The Mega Post

…Where do we start? Sorry for the distinct lack of blog updates, but as many of you know, we’ve had quite a, shall we say…trying recent few weeks. So much has happened since we last posted that we scarcely know where to start.

The past three weeks have included a hundred-year flood, a challenging weekend trip, a house fire and a seemingly endless search for the perfect apartment. Obviously, this is a lot to catch up on, but we’ll do our best to tell it like it happened.

August 25: The day it rained. (Written just days after the events)

Hey all. Ryan here. I though I’d fill you in on the events from Monday of this week. Since I’m still technically unemployed, I spend many of my mornings hanging out at the house. I normally meet Alexa for lunch and spend the afternoon in town. Since I feel like I get to spend so little time with her, as she goes to bed so early, I normally get up with her at 5:45 to have breakfast and hang out with her while she’s getting ready.

Monday morning, we awoke to an enormous thunderstorm. The rain was falling like someone was holding a fire hose off the roof and the thunder and lightning kept ripping across the sky. Apparently, we were experiencing the remnants of a tropical storm that had battered Hong Kong the day before.

Andy, the driver, has the day off on Monday so Alexa called for a cab to get to the metro station. The guard at the front gate who hails cabs sounded bewildered on the other end, but said he would do his best. So, we sat in the living room watching the storm out the window for about 20 minutes while we waited. The storm kept getting worse but Alexa still had to get to work, so we called the front gate again. The guard said that he was trying but now would call the dispatcher number for us. We figured that from then on, we would wait in the garage so she could be ready to jump in right away.

As many of you saw, this house is built with a sunken garage that leads into the basement. The driveway slopes downward to the house and there is a large grated drain that stretches the width of the driveway right as it meets the garage. When we opened the garage door, the drain was doing its job and was whisking the water away without complaint. But just then, the real storm started. The rainfall went from very heavy to completely surreal. Growing up in Michigan, I’ve seen some pretty amazing rainfall, but nothing could have prepared me for this. It was as if the garage was one of those caves behind a waterfall. Alexa’s cab finally arrived and she did her best to stay upright under what must have been an immensely heavy and overwhelmed umbrella as she walked up the driveway. I was so astonished at the sheer volume of water coming down that I almost didn’t notice the water pooling on top of the drain. It just couldn’t keep up with the rain and the garage began to flood. The water started to inch its way toward the back and I immediately knew that we had a major problem on our hands.

With Alexa pulling away in the cab, I had to change gears into survival mode. I decided that the best way to prevent the house from being flooded was to build a dam in front of the man-door to the garage. I found old newspapers and magazines and did what I could to stem the flow. My levee held for a while, but the water kept rising and finding cracks to penetrate and soon it was making its way into the house under the door.

Have any of you ever flushed the toilet at your friend’s house only to watch the water rise further and further toward the brim? Do you know that terrible realization, that creeping panic brought about by an unstoppable force of catastrophe? Yeah? My sentiments exactly. There I was – alone, in a foreign country, in the house of people I’ve gotten to know for only a few days – watching this disaster unfold in slow motion. The rain kept pace and the water, now filling the garage, had only one place to go – the Gougarty’s basement. I left my newspaper dam and went inside to move any valuables off the floor and enlist the help of all the towels I could get my hands on. I stuffed them under the door and held them in place on either side of the landing, but my efforts could only mitigate the water’s progress so much. I got on the phone with Alexa to tell her to come home to help and I found that trouble had come to both of us that day. This rainstorm, which we later found out caused hundred year flooding, had made the roads impassible. The scene on the street was like something from Katrina. In some places the water was so deep that it was coming in the side of the taxi. In others, it reached the top of truck tires. She had gone about a mile when the taxi driver decided to turn back. By the time she got home, the flood had covered several hundred square feet of basement space and was still pouring in through the door. I was doing my best to hold my dams in place (each one holding back another inch or two of water) and she got right in to help, looking like a drowned rat wearing a silk skirt. The rain continued for another 20 minutes before starting to let up, letting the drain relieve the water from the garage.

