I Made It!

How does a small town girl from Hanna, Alberta end up in Shenzhen, China you ask? You follow your husband, of course, because I would never have the courage to do this on my own.  After making the fateful decision that would turn our average Canadian suburban life upside down we went through a mountain of preparation including Visa applications, medicals, inoculations, psychological testing (could have been dicey here) and cultural training. My husband, David, went a month before I did and started his new job right away and really did not miss beat. Good for him!

My month at home by myself was quite a change since I haven’t lived on my own since before we were married. It was kind of a nice and I think I was beginning to like living on my own…not much laundry, no meals to be made on time, house didn’t get messy, that sort of thing. I was kind of thinking that maybe I would tell David “Just kidding, I’m not coming” but sanity prevailed and we got a ticket booked.

Packing and organizing for this move had been ongoing for about a month, making countless lists and revising the countless lists. I finally got to a point where I stopped analyzing what to pack and just packed.  Hopefully I made a few right decisions about what I will need here.  I have travelled quite a bit but never much on my own and never on a long haul flight solo. Getting to Vancouver was no problem and I was delighted to run into Liz and Shannon Hawrylak from Lloydminster, AB. while waiting to board the flight to Hong Kong. Liz and I taught at the same school for awhile when we lived in Lloyd and was Holly’s Grade 2 teacher. Shannon was our ever faithful babysitter and our kids loved her.

The flight was smooth and very pleasant but now I had to do the hard part on my own…immigration and finding David. Thankfully, Hong Kong immigration was a breeze as was finding my bags. Loading them on a baggage cart proved somewhat of a challenge but mission accomplished with the help of gravity.  David was outside the gate, patiently waiting for me with James, our relocation specialist. James took over and loaded us and my luggage into a gull wing Tesla for an hour drive to the Hong Kong/China border. Here we had to bring in my bags to go through China immigration. This was all automatically done by inserting your passport into the machine and then getting your fingerprints done. You then filled out a card and proceeded to the man behind the glass, who was very efficient and a little bit scary. Everything was in order and they let me in! Next up was the x-raying of my luggage. This was just a basic free for all where everyone stuffed their bags onto  the very small conveyor belt and pushed each other out of the way to get them on the other side. Welcome to China!

So my first blog post is complete. It reads a lot like the letters I used to send to my Mom when I was away at university. I wonder what she would think of this new adventure in my life? Well, actually I know, and she would be horrified!

Kbye!