned outside the airport and I changed modes from car driver to luggage cart pusher.  I made a beeline to the shrink wrap machine, but there was a different attendant.  She said immediately, "We don't shrink wrap bikes, they need to be in a box."  I politely said, "The last guy wrapped it 10 days ago, and besides this is a folding bike."  My wife actually gave her an earful, then suddenly this attendant changed her tone and was happy to shrink wrap the bike.

The fact is we were both exhausted after all of this bullshit.  Check-in and security went relatively smoothly, or as best as could be expected.  The biggest issue was needing the negative covid tests which we got the day before and those cost a fortune.  

Once at the boarding gate we ran into another gentleman who was in nearly the exact same situation as me.  He had lived in China for many years, had married a local, could speak the language etc..   His trip to North America was done in almost similar circumstances while being delayed 3 years due to the pandemic.  We had a lot to talk about.  

The flight itself was absolutely miserable.  It was packed, crowded, loud, nothing but a 12 hour bus ride in the sky.  They ignored me every time for meals.  It was probably a good thing to bring backup food and of course alcohol to mix cocktails since they weren't serving drinks.  All I can hope for  (I'm using wifi to type this up) is that my bicycle will arrive with me on the other side.

The other thing I noticed on this trip is that most people stay at home and keep distance anyways.  Is it really all that different from a lockdown?  A friend we met in Vancouver who used to live abroad says no it isn't.  The place sucks.  In fact, he is right.  The Shanghai version of the lockdown was of course way more extreme as it literally forced you inside the house.  But I saw countless examples in Canada and the US where people chose to stay at home all the time, order online, and not socialize.  For them the pandemic wasn't a big deal, maybe it was even welcomed.  

The question is what value, if any, do you get for the enormously high cost of living back home?  I've looked at this in great detail over many years and concluded that making money in Shanghai while doing international cycle tours in SE Asia worked for many years.  But now with China showing its true colors with the pandemic and the lockdown, it's becoming worse and worse.

So life is no good back home nor in China.  What to do and where to go?