From there, it was a long morning of mopping up the basement. A carpeted storage room, adjacent to the garage door, had flooded severely and after we soaked as much water from the carpet as we could, plugged in a fan to dry the carpet (remember this detail). We emailed Nancy, the owner of the house and currently out of the country for 6 weeks, to explain what had happened. She sounded concerned, but grateful that we were there and said she would call the front desk of the club house to arrange for professional cleaners.

After the basement was as dry as we could get it, we retired upstairs to wait out the rest of the storm. Alexa finally made it to work that afternoon. No one said that moving to China would be easy.

August 29-31: Our weekend in Hangzhou

After the excitement of the flood finally started to subside, we decided that we needed a weekend away from the city. We had heard that a nearby town called Hangzhou (pronounced “hong-joe”) offered a retreat from the busy life in Shanghai. With plenty of cheap hotels, a peaceful lake, and the award for China’s best tourist city, we didn’t’ hesitate to buy train tickets and book a hostel. The rest of the week, we eagerly anticipated what we thought would be a relaxing weekend away.

With our suitcases packed, Ryan met me as I left work to grab a quick dinner and head for the train station. After a light Western dinner at Jamaica Blue (which has become one of our favorite haunts), we rolled our suitcases onto the street in front of Le Meriden hotel. A red taxi driver called out, “Airport?” “No, train station.” He started to open his trunk and lift our bags. “100 RMB.” Yeah, right. It should only cost like 40. We lifted our bags out and kept walking. I remember thinking how proud I was that for once, we weren’t the stupid tourists. It seems like we’re always walking around with this sign on our foreheads that says, “Please, take my money.” Not this time. But, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach when the taxi driver just sat there, waiting to prey on the next unsuspecting foreigner. I have heard that the Chinese pride themselves on being clever. Sure, they can outsmart the naive laowai, but at what cost to their integrity? Their value system is just totally different here.

When we found a cab to take us to the train station, we got stuck in horrific elevated road traffic and it took us an hour and a half to make it to the south station. We ran to our platform and barely had a moment to sit down before the train started pulling away. We rode most of the way in silence, tired and frustrated from our intense run.

At the Hangzhou station, we exited along with the other thousand or so people on the train. It always amazes me to be amongst so many black heads all moving in the same direction. It’s like salmon swimming, bouncing off each other, fighting their way upstream. Outside, we searched for our bus. But of course, after starring blankly at the bus map, which was written exclusively in Chinese characters, for ten minutes, a young man told us that the buses stop running at 10. It was 10:30. This kid, who couldn’t have been more than 19, told us that we were the first foreigners he had ever spoken to.

He directed us to a cabstand, where a line of a 100 people stood waiting. We waited our turn, balking at the people jumping line. Finally at the front, we climbed in a cab and proceeded to get totally lost on the way to the hostel. That’s the problem with cabs in China. Most of them have no idea where they’re going. The demand for taxis has risen so much in the last year that the cities have released thousands of completely unqualified drivers to catch up. After all, this isn’t London. The taxi drivers here don’t need to pass a test to drive. Anyways, the worst part of it is that you don’t know if the driver is actually lost or if he’s just driving in circles to run up the meter. How were we to know?

We finally made it to the West Lake Guesthouse. We dragged our stuff into our tiny $15-a-night room and collapsed on the beds only to find out that they were more like felt-covered cement blocks nearing producing concussions upon impact. “I want to go home,” I said as I reached for the light. It would not be the last time I uttered those words that weekend.

