Chapter 1: I Wasn’t Planning a Trip Around The World…

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I’m a good person. Admittedly I’m not a great person, but a pretty good person. I probably flip off way too many people in LA traffic, my patience is a little short, and I definitely won’t help you move apartments. But I always leave a penny instead of taking one, I’ll send you soup when you’re not feeling well, and I love animals. I really, really love animals. Anything having to do with animal rescue immediately tugs at my heartstrings and makes me do insane things. Like volunteering to fly from Los Angeles to Beijing on a quick turnaround trip to transport five Harbin SHS dogs to San Francisco to find their forever homes. This probably sounds a little out there to some, but I’ve been to China many times and have become fairly adept at sleeping on planes despite my disability. In fact, I ascribe to the belief that travel helps those with mental health issues and physical health issues. Besides, these Chinese dogs desperately needed out and since it was a holiday in the US, I had three free days. This would be easy enough.

On July 4th I would fly twelve and a half hours from Los Angeles to Shenyang, China, have a three-hour layover, then board the two-hour flight from Shenyang to Beijing, where I would spend the night in a hotel by the airport, get up the next morning, meet the rescue dogs at the airport check-in, then fly back to the US, delivering them all to their foster families in San Francisco. It was a good plan. …Except that’s not how it went at all.

On July 4th, I was still optimistic everything would go smoothly. Why wouldn’t it? I’d flown rescue dogs from China before. This was old hat. So, I packed my carry-on with two extra outfit changes (just in case), some toiletries, all of my very well labeled prescription medications (each still in their original containers), my kindle, and a collapsable cane. It was going to be a relaxing one-night stay at the airport Ramada by Wyndham, then back home.

The first flight from Los Angeles to Shenyang, China was entirely uneventful. I watched a movie, then popped a Benadryl and passed out. I woke up about ninety minutes outside Shenyang to marvel at how close we seemed to fly to North Korea without actually entering North Korean air space.

We touched down in Shenyang at 4 am. Consequently, much of the airport was closed. The only sustenance available was located in cash-only food vending machines, and since I was staying in China for just one night, I hadn’t bothered to convert my US dollars to Chinese yuan. This was a bummer as I LOVE Asian vending machines. From the orange juice machine that rolls out fresh oranges, squeezing them into juice in front of your very eyes, to the healthy snack vending machines, to the machines that hold a dazzling array of iced teas and coffees, I love them all. But freshly squeezed juice wasn't worth incurring change fees. In Beijing, I would be able to use my credit card and purchase whatever I wanted from the mini-marts or restaurants. So, I waked around Shenyang’s Taoxian Airport a bit to stretch my legs and get a glimpse of the new karaoke booths that have begun to pop up all over China. Unfortunately, it was too early in the morning and there was no one around to join me in a slightly off-key rendition of “Islands In The Stream.” No matter. I was almost in Beijing!

From Shenyang, it was a quick two-hour flight to my final destination. Without a checked bag, I quickly made it out of the airport and boarded the shuttle to my hotel. The Ramada by Wyndham is your average airport hotel full of business people and the occasional tourist taking a Beijing layover tour of the Great Wall of China. Seeing as though this was my third time in Beijing, it was pouring rain, and I’d already seen the wall, I passed on doing the tourism thing. Instