At 1.30 on Saturday afternoon I got into my Taxi to take me to the Pudong airport. It cost 400 rmb to get me there but to be honest I really did not have a lot of choice because I had so much luggage and getting to the airport via public transport was limited.

It was a large people mover that I got into and I slid open the door and said my goodbye’s to Sissi and got in, I hate saying goodbye especially when I don’t know when we will see each other again. The driver asked me to put on my seat belt and then we headed off.

Once on the freeway I watched Suzhou slide passed and took my last look at the East Gate and then lay back and closed my eyes and enjoyed the heat of the sun coming through the side window warming up my whole body. It was still very cool outside but in here it was very comfortable and snug.

We passed through a few toll gates as we make our way towards Shanghai and the final one we go through is on the city outskirts where we go from Suzhou city to Shanghai city and at this gate we have many health officials ready to take the temperatures of everybody in the cars. My driver stopped and got his taken and then they came around to my side and slid the door open. I presented my wrist to him after I dug it out from my very warm thermal jacket that I had on, immediately the thermometer went bright red………….I was like “FUCK!” I gave him my other wrist and the same thing happened and then I said “ I’m sitting at the window and the sun is streaming in and I am wearing a thermal jacket, that’s why my temperature is so high” and another thing……..how accurate are these thermometers anyway. SO at this point I am thinking I’m about to get dragged out the van and have a thermometer shoved into an orifice.

The door is shut and the guy just points forward and then the driver had the presence of mind to just slowly drive away and then the next thing you know we are back up at cruising speed and back on our way to the airport and all the time waiting for the police car to come along side and flag us down, but thankfully this did not happen and I was back on my way to the airport.

The driver seemed quite concerned and was telling me to drink plenty of cold water when I get to the airport to reduce my body temperature, but I knew I was OK because this is the first time I have registered high.

When he dropped me off there were two other cars there and only a handful of people hanging around. I entered through door 6 and through the first security check and was surprised that my temperature was not taken; maybe they had thermal cameras somewhere. On to the check in desk and waited a further 30 minutes for them to open.

I had to fill out another medical certificate to state where I had come to, where I am going and then it’s onto passport control where they check this once more along with my passport, I’m the only person in the departure area waiting to have my passport checked. This is a huge airport and normally to get through passport control you need to wait at least 30 mins, but today there is no one.

Security check is next and I am once again on my own and after a thorough check I’m through and I head to Starbucks to buy coffee because it is the only place open, luckily I bought bread at the bakers before leaving for the airport and so I know I’m not going to starve to death as I wait for my plane. I got here 5 hours before my flight was due for departure but I just wanted to get here in case there may be delays with all the people leaving the country but as it turns out there are very few people here.

The plane leaves on time and I would think that we had no more than 40 people on board and that is including the crew. There were two people in Business Class and most of us were spread throughout the cabin. I had a window seat so I could lie down and get a snooze, I could have crossed the aisle to the centre row of seats but I just  stayed where I was. I slept on and off for about 7 hours and then I slowly came to and just in time for a breakfast of fried rice and I also finished off the bread I had left.

On arrival we went through a special COVID channel where our temperatures were taken and we were given advice on what to do next in regards to the 14 day quarantine and personal hygiene etc. Then we were free to pick up our bags and leave the airport. I had a connecting flight with Qantas and so I went to check in. I knew my bags were overweight and was expecting a little bit of a challenge because of this and I was not disappointed. I was lucky to be served by the overweight gay boy with an utter distaste for an old Scottish guy wearing a mask and protesting because he was going to be charged for excess baggage. More on that later.

I got through to T3 and waited for 5 hours or so for my flight up to my sisters. It was a small plane and the flight was only an hour so it was not too bad and when we arrived it was only 5 mins till we were out in the car park.

So glad to have finally arrived after my long and stressful journey which was not helped by the fat gay boy, but at last I could rest my weary head. I was so relieved to have finally made it here because over the last few weeks in China there have been stories of flight cancellations and then there were more travel bans coming into place and I had visions of being stuck in China in a situation that I wanted to get away from.