It Begins

After 1 1/2 hours from Colombus to Atlanta, a 3 hour layover in Atlanta, a 14 1/2 hour flight to Seoul,
a 3 hour layover in Seoul, and a 1 1/2 hour flight to Shenyang I have finally arrived in China! I am
going to start at the very beginning, right when I set foot onto Chinese land. I get off the airplane
with Coop and we start walking to immigration. We walk down a set of stairs and we are promptly surrounded
by 5 uniformed Chinese military. My mind begins to race, my heart accelerates, and I quickly begin a breathing
excercise I've learned to calm myself down. I know how to say "thank you" in Chinese, thats it
(pronounced shay shay). The guard knows just a little bit of English. I begin to pull out all of the paperwork that
I was told I was going to need. He looks them over, makes some calls and points to some chairs against the wall,
We sit. He askes me if I have a friend waiting outside and I say yes, someone from my company is waiting for me.
The guard takes me right through customs so I can give my luggage to the "friend" and we can move on through the
dog situation. The man who met me at the airport was named Eric and he is the big boss man at English First
(my school). He said he was going to meet me at the place that the government was going to be taking me. Ok, now
Im starting to worry, the breathing excercise has ceased to work and I am praying. I haven't prayed in a very long
time and I dont even know who I was praying to, all I know is that I was begging some higher power/universe to let
this ordeal end well. I prayed that the entire contents of my karma back can be emptied if it means that Coopers
stays out of quarantine. The guard takes us back to the seats and Cooper and I wait for over an hour. I ask the man if
I can take Coop outside to pee and he said "yes, 1 minute, hurry!". He follows me out and Coop must have had stage
fright or something because he couldn't pee. Later on the guard comes to me and says to follow him, he takes me to a
casually dressed man and tells me to now follow him. We do and he takes us to a very old and beat up van, points to the
back and says "ride". At this point I was just happy to be out of the airport and away from the guards. They made me
feel very uncomfortable, kind of like being around a cop in the states but 100 times worse, if that makes sense.
So we climb into this van with one bench seat in the back and thats it. Cooper and I comply even though everything even
though whats happening screams "are you fucking insane? Red flag!!". The man drives us about 20 minutes into the town
of Shenyang to an office where 2 other people (a man and a woman) are waiting for us. The driver drops us off and leaves.
The 2 people there (who speak zero English) point Cooper and I in the direction they want us to go. One room had a desk, a table,
posters with dogs on the wall, and a tub that was nearly black with filth. I show the man all of Coops paper work and he makes
copies. He takes us to another building where they took "tests". The tooks Coopers blood, stuck large q-tips up his nose, in his eye,
in his mouth, and up his butt. Mind you Cooper is just a grumpy as I am and while this is going on Coop and I make
eye contact and I can tell that he is thinking " Dude, you know this isn't my style but this chick is going to get bit".
Luckily the lady finishes her "tests" before he gets too rowdy. I am starting to feel sick to my stomach at the thought if
potentially having to leave my best friend at this place. I mean, outside there were busted open trash bags with hypodermic needles pouring out!
I think when I saw that I actually verbalized "oh hell no!". The room that they would be keeping him in looked like Auswitch for animals,
I mean it was beyong gnarley. We walk back to the original building where Eric (the EF boss) was waiting for us, he speaks
decent English. For about 20 more minutes Cooper and I stand there while they talk in Chinese. All I could do was read
their faces and try to determine whether the conversation was leaning towards a positive or negative outcome. All the while
crapping my pants. The next thing I know Eric gives the man some money and we walk out the door as free men.
No quarantine for Cooper!!! I have done my best to illustrate this entire senario for you dear reader, but the words do
not exist to try to even attempt to descrive the emotions I felt through this whole ordeal and now the elation I am felling
that my boy gets to come home with me. I almost know for a fact that if he had to go into that place for the full 30 days
it would have dont irrepitible damage. So whomever heard my unspoken words, I thank you.
Next Cooper and I climb into a car with Eric and some other fella and they begin to take us to Jinzhou, which I've learned
is pronounced "JinJoe", good to know. We drive through Shenyang and I am just staring out the window taking this all in.
There are people EVERYWHERE. They are walking, riding, scootering, driving, all of the place. The streets are absolutly
chaotic, I couldn't imagine trying to navigate this place in a car. There driving skills are strictly collision avoiding manuvers,
no real organization really. I even saw a man casually riding his 3 wheel bike (looks like a trike but backwards) straight down the street of on
comming cars, everyone just moved around him. The streets are insane. So we finally make it to Jinzhou and I get to my appartment
which I'm told by my American banker Leif that it is the "Beverly Hills if Jinzhou". Sweetness. Its a pretty nice place, There are guards
at the entrance gates. That night I go out to dinner with my DOS (director of studies) and 2 other teachers, Mike from the UK and Lauren
from California. They are both very nice and invite me to hang out with them the next day. We end dinner and I taxi home for some well deserved
Sleep.