Strap in for a kind of "down" entry today. Although this blog is about my life/travel, I feel there isn't anything to really get excited about. But I have some big news in that regard, so let's get to that later.

Spring is here, and it is time for the yearly school trip. I remember growing up, our school trips to places like Space Camp or Washington DC. And while those lasted a few days, those places were at least somewhat educational. China, despite their seriousness with education, sort of throws all of that out for their school trips. Last year we went to a kids theme park, and this year to essentially Sea World. I'm not exactly complaining, I got to see an orca show and lots of fishies. The real star for me though, was the roller coaster. It has been many years since my last coaster, so that was a nice surprise. Especially because this was one of the best coasters I've been on. It has a launch takeoff and winds through the park, passing closer to obstacles and people than I would expect. So, big fan.

Keeping with the animal theme, Ella and I also set out to see Shanghai's Safari Park. Essentially another zoo, but much further out in the suburbs of the city. In truth, it was kind of a pain to get to. There was a massive crowd when we got off the metro, and despite the metro station being named after the park, it was still about 2.5 km away. So, everyone was crowding onto the shuttle bus. Fortunately I found a local bus that had a stop about a 5 minute walk away, so that was a welcome reprieve. As for the park itself, it's nice. Saw some red pandas, elephants, you know, zoo stuff. But while it was perfectly fine, I kind of don't see the point in going. It's considerably more expensive than the Shanghai City Zoo, at about $30 a ticket. Not crazy by any means, but the city zoo is less than half that, and more or less downtown. And honestly, is pretty similar in quality. Anyway, we checked it off the list, so here's some animals being their cute selves.

 

And the last outing of note, Ella and visited Suzhou. It's about an hour from Shanghai. I've visited there a few times before, most recently with my parents during Chinese New Year. This time, Ella and I had a vague idea of what to do - mostly the stuff that we didn't get around to last time because it was too crowded. I thought, with a 5 day holiday coming up in two weeks, most people would not be traveling. And I thought wrong. The biggest sights in the city, The Suzhou Museum and the Administrator's Garden, were completely packed. In fact, we couldn't even get tickets until the next day. Instead we walked through the canals, and visited another, significantly less touristy but equally impressive garden. Also the giant pants building, because it is a "landmark" of Suzhou and near a restaurant we wanted to try.

Maybe you can tell by my writing that I wasn't terribly impressed with Suzhou. And there is nothing wrong with Suzhou per se. It's a pretty city, and what they have is popular, given the throngs of visitors. I am sure someone new to the country would love it. But it has what every other place in China has - a garden. a museum. a famous guys former home. a temple. a defining monument/building. And guys, I gotta be honest - I have seen way too many of those things. In fact, we had planned on traveling to Qingdao for the Labor Day Holiday, but we didn't get the train tickets. We could have taken a flight instead, but actually, I didn't even want to bother. I spoke about this in a past blog, but I'm getting quite burnt out on China travel. In that blog, I left it a bit up in the air of what to do. But I think Ella and I have a goal now, and as expected, it's to leave China.

Now the question is where? Well, Ella and I have been planning a Europe trip for the summer, and oh boy, let me tell you - it is a pain. We've practically assembled an encyclopedia of documents just for Ella to be a tourist. This visa has been in process for about a month and a half now, and we're now finally, finally maybe getting to the end, after probably a hundred of cumulative hours invested. If this is the future of traveling with a Chinese passport, we don't want to be a part of that. After a lot of research, I think our best next move is a strange one - either Argentina or Portugal. Both offer digital nomad visas, which are seemingly easy to get. Argentina is the cheaper/faster option at only 2 years, but even though Portugal is 5 years, it has the advantage of being an EU Passport. No matter which we choose, it means we'll be working online, which isn't exactly a bad deal. I quite liked teaching online during lockdown, and there is a massive demand for teachers doing that. We could easily live on one income in Argentina, although Portugal would be tight. The hope is Ella finishes her coding career path and finds something, even part time, and then we have a real shot at it.

Anyway, this is not an urgent thing. We'll be in Shanghai another year at least, so China isn't going away yet. Instead we're taking advantage of the opportunities we have here to save money and plan our next move. And who knows, I may find an option C in the interim. But it's nice to have some hope, because after the dumpster fire of getting Ella a Schengen visa, we need it.