Well hello there.

I'm writing this on my phone, which is not ideal. But my computer is 2000km away, so hey, what can ya do?

I actually have a lot to talk about, which will be on the next (next) entry. We've been traveling a bit, like how we went around Shanghai, Cambodia, and Bangkok with Ella's mom and dad. That was a uhh... interesting time. But as of writing, we're holed up in a beach town in Southern Thailand. Why? Because of Corona Beer. I mean virus. Also because after spending 2 weeks straight with in-laws, I need a nap.

So I'm sure you've heard the news, at least in passing. At least, that's how I remember things like SARS, H1N1, etc.. I was aware they're happening, selfishly filed them under "That sucks, fortunately not my problem", and went on my day. This time it's different. Because the news you've heard? Oh believe me. I've heard more.

So. Much. More.

Because when you basically tell 1.4 billion people to stay indoors forever, people get really bored. And they talk online a lot. And look at news sites a lot. This feels like a media bonanza, like we all need to check every 10 minutes to see if the world is ending. Quite frankly, I'm sick of hearing about it, yet I still feel the need to be constantly updated about it since it's directly affecting my life. So get ready, because of mass boredom, I have a lot to say. So much so, I'm going to break it down to 1) A little backstory on how this unfolded for us, 2) The effect this has had on us, 3) What people in China are feeling, and 4) My thoughts.

1)

Late Jan - Ella's mom and dad visit us in Shanghai. We do touristy things. At this time, the virus was only in Wuhan, nobody knew what where when why how. After a few days in Shanghai, we leave to Cambodia. In Cambodia, news starts coming in that this is a new thing, and we're concerned, but everything is okay. Then we get to Bangkok. Things start to get real. It starts spreading fast in Wuhan and Hubei. Xi locks down Wuhan, then pretty much the whole province. Now people are worried. Without solid information, (at no fault of anyone's, there were just a lot of unknowns), there are wild rumors flying around. Like this is an escaped biological weapon, it's already killed millions, nCoV is actually DB Cooper in disguise, etc.. Tons of Chinese people go to Bangkok for the holidays. Although there were only a few cases, people are on edge. Mom and Dad go back to Yunnan, which before they left had 0 cases, but now has a handful. We go about our business in BKK, before going south as planned.

2)

Here's where our life began to get derailed. First, dad and then Ella were sick. It was just a cough and runny nose, but ya know... it was kind of concerning at the time. Fortunately we knew there was pretty much no way we could have gotten anything serious, since we were in Cambodia when things took off. Ella and dad are back to normal as of now.

For us, we had planned to go back to Shanghai on the 4th. Past tense. But our flight was cancelled (apparently? still waiting on that refund), so now we're looking to extend our holiday. Because Shanghai is a boring ghost town anyway, and they pushed back school's opening (on paper to the 16th, but it will almost assuredly be longer). Ella cannot extend her Thai visa - though props to Thailand, they will extend them for people in and around Wuhan. So our new plan is to go to Malaysia. It's safe, not too expensive, has some of the best healthcare in the world, close, and Ella's never been. We're waiting on Ella's visa for now, fortunately Americans don't need one. All goes well, we can stay in Malaysia a month, but we have a flight booked back to Shanghai for earlier than that, because you need one to get a visa. I'm not sure if we'll take the flight. From what I've heard though, airlines must give refunds up until the end of Feb (as of now), but even if not, it's AirAsia. I'm willing to take the $100 hit. And that's where we stand.

3)

This is the part that I bet will shock everyone.

Everything is pretty much normal outside of Hubei.

People are reporting how cities are ghost towns now, everything is closed, it's hard to get things, etc. I have to imagine these reporters have never been to China during Spring Festival before. All cities are ghost towns. I remember 9ish years ago, when we went to Shanghai for the break, we crossed a major road on foot because there was not a single car in sight. Everyone goes to the countryside for Chinese New Year to see their family. Nothing is open. Nobody is working. Granted this thing made people stay inside even more, but it's par for the course. Everything else is functioning as normal, including the metro, grocery stores, etc.. The few foreigners I know that stayed in Shanghai complain more about boredom than anything else.

Inside Wuhan, it's... okay. At the start there were shortages as people bought up food, but now the government has done a really great job of keeping them supplied. I know any praise of the CCP might be shocking to hear, but really I think they've handled things quite well. Could they do things better? Sure, hindsight is 20/20. The local government could have reported things faster. Hospitals should have had better contingency plans in place, especially after SARS. But in this situation, I'd take China over the US. No way can the US build a hospital in a week. Or impose a quarantine. Or have the control to prevent looting and price gouging.

