Solen sken i måndags (3/1) och det gick snabbt att få en bil när jag skulle till jobbet.
Lugn trafik och wow, bara 22 minuter till jobbet mot vanliga 35!
Nästan framme vid jobbet skriver jag till Frank, ”What have I missed, there’s no traffic?”
Snabbt får jag ett svar, ”No. It is a public holiday today…”
Så där var jag, utanför jobbet, grindarna stängda… när jag kunde haft sovmorgon lite till.
Hur hade jag kunnat missat den lediga dagen? Ingen aning! Efter lite mer grävande hittar jag ett mail från HR den 16/12 som visar alla lediga dagar i Kina under 2022. Inte en tanke hade jag på att de var lediga den 3/1. Bara den 1/1 är ledig dag här…
Sagt och gjort, berättar för min DiDi chaufför att det bara är att åka tillbaka. Gissa om han såg snopen ut!
”Employee of the year”, tyckte Frank om att jag åkte till jobbet när jag inte behövde!
Få tag på bil när det regnar
Idag, den 5/1, har det regnat hela morgonen. Det brukar betyda en sak, omöjligt att få tag på en bil.
Klockan 08:00 lägger jag in beställningen på att få en bil, av antingen klassen Express, Select eller Premier. Känner på mig att det blir en besvärlig dag att få bil.
Lobbyn är full av folk som väntar.
Appen visar köplats 18 av 22, väntetid 10 minuter. Ok, inte så farligt.
Tiden går, och klockan 08:55 är jag på plats 1. Dvs de 10 minuterna var inte sanna. När jag väl var på plats 1 ser jag att kön börjar krympa, dvs från att vara 1 av 11 är jag plötsligt nummer 1 av 5…
Problemet med DiDi-kön är att chaufförerna väljer vem de tar, dvs kön är bara en chimär… den finns egentligen inte…
Klockan 09:10 avbryter jag min väntan och börjar söka på nytt. Så vips, inom en minut har jag en bil…
A lot have happened since my last blog entry. Cases in Nanjing went up and down. City-wide tests were performed again.
I booked myself in for a test to get a written test result in Chinese, this to allow me to leave Nanjing for Shanghai and a way to get to Sweden through Frankfurt.
On the 2nd of August, Frank helped me to get a test done at the Jiangsu Peoples Hospital. On the morning of the 3rd I had a digital covid test in my hand. I could now leave Nanjing.
I booked a train out of Nanjing on the afternoon of the 3rd and a hotel room at ANdAZ in Shanghai, our favorite hotel there.
The railway station was almost completely deserted, strange feeling in a city of 10’000’000 people! I got on the train and could easily get into Shanghai by showing my green Health Code.
Next obstacle now was to get yet another covid test report, this time in English. Without that one I wouldn’t be allowed to board the Lufthansa flight to Germany, nor enter the Shengen area on the airport in Frankfurt.
On the morning of the 4th I got to a tiny hospital in Shanghai. Of course no-one could talk English to me there, but Frank could (as always) be my interpreter on the phone through speaker mode.
This time they tested me in the nose AND the throat…yuck! I have so big problems with those throat tests, makes me wanna throw-up…
On the morning of the 5th, I got my dual language test report, now I could fly home!
The flight was at 23:50 on Thursday evening so I had a lot of time to kill in Shanghai. Got to the airport around 20:30, never been in such a long and slow checkin queue. Not until 22:50 I was ready to go through the immigration and security checks.
The flight
The flight was fully booked, not what one had expected during the covid time. No real danger in itself since China is almost without cases.
Felt good to fly home and I was actually able to sleep a few hours which was good.
Landed at Frankfurt airport at 05:20 in the morning and had to wait for next flight until 10:20. But if there’s something I am getting used to it is to kill time while waiting for something.
Home
It felt really good to be met by Nina and Christoffer at the airport! I had finally gotten home!!
Only issue now is that I don’t have a flight back to China! It is lost in all rebookings of this flight…
The story continues. Fifteen minutes ago they called and said, your flight on the 3rd of August is cancelled, is it ok for you to fly on the 5th of August from Pudong, Shanghai instead?
The covid cases are increasing in Nanjing, really not surprised that the airport isn’t open again on Tuesday next week.
Since the last blog post on this topic, the entire city have been tested again. This time I did choose a test site that is close to where we live. I can sit on the balcony to check the queue length.
Today it only took 19 minutes, to be compared with the last 5 hours and 42 minutes.
We were all lined up in three queues. One test bottle per 10 people. So they took each test swab and put it in the same bottle for 10 people. In this way they only have to do one million tests to test a population of 10 million. Probably a bit more error prone but…
The number of cases look like in the graph below, and every single case is listed of their whereabouts for everyone to see if they have been in risk of exposure.