After a restless night, we were delighted to hear that the guesthouse served a full English breakfast. We ate our breakfast happily, feeling more optimistic about the day as we planned what we wanted to see. There was the West Lake, the Leifeng pagoda, the Linying Temple…We decided to rent bikes and explore the city that way. The government subsidizes these orange tourist bikes, so it only cost 2 RMB (25 cents) an hour after a 300 RMB deposit. Hoping to ride by the lake, we were really disappointed when the security guards shooed us away from the path next to the water. We were forced to ride with the cars on the street. After being passed by trucks that looked like they were from Inner Mongolia, we had inhaled more diesel smoke in an hour than we do in Shanghai in a day. We stopped riding to buy a cold drink at a café. The waiters brought out the English menu, something of which I have grown increasingly weary. The Chinese menu has the real prices, while the English menu has the “special friend” prices. We paid 28 RMB each ($4) for a ginger ale. A total rip off, but we were too beaten down to argue. “I want to go home.”

We spent the day riding around the road that runs near the Lake. It was pretty and lined with plain trees. That afternoon, we sucked it up (the smog that is) and rode to the Leifeng pagoda. The view was beautiful. That night we went into town to see the night market. It was the kind of thing one expects to see in China, bustling with vendors and red lanterns. We took a lot of pictures that day:

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2448301&l=b6b92&id=2209008 (Hangzhou Day Photos)

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2448616&l=7f01b&id=2209008 (Hangzhou Night Photos)

The next day, it was pouring when we woke up. We groaned getting out of bed. Both of us had sore backs from the rock mattresses. Luckily, the rain stopped while we were having breakfast. We decided to go to the Linying Temple, which is just outside Hangzhou in the surrounding mountains. Determined not to get ripped off in a taxi, we boarded a 3 RMB (40 cents) bus bound for the suburbs. When the bus stopped at the end of the line, we had no idea where to go and it began to pour again. We ducked into a shop selling incense and prayer candles. The rain didn’t stop. It was miserable. “I want to go home.”

We grabbed a taxi, ditching our plans to visit the Buddhist temple, and decided to go into the city to get foot massages, or “footeh massahjeh” as we lovingly call them after the Chinese pronunciation. Without hesitation, we bought the 90-minute deluxe special. We had out own private room and we relaxed in the beds as the masseuses worked out the stress in our feet. It was then and there that Ryan and I decided we should just go on a foot massage tour of the Middle Kingdom and call it a day.

After the massages, we felt strong enough to give the Linying temple another shot. We took the bus to the end of the line again and walked to the temple. It was surreal. There were Chinese tourist groups shouting over microphones as far as the eye could see. “I think they just like the sound of their own voices,” Ryan muttered. We were getting so cynical at this point. It was hard to hold it back. But the temple was amazing. It was calm and quiet in the courtyards between the buildings and people were actually burning incense and praying. It seemed that the worshippers outnumbered the tourists. We watched in awe for an hour or so before it was time to leave. It was so peaceful until I realized that I had 28 (!) bug bites (19 on one leg)…

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2448739&l=d3c7f&id=2209008 (Linying Temple Photos)

All in all, our trip to Hangzhou was not what we expected. But this is China, and we’ve learned that we have to check our expectations at the door.

September 1: The Fire

As many of you know, the major event defining our last several weeks here has been a massive house fire in our host's basement. To summarize, a fire broke out while Alexa and I were at the gym on the evening of September 1. The fire was apparently caused by faulty wiring and burned out a large storage room. The smoke damage was heavy throughout the house and many items have to be replaced. Nancy, the owner, flew back from the US on an emergency flight the day after to attend to the situation. No one was hurt, but we suffered very heavy losses. Nancy lost most of her furniture and personal effects to the smoke and Alexa and I have estimated our losses at about $6,000. Luckily, our stuff is going to be covered by Nancy's insurance so it's more of a hassle than a disaster. We've moved out of the burned house into an empty one down the street.