Now Chinese folks are just chilling at home. A ton are watching the livestream of the new hospital being built, are donating money, and chatting online to prevent boredom. The videos people have been making of them cooped up in their house with nothing to do have been creative, funny, and at times amazing. People only go out to get supplies and come back. And the country seems more connected, more like a family, then I've experienced in my time here.

4)

First, people need to chill out.

I'm not saying to forget about what's going on, but let's keep things on a reasonable level, alright? This is not the end of the world. Yes it's not good, especially for very young and older people. And that is something that we need to really be vigilant about. But let's keep things in perspective - as it stands, the flu kills orders of magnitude more people each year. And yet here we are. True this is now more deadly than the flu per patient, and we should quarantine and restrict travel, if only to get ahead of it. But really. Things will be okay. If it's anything like it's SARS, Swine flu, etc. cousins, the near future will see a record every day. Then it will flatten out.

Of course, if you read CNN you may think otherwise. I remember a couple years ago, when I was in Bali for the earthquake that killed hundreds in Lombok, CNN reported "BALI ROCKED BY EARTHQUAKE". And my thought was "Eh, not really. It was mild, caused no significant damage, nobody died, and what about Lombok where people ACTUALLY died?" This time, CNN is back at using the most... I don't know... hyperbolic possible words. Like presently, they have "DEATH TOLL SPIKES" (It is a spike I suppose, but this is an ongoing thing so every death is a "spike"), "CHINA MARKS DEADLIEST DAY" (yes again, it is on an exponential curve, so every day will be that for a while), "SHANGHAI IS 'LIKE ZOMBIELAND'" (see previous point, it is every New Year). I mean, after this, I just can't take them seriously as a news source anymore. First, does it have to be all caps? Why are you yelling? And if they exaggerate about this, what else do they exaggerate? Other American news websites have been a little better, but everything just seems so clickbaity. I've been using them less and less over the years, and after this, I'm definitely cutting them out. Aljazeera especially has been far better than pretty much any American news, so props to them.

Honestly I hope some good will come from this after it passes. I hope China gets more serious with hygeine, for one. Maybe make it a rule for all public restrooms to have soap, I dunno. I know I've learned a lot from the government notices. Like most of you I'm sure, I'm just kind of on autopilot when I wash my hands. I've now noticed I could be doing a better job. Also I hope China makes the ban on eating wild animals permanent. I always assumed it was illegal, but apparently not. Anyway, even if you think eating pangolin will give you a better erection or whatever, it's probably not worth going through this again.

And finally, I hope after this is all over, we can all remember how it brought us together. I know it will almost certainly be a fleeting moment, similar to September 11th, or the death of King Rama IX. But hopefully it stays around as long as possible.

That's all I've got for now. Feel free to hit me up if you've got time, aside from going to the beach we don't have much going on.

Happy New Year! It feels weird to know another decade has passed, but I think it's safe to say this decade has been by far the most momentous of my life, and it's hard to imagine one is going to surpass it. 10 years ago, I had a comfortably routine life back in Cincinnati, working in tech support. Pretty much every weekend was dinner and OTR, or a house party at Camp Nerd, The Jacobs' Place, or Ryan's Condo. I really like those times, and the people I met during then will continue to be among my best friends. But after doing it for years... I just felt tired of working for the weekend, to get only a few weeks at most off per year, doing something I didn't really enjoy. And so, after a fateful trip to Korea and learning that ESL was a thing, I started doing research. 10 years ago I hadn't yet started down the road that would lead me to Hangzhou, that anniversary is another 8 or 9 months away. Shortly after that, I started this blog in November 2011, and the rest is history.

Forgot about this - school field trip to a petting zoo. With foam for some reason.

But zooming into just 2019, it has overall been pretty momentous. To start, I finished my contract in Guangzhou, which I've already reflected on here.  This was followed by a trip to New York, Cincinnati, and back, which has just solidified that I think New York is probably the only city in the US I could really see myself living in. Most of my development has been professional, picking up about 5 teaching certifications in that time - and of course, Ella and I publishing our book. We moved to Shanghai to start my new job, while Ella has and continues to throw herself full time into professional development herself. My new job is overall pretty nice, and while the new style of teaching isn't "blowing my mind" like I had hoped, it is one of the better jobs I've had, and it will look really good on the resume whenever I move on. The last month has actually been quite stressful for us, but mostly Ella - with her DELTA exam in early December, and preparing for our Chinese New Year holiday next month. We're taking Ella's folks around Cambodia and Thailand, which has been quite a chore to get everything set for. While we'd be fine roughing it as we go, her parents probably less so. We're still not done with those plans actually, because we're deciding where just Ella and I are going to go after that. But in the end, "deciding which beach in which country we want to spend our month long holiday on" is very much a problem I am privileged to have, and just reinforces the fact I made the right decision to leave the US 9ish years ago. And speaking of numbers, I've got some more: 4 down, 2 to go.