To be safe in having multiple negative COVID tests done, me and Frank went to another hospital this morning. This one had proven itself to produce results quickly for a colleague. Something good!
On the way in the DiDi to the hospital, the news started to be more clear… Beijing is now putting everyone from Nanjing into 14 days quarantine when reaching Beijing…
– What? Did I hear right? You must be kidding…
– Nope, it is true!
Ok, skip the test. I won’t anyway go to Beijing with that threat over my head…
New plan…
There’s a flight from Nanjing to Frankfurt on Tuesday, I’ll give that one a shot! Cancel train to Beijing. Cancel flight from Beijing. Book new flight from Nanjing with Lufthansa.
Ok, not so bad, only loosing a few days more.
Meanwhile in Nanjing. People who have been at Nanjing airport is starting to get their health code turning into yellow instead of green. This means they have to do at least three tests. Two within 24 hours and one after 6 days. And during this, stay at home…
I get the booking suggestion from the Travel Agent. Good I say, go ahead. Two minutes later I get a note from a friend saying, the Lufthansa flight on Tuesday is….CANCELLED…
Again… this is haunting me! Ok, what other flights are there? None!….
Finally, rebooked to next week’s Lufthansa flight (do you think it will fly?) on 3rd of August.
This is getting really frustrating, but as someone said, if anything, this pandemic has shown that we all start to getting used to constant changes…
Incoming
As if it wasn’t enough with my travel problems, we have an incoming Typhoon… and according to the projected trajectory, we are in its way… fun…
Time for my home trip! Finally, after being here since 24th of March 2020.
The expectations are high! Trip is planned to 23rd of July. Flying from Nanjing to Beijing in the morning, then from Beijing to Stockholm in the afternoon. A really good trip when everything works as expected.
Things starts to go wrong
On Tuesday, evening at 22:19 (20th of July), my assistant writes me on WeChat ”I heard about COVID-19 positive cases at NKG”. NKG is the abbreviation for the Nanjing Lukou Airport.
In the morning it is clear that 9 people from the cleaning staff at the airport is tested positive for Covid-19. To put in perspective, there haven’t been any local cases in Nanjing since March 2020. If a city get cases, they do city-wide testing and partial/full lockdown.
Getting tested
Message gets out, you have to have a negative Covid-19 test to be able to leave Nanjing by air, train or road. Ok, let’s find a testing spot. After some searching I get directed by Sissi (helping with accomodation and such here in Nanjing) guides me to a spot.
The time is 16:50 when I arrive at the test site. The heat is terrible, and the queue is even worse. I get in line. It is slow. Painfully slow. A long(!) story short… it takes me 5 hours and 42 minutes to get to the end of the line and get tested. Yes you heard right, almost 6 hours. I put my Apple Watch into recording mode to record the route. Actual moving time is 5 minutes and 14 seconds… new record for me in slow moving.
When finally getting home, close to 23:00, the rumor is that there will be no test results from today’s mass testing… They take 10 individual samples, put together in one test. If negative, all 10 are cleared green. If positive, all 10 will be summoned upon to retest, to find the one that was positive… A smart way to test 10 million people through only 1 million tests… But probably very error prone method. And, at the end, Krister will not get a individual test result!!
And it gets worse…
Flight cancellation
At noon Wednesday, I get a message ”Your flight from Nanjing to Beijing on Friday 23rd of July has been cancelled”!
Shit, now I don’t even have a connection to my flight from Beijing to Stockholm. Panic! Starting to search for options. Apparently almost all flights from NKG are cancelled because of the covid cases.
Ah, there’s trains! Let’s book a train to Beijing and spend a night in Beijing while waiting for the flight. The travel time is between 3:30 hours and 5:00 hours depending of how many stops the fast train does.
But wait, I can’t use the train, because I have no valid negative test within 48 hours of me leaving Nanjing… So it is obvious that I can’t take the flight on Friday to Stockholm.
Rebook flight
I have to wait a week for the next flight since there is only one flight per week from Beijing to Stockholm. I tell this to my travel agency, please rebook me to next Friday. Their return answer surprises me, there is a flight this Sunday, on the 25th! Apparently Air China is now having two flights per week to Stockholm.
Ok, time to pick up speed again. Get a new test, with test result this time! Book a train and book a hotel. I find a train leaving Nanjing South at 15:20 on the 24th and I book a hotel in Beijing. Done! Finally a path!
Me and my assistant decides to go to Jiangsu Peoples Hospital early on the 23rd to get the test with the needed test result papers.
2nd Covid test
At 7:30 we meet up at the hospital. It is hot outside, already sweating like never before. A humid sauna outside.