The cleanup process has been lengthy but not as difficult as I had imagined. Nancy has enlisted the help of an army of maids and movers to move her smoke damaged things out of the house and clean them if possible. Our stuff has been handled by a man who I am convinced is the nicest in China. His name is Xu Bing (Shoo-Been) and he is a friend of a friend. He works as a taxi driver and knows just about anything one would want to know about where to go to get things done. He has taken load after load of our stuff off to be cleaned - clothes, computers, toiletries, books, etc. He just knows where to take them (something Alexa and I wouldn't figure out in a million years) and returns a couple days later with clean belongings and receipts. It's been so great to have that burden lifted. All of our stuff smelled like smoke and while a good portion of it wasn't salvageable, Xu did manage to save about 80% of it. He has saved us literally thousands of dollars in replacement costs and an even greater amount of headache and stress. Other friends have stepped up and offered support as well. Wei Tan, a coworker of Alexa's mom, Pat, and a Shanghai native has been priceless and a friend of hers, Sue Foster, is the one who connected us to Xu.

Now that the fire has been put out for 2 weeks, life is starting to resemble something like it once was. Most of our stuff smells normal again and we don't spend most of our day covered in soot. Every once in a while, we'll catch a whiff it though, and it reminds us how far we've come in 14 days.

For a more detailed account of the fire, here is the document that Alexa and I wrote up the night of the fire to organize our thoughts and get all the details on paper. We based our testimony on this when we met with the fire department the next day.

Timeline of events: Taken from the testimony we typed up the night of the fire. Pretty boring unless you want to know all the little details and really understand just how absurd this experience was.

8-31 – Around 10:30, Alexa and I arrived home from the train station from Hangzhou. Andy picked us up from the Shanghai south railway station and dropped us off at the garage. We walked in the house and noticed that it felt warmer than usual in the basement. We checked the thermostat and saw that it was set to 69 F but the room temperature was 76 F. The switches were set to “On” and “Cool” and had been so the entire weekend, so the house ought to have been cool. Air was still flowing out of the vents. The AC was still working fine upstairs.

9-1 - Around 5 a.m., we awoke to find that the blower had stopped. I checked the thermostat and saw that it was completely dead – no lights or numbers on the display. The switches were in the same position as before. We woke up the next morning to the same status. I remained home for much of that day but didn’t spend any time in the basement. After alexa returned home at about 17:10, she reminded me to call the front desk to request that the AC system be repaired. I phoned the front desk and they said that a repairman would arrive shortly. The repairman showed up about 20 minutes later. Alexa and I were planning on going to the gym but I wanted to make sure that the repair was finished. She left ahead of me for the gym at about 17:35. I speak essentially no Chinese and the man spoke no English, so the communication was mostly non-verbal. I first showed him that the main floor thermostat was working properly, then had him follow me to the downstairs thermostat to demonstrate that it was not working. He took the cover off and started to work on the wiring. At that point, I left him to do his work and went to get ready for the gym. I noticed that he, at one point, was working in the electrical room just off the main bar room of the basement. He must have flipped a circuit breaker, because he demonstrated that the thermostat was now working. I checked the airflow from the vent in our bedroom (the one across from the main downstairs bathroom) and found that it was working and cooling. I left again and came back down the stairs to see that he was walking out the house-garage door. He seemed to indicate to me that he had finished his work and was leaving. I got on a bike and started to head up the driveway. I did my best to explain to him that if he needed to go in and keep working, the door was unlocked and he was free to do so. I left for the gym at about 17:45.