What am I talking about? Disney of course! I can check Anaheim, Orlando, Tokyo, and now Shanghai off the list - what a great way to end the New Year! I only have Hong Kong and Paris left. Which, how did I miss Hong Kong? Oh well.

Disney Shanghai is good, but left me somewhat wanting more. Maybe it was because I was a kid when I went to Orlando's, or it is objectively much better. But I still felt this was "Diet Disney". It's a fairly small park first of all, without any real roller-coasters. Tron is it's big thing, but it's pretty tame honestly. Space Mountain is a much bigger deal. We rode on The Seven Dwarves' Minecart, which is basically Big Thunder Mountain. It felt a lot like King's Island's Adventure Express, a nice warmup sort of coaster that had some cool parts, but didn't give me a rush something like The Beast or The Vortex (RIP) does.

But anyway, enough about coasters. We and two friends set out in the morning to ride Line 11 to the end, which was honestly only about an hour and some change door-to-door. This is definitely the closest I have ever lived to a Disney park, and it's probably the cheapest in the world to go to as well - about $50 for the day, with a free meal included. Funny story about that meal. When Disney opened, people got pretty angry about how much Disney charged for food. And to be honest it is a bit deserved. I know they make a lot of their money in concessions, but paying $12 for a bowl of noodles when they're $2 outside the park is a little ridiculous. So people started to bring in food. Then Disney is like "Nuh uh", then grandmas and grandpas are like "Uh huh", then fights started happening. Lest ye be warned, never try to come between older Chinese and their money. Anyway, all this daily arguing was ruining their reputation as "The Happiest Place on Earth", there was a lawsuit, and now Disney lets you bring in food. Which we were happy to do, minus the free meal. And the free meal is a bit of a trap, of course. It's only at a small number of locations, and you can buy the most basic thing with the coupon. And if you or your kid is like "I want ice cream!", or "I want the other thing!", they get money from you in the end. I pondered that I bet Disney will raise ticket prices because of this, and the day after we went, I saw on the news come June 2020 prices are going up.

The park itself is quite nice, and is mostly exactly what you expect from a Disney park. The main street is beautiful, and there are a lot of little touches that make it really special. Because we went in the winter, I was a little sad there weren't any characters walking around (that I saw at least), which somewhat subtracted from the overall experience. But it still had all that Disney charm that made it seem special, along with being probably the cleanest place in China. One of our first rides was the Discovery Adventure... climb... thing. I've not seen this at another Disney park, and it was pretty neat. You wear a safety harness attached to an overhead track. And it's sort of like an Indiana Jones, wilderness obstacle course. You swing across pits, shimmy behind a waterfall, and balance on rope bridges. I'm happy to say there was only one time that I relied on the harness, because one of the ledges behind the waterfall was quite tough - my legs weren't long enough. So that would be the end of my adventuring career.

Other highlights were Peter Pan (fun), Pirates of the Caribbean (Ella's favorite - pirates talking in Mandarin sounds funny), and Buzz Lightyear's Star Command. The last one was especially awesome, despite being a kids ride. You ride through a robot invasion, and you have a laser to zap the targets on the aliens. I'm happy to say I had 899,000 points, which is only a bit shy of the top rank of 1 million. Now that I know some tricks, I'm pretty confident I can break that next time. You can see from my picture, I have never been more serious in my life.

There was one more notable thing about SHD, The Pirates of the Caribbean show. This was a really cool performance, beginning in slapstick sort of style, before transitioning into a large theater. There was more nonsense, including a Jack Sparrow who came in flying over the audience. Suddenly, two cartoony style cannons "fired" at the stage, and the whole curtain came down to reveal a life-size pirate ship set. It was really impressive, and my favorite part. Lots of stunts, pyrotechnics, you get the idea. We ended the day by seeing the light and firework show, and man, seeing TIE Fighters and X-Wings projected on the castle is just so surreal. If you told teenage me Disney owns Star Wars now, there's 5 new Star Wars films and half of them suck, he never would have believed you. Back on the metro, we got to see the real China experience - people walking up and down the train selling knockoff or "acquired" from the factory Disney merch. What costs 200 yuan ($28) in the park costs 20 here, or even 10 once you get a few stops away and they get more desperate.

So yeah, Disney was overall quite good. I think if you go there on a cold and rainy day, you can probably finish the whole park in one go. But for us, it was a little crowded, and I think we have enough left that a 2nd day would be worth it. I'm sure we'll get a chance, because it's literally like RIGHT THERE.