After a while of searching our path in the giant hospital we end up at an information desk. Oh, sorry, we can’t do the tests with the result papers now, because of the mass testing situation… gaahh!
Find another hospital… Good thing I have Frank with me, would never had done any of these with my level of Chinese or phone translation.
We go a few hundred meters east to the Brain Hospital, specialized on…yes brains.
We register myself and pay the 80 RMB fee to do the test including result papers. This time the test is in the throat, oh I hate it, almost throws up when they tickle me in the back of my throat. Nose tests are not nice, but for me, better.
We are told that the test result will be ready in the afternoon(!) tomorrow, on the 24th. Oh shit, that’s too late. The train leaves at that time. What to do? Yep, just reschedule the train.
New train is booked at 20:06 in the evening of the 24th. Should give some time to get the test result in. But still tight.
Waiting…
Now I am sitting on the balcony, waiting for new news, or no news, or…
Rumor now is that Beijing might quarantine everyone that arrives from Nanjing… I don’t want that… that kills everything.
On 26th of April, the World Intellectual Property Day, I took part in Nanjing Jiangning District’s Patent Award Ceremony. Guodian Nanjing Automation was one of many companies that were rewarded for good work on intellectual property.
Myself and a colleague (and my translator) joined the session.
Ja, inte mycket blev som det var tänkt. Jag skulle ju varit hemma i Sverige och firat.
Då det visade sig att man inte kunde flyga transit längre, bara direktflyg var tillåtet till Kina, begränsades rutten till Beijing – Arlanda. När det dessutom visade sig att troligen 14+14 dagars karantän skulle bli ett krav, beslöts att jag stannade kvar i Kina.
Min planerade resa var annars 20/12 till 8/1. Skulle bli en månads karantän för tre veckor i Sverige. Veckor som man dessutom inte kunde använda till att träffa familj och vänner pga Covid restriktioner. Tråkigt värre!!
Här i Kina är den enda lediga dagen över jul och nyår på självaste nyårsdagen. Dvs 1:a januari, alla andra dagar var som vanliga vardagar. För att få lite julkänsla tog jag ledigt 24-25 och 31.
I lobbyn på Fraser Suites hade man fixat en STOR julgran!
Stor gran i lobbyn
Min egen gran var inte lika stor…
Min egen lilla gran
Andreas och Madde hade bjudit hem mig på julbord på julafton. Vi åt nästan ett svenskt julbord, var sillen som lyste mest med sin frånvaro! Gott och trevligt som alltid!
Nyår
Nyårsafton firade jag på Fairmont. En god middag på Vancouver Grill och nyårsnedräkningen i Lobby baren. Var gott om goda vänner där, kanske varit där för ofta… 😉
Maten på Vancouver Grill är alltid utsökt!
God middag på Vancouver Grill
Fick sällskap vid bordet av Edwin
Edwin gräver i telefonen som alla kineser gör
Efter middagen flyttade alla till Lobbybaren där det var fixat för Nyårsfest!
Det här var den andra födelsedagen som jag firat utan nära och kära. Första gången var när jag fyllde 45, då var jag i Calgary och tittade på NHL för första gången (och hittills enda) live.
Den gången var jag ensam pga tjänsteresa till USA och Kanada. Den här gången är jag ensam pga Covid-19… Nina flög hem till Sverige, till killarna, för att fira jul och nyår. Tanken var att jag skulle göra detsamma, men flyga hem en månad senare, den 20:e december. Då jag var alldeles för länge i Sverige i våras också pga Covid. Maxgränsen för mig att vara i Sverige är 72 dagar om året. Passeras det åker jag på dubbelbeskattning, inte kul!
Så här satt jag själv. Nina propsade på att jag skulle kontakta James för att boka bord åt mig på Grand James. Började misstänka något… Sagt och gjort, jag kontaktade James och bad honom boka bord åt mig vid 19:00.
Väl där träffar jag James som fixat en bord för två, för honom och mig 🙂 Självaste restaurangchefen bjöd på middag på min födelsedag.
James himself
Hemgjord mulled wine, dvs deras variant på glögg bjöds på. Gott! Strax efter att jag kom till restaurangen kom även Torben från Danmark! Nu var vi tre till bords.
Mulled wine
James bjöd oss på en god förrätt, en bricka med korvar och ostar. Till huvudrätt bjöds på lax!
En god laxrätt!!!
Mitt i middagen dyker Frank (min assistent) och hans fru Ying upp, de vet också om att jag är på Grand James. Jag får ett fint paket av dem!
Frank och Ying passade på att festa på Grand James
Middagen avslutas med en god tårta!
Krister skär och Torben tittar förväntansfullt på!
Tack Nina för att du fixade fint åt mig trots att vi inte var där tillsammans!
