It feels as if time has stood still for 3 years and what happens next is like picking up from where I left off.  

But a lot actually happened during the time I was effectively stuck in China.  No expat teacher would consider working here without the release valve of the winter and summer holidays.  For me these also function as time to manage my business in other countries, take a mental break, and of course do cycle touring.  The fact that 3 years of continuous living happened in China really opened my eyes to two realities.  One, it is how necessary these mental breaks are for survival.  Two, it is how many locals never actually leave the country.  The pandemic really put into perspective all these nationalist politics.

Also as a matter of practicality, most Chinese just don't get time off.  They'll get maybe two weeks of annual leave but not even that.  I'm really fortunate my wife likes to travel and can join me on some of these trips such as the one coming up.  But the general breaks center around two 7-day "golden weeks" a year and these get made up with bullshit weekend workdays before or after.  On a more general note, they also get anxious with time off and don't know what to do with it anyway.

The amount of pressure here is insane.  The life here is not conducive for mental health.  This is a city to work and make money in, that's all, you can't live here continuously.  Hence the regular breaks needed.   But what do you do when those are taken away from you?  There is probably no worse feeling in the world then when mid-June or mid-January rolls around and you've busted your ass off at work only to have no international holidays.  There were several domestic cycle tours done as a substitute on this journal here, but they couldn't even come close.

The lockdown at least gave me the resolve to realize that I can, and I will have to leave China at some point.  It started the all-important process of whittling down my stuff to a minimalist lifestyle.  That was probably the biggest success that came out of the entire pandemic.

As we prepare for this trip there are a whole host of things that will be done in my hometown Vancouver, most of it catching up on long-missed visits with friends and family.  There is also dealing with the aftermath of my Dad's passing.  At this point I have more questions than answers, but hopefully something clear will come out of this mess.  

Then there is the need to restart all these expired documents like drivers licenses and credit cards, and trying to explain where I was for the last 3 years.  I'm also trying to set things up back home wiht new bank accounts geared towards an international lifestyle and just many, many, many other things in general.

My wife also convinced me that it's better to leave behind the bikes in Shanghai and buy a new Montague over there in Vancouver which makes more sense.

After getting a bunch of shit done back home, it's then off to Texas for a week while doing a combination of cycle touring and fitness classes.  This leg has been planned rather meticulously.  Why Texas?  Well you'll need an opposite extreme to the lockdown and this is the ideal place for it.

Finally, I was able to get in touch with the Airbnb host from Pasadena where I had left behind a key piece of luggage 3 years ago on that epic trip.  Amazingly, it is still there.  She will help me pick it up as I swing by LAX on the way back.  That was a key detail I'm glad got sorted out.

Eventually we'll back to Vancouver for one last week to sort out anything else that didn't get sorted in the first two weeks.  So overall a month in Canada and the US.  It feels surreal to realize it is only a few days before we fly out.  I need to bring along two passports because the last entry to China happened in the old passport that since expired, which is a whole other story in itself.

I am excited and nervous at the same time.  While it's epic that we get to do this, there is no way to know how the pandemic affected these other parts of the world that we were cut off from.  China got its ass kicked in 2022, that much we know.  But the first two years with zero covid we had no iea what was going on overseas.  Maybe my friends and family had it worse in 2020-21 despite how their 2022 was better than ours.  How it all plays out I have no idea.  The only way to find out is to do this trip.