Alexa and I remained at the gym (located at the clubhouse) until roughly 18:40. We rode our bikes home and pulled into the garage. As we walked toward the man-door to the house, I heard what sounded like what could have been fire. Alexa remembers smelling something burning. I put my hand against the door to feel for heat, but finding it cool, I opened it. As soon as it was cracked open, thick, black smoke billowed out. I quickly shut the door and we ran out of the garage. Just as we reached the street, we saw a guard on a bike riding toward the house. We yelled FIRE but he seemed to already know that something was wrong. We guessed that he was the first response to the fire alarm. He saw the smoke that had been let out from the garage door and immediately got on his radio to alert the other guards. Not knowing where the fire was coming from and how big it was, we (Alexa, the guard and I) decided to try the front door. I again felt for heat and opened it with the key. We were met with another thick cloud of smoke. We retreated to the driveway as more guards showed up. They were not equipped with fire extinguishers or other fire fighting equipment. They went in the garage and opened the door. Smoke poured out but they tried to enter the house to assess the fire. They spoke only in Chinese and neither Alexa nor I could understand what was being said. Over the next 20-25 minutes, about 5 more guards showed up, maybe one or two carried hand held fire extinguishers, which they clearly couldn’t use because the smoke was too thick for them to get inside the house. Alexa took the yellow bike to the clubhouse to see if someone could help us translate. The woman at the front desk, Michelle, answered phones while Alexa was standing at the desk, even after she had communicated that there was a fire. Perhaps she was talking to the guards. She asked Alexa if anyone in the house smoked. No one smokes. Alexa decided to leave because Michelle wasn’t going to come with her or help it seemed.

Back at the house, the guards were running around the house, but did not go inside. The next door neighbor from house 66, James Pallash, came out to see what was going on. Upon understanding what was happening, James went back to his house to call his bi-lingual driver, Michael. Ryan then went to the front desk to try to bring someone to the house who could speak English. He was told that there was someone already on site and they were on the phone with what he assumed to be the fire department.

While he was gone, a golf cart carrying four men, two of whom were dressed as chefs, showed up. People were moving around, but nothing was really happening. Ryan returned and we heard the sound of glass breaking from impact on the right (kitchen side) of the house. The men kept running around with a few fire extinguishers and gas masks but the fire seemed to continue to get worse judging by the amount of smoke that was coming from the garage, the front door and what looked to be the basement window of the storage room.

Ryan approached the group of people in the driveway, asking for someone who spoke English. When one of them answered, Ryan asked what was going on. The man named Mark who appeared to be the leader of the group, answered Ryan’s question with a stern “No comment” and pushed Ryan out of the way. Alexa was going back and forth to James’ house to get air and call the US to get a hold of Nancy Gougarty. She used James’ land line to call because both cell phones were inside the house. Nancy was finally notified via Pat Zigarmi, Alexa’s mother.

Michael, James’ father’s driver showed up. He is bilingual and after listening to the conversations, became suspicious that the fire department had not been called. He said that the “Le Chateau” complex could be fined if the FD was called, and they would do anything to handle it on their own. Michael then called the fire department at about 19:30. About that time, the guards (8 or so) had gotten a hold of a hose and we hooking it up to the fire hydrant on the street. The men in the golf cart pulled up to the house again. We asked them repeatedly, what was happening, where was the fire and the man who was driving the cart said, “No problem, no problem” and drove off.

It was getting dark, so it was hard to see in the house with no lights on. The guards had a couple of flashlights. They went in through the basement door with the hose and started spraying. We had no idea where the fire was or even if there were flames. Andy, Nancy’s driver showed up about that time. We don’t know who called him, but we presume it was Nancy. Ryan found a woman amongst the group who was bilingual to explain what was going on. Her name is Helen and she apparently works for Le Chateau. She said that the cause of the fire was yet unknown and the guards were still trying to put out the flames. During the commotion, a call came through on one of the guard’s radios that Michael seemed to think came from the front gate. He thought that the fire department had showed up but the guards said that they had the situation under control. The fire was still burning at this point - the smoke continued to billow from the garage, front door and basement window and didn’t show signs of slowing for another hour or so. The fire was not put out until around 20:00 or 20:30, as far as we could tell. The men continued spraying the basement for a while and things finally started to calm down at about 21:00. At some point during this period, Nancy’s assistant, Michelle, as well as 2 policemen and one (apparently) fire safety officer showed up. Michelle is fluently bilingual and was on the phone with Nancy explaining the damage. She strongly suggested that Nancy come back to see the damage for herself. She took the lead in talking with the guards and officers. About this time, some of the guards went around the house and started opening the windows and doors to help ventilate the smoke.

We were finally able to get back in the house. We first noticed that smoke had damaged the walls in the garage but we were horrified at the extent of the damage when we entered the basement. The storage room, where the fire had apparently taken place, was in ashes, burnt out completely. Things continued to crumble and the room was extremely hot there were still a couple of men with the fire hose spraying water at the A/C closet. The basement floor was covered in 3 or 4 inches of ashy, grey water. Things were floating around (shoes, etc). It seemed that much of the basement had been sprayed with water although we couldn’t say for sure. The floors were soaked but not all the furniture was wet. The walls were stained black and a layer of soot covered everything. The smoke was still really heavy and it was very difficult to breathe. Upstairs on the main floor, soot covered the floor and walls. On Ryan’s second trip into the house, he used his video camera with night vision to record some of the damage. Mark was with him, but Ryan was careful to not let Mark know that he was filming. Ryan got the feeling that Mark would not like the damage to be filmed at that point.

We grabbed our most important possessions (passports, credit cards, cell phones, etc) and on subsequent trips we got more of our stuff. We ended up leaving about 60% of our belongings in the basement for the night. We were told that we could come back the next day after the investigation to retrieve the rest of it. We were told that guards with dogs would be posted in front of the house to prevent any looting or contamination of the site.

During the process of moving things out of the house, Ryan spoke with Tom Gougarty on the phone. Ryan told Tom what he knew and described the damage as well as possible. Ryan then handed the phone to Mark. Ryan left Mark to continue the evacuation. Tom and Mark spoke for at least 15 minutes about cleanup procedures.

During our trips in and out of the house, we only moved our own belongings. We never disturbed any of the Gougarty’s belongings. Michelle, while on the phone with Nancy made a trip to the second floor to retrieve some valuables of hers. We don’t know what exactly was removed.

The police had a document that Michelle translated for Ryan with Nancy on the phone. As far as he understood, it said that the house was to be left as-is until the following morning at 9:00 when a formal investigation could begin. He signed and dated it with Michelle’s direction. We made another few trips in the house to gather a few final things and then everyone dispersed for the night.

Let the record show that at no point throughout the evening, did any professional fire fighters, fire trucks or anyone other than Le Chateau staff fight the fire. Even after Michael called the FD, none of them ever showed up to the scene. Our best guess is that they were stopped at the gate and told that the situation was under control.

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2451092&l=6cda7&id=2209008 (Fire Photos)

Post Script: After the investigation, the fire department determined the cause of the fire to be faulty wiring in a plug strip to which an oscillating fan was plugged in. The fan had been used to help dry the carpet after the flood a week before, but was on a timer and would turn itself off automatically. Ryan had reset the timer several times throughout the week, but we both knew that the fan had been turned off after the professional cleaners had come in on the Wednesday or Thursday of that week. We figure that the circuit breaker tripped as a result of a short circuit. The AC repairman flipped the breaker back, causing the short to spark and ignite the blaze.

So after the smog, heat, language barrier, occasional digestive battles with the local cuisine, floods, vampiric mosquitoes, and a fire, we felt that we had some serious soul searching to do about our time here in China. Many times now, we’ve come very very close to pulling the plug and going home. We decided, though, that we needed to let things settle for a day or two and have a serious talk about this next year.

We weighed our options, but ultimately decided that as long as we’re still standing and in relatively good health, we’ve invested too much of ourselves in this to give up after 3 (albeit terrible) weeks. We decided that we’re going to give it our very best shot and we felt that we still had more shot to give. So, we focused our efforts on moving forward with our plans. First, rebuild, then relocate out of the Gougarty’s (cursed?) basement.