Beijing AQI

When we landed into a cloud of smog, Joshua noted, "There is a lot of carbon dioxide out there." Well, technically it's not CO2, but he's got the right idea. I was immediately grateful that Annette brought those three air purifiers with us.

We monitor the Beijing Air Quality Index (AQI), and have noticed that it seems to have a circadian rhythm varying with the wind patterns.

The air quality in Beijing has been surprisingly good and really hasn't been as bad as I was expecting. I even contemplated going on a run yesterday, except it was 91 degrees outside.

Flight to Beijing

It has been a little crazy packing and getting ready for our move the past days. Both Annette and I didn't get to sleep 2 of the last 3 nights.
But we found a really nice airport shuttle driver, Tony, who helped get us and our 13 pieces of luggage to the airport at 4 am this morning.
Unfortunately, our connecting flight in Denver was delayed, so we missed our flight out of SFO to Beijing. But then, there was a cooling issue with that aircraft, so the pilot turned the plane back while taxiing on the runway, and had everyone get off the plane.
So fortunately for us, now we are back on the flight we had missed. :-)
Now if our luggage can just make it out with us...

Visas and Packing

After all that hounding folks in China, the expense (>$1200), checking and rechecking the forms, fedexing documents to a company in NYC to expedite the visa processing, facetiming with admins to make sure the information was correct, and the long long wait, we finally got our China Visa today.  Yippeee.  And also underwhelming--it was just 1 sticker on each of our passports.  I told Annette, "All that for this?"  She said, "Get used to it.  Bureaucracy in China means taking a lot of time and trouble to do very simple things."  OK, here we go.

We are packing 4 big suitcases,  4 carryons, and 3 big air purifiers for our trip.  T minus 5 days until take off.

Samuel has just started to express a lot of hesitation about moving from Boston.  "Can we go to China for 2 days and then come back to Boston?" he asked Annette this morning.   Joshua is feeling "good and happy" about it, for now.

Another environmental scare story about Beijing

"Life in a Toxic Country" from NY Times Aug 3, 2013