Unbelievable

Well, yesterday Brad and I said goodbye to Yichang. Some of my favorite people in the world literally wiped the tears from my eyes and watched us drive away. We said goodbye to our little corner of the world where we've lived the most amazing 2 1/2 years ever...

We got to the airport, worried about overweight bags, and saw that our flight was delayed. (Yichang's airport was built in a fog hole. Brilliant.) Meanwhile it started to snow! We waited at the airport for 4 hours to see if it'd be canceled. It was.

This means we missed the boat. Literally. We were supposed to take a boat from Shanghai to Japan this morning. Where am I now? Yichang. My apartment. My bare, foodless apartment! We have spent the last few days cleaning out, throwing away, giving away, everything (EVERYTHING) in our apartments. And now we're back. We've already said goodbye!

So last night we trudged all our junk back to our building. We went to Pizza Hut and watched the snow, half irritated at all that had happened, half thankful for another night in Yichang. So now we're hiding out. We don't want to see anyone we know! We've already said our tearful goodbyes and don't want to have to do that again. (So if you're in Yichang and you read this...don't find us and don't tell anyone we're here! It's just too much.)

Now we're trying to figure out if Japan is still a possibility. The boat schedule is weird and we're not sure if we can work everything out, figuring in our expiring visas and international flight. We were really hoping for a buffer between China and the U.S. Time to process. Time to adjust our minds. One last foreign adventure. (Although I guess getting out of China in itself will be an adventure.)

We are thankful for a few things in all of this.
1) We got to see the Madam again (our landlady) and she told us she loved us, missed us, and that we were best friends. She did everything she could to welcome us back under such ridiculous circumstances. Brad has always said on the last day he was going to kiss her (hand)...its been an ongoing joke. He forgot yesterday in the midst of goodbyes! So now he'll have a second chance. :)
2) Now we can mail back a few things to make sure our luggage is under the weight limit for our international flight.
3) For whatever reason, I had left some towels, shampoo, slippers, etc in my apartment!
4) Yichang is beautiful in the snow.