Day P3: Travel Marathon

January 19, 2020

Today was going to be a killer day of travel, but I had a plan to make it work. First off, collecting all my luggage then heading to the Guangzhou Railway Station again. This time I caught a taxi to save my sanity. The high speed rail station was pure madness due to the holiday rush, but little did I know then it would soon be shut down completely. This particular exit from China would essentially be my last one for the forseeable future.

[Update November 2022] The next international trip wouldn't happen until 3 years later. More to come on that here as it's still in the future.

Leaving China for the forseeable future. I didn't know about the virus at the time.

Totally insane New Year rush. What's even more insane is that authorities in various levels of government knew about covid months in advance and did nothing. Surely, the virus was spreading in that crowd in real time

But once on the train to Hong Kong it is totally empty like before

Hong Kong was going through protests at this time as well

There had been rumors of a SARS-like virus going around Wuhan China for the last couple of months, but nothing was said about it officially on the mainland. However, twice now I had noticed them checking temperatures at the Hong Kong immigration section of the train station. Was Hong Kong aware of something that we didn't know yet? I began to get suspicious that this SARS-like virus was purposefully being kept hush hush and they were afraid to do anything to stop the Chinese New Year rush. Just seeing the mass crowds and travel chaos now meant that any shutdowns would cause unbelievable panic, anarchy, and quite likely a revolt. So my best guess was the mainland government would say or do nothing about the virus until the travel rush died down. Little did I know this prediction turned out to be 100% accurate.

Once back in Hong Kong for the second time, I got a room for the day and basically caught up on sleep. It was a great deal due to all the protests that had dampened tourism. My only wish is that the bank could be open on Sunday and not require me to make two trips, but such is life. Later in the afternoon I caught another fitness class at F45 before heading out to the airport.

At the airport I got lucky in that there was a window seat in the emergency exit row for the long red-eye flight to LA. This would mean more blissful sleep on the flight, and that was sure nicely needed.

Do you see any masks here? I don't. But about 3 weeks later I would return to this very same airport and it would feel like being in the apocalypse. Masks would be everywhere and the feeling would be ominous.

The flight arrived around 7pm the same day due to the time zone differences. It was a breeze getting through immigration in LA but things got confusing in trying to figure out where to catch my Uber. You first need to catch a shuttle bus to a parking lot where they do the rides from, but confirming my ride would mean needing wifi that wasn't available on the buses. I got super lucky that the bus stopped at a red light and I could catch some temporary wifi from a restaurant. For the brief window of time I confirmed my Uber ride and he was waiting for me at the parking lot. After such a long stint of travel, these things you kind of want to right for a change. He then drove me to the Airbnb in Pasadena that was pure luxury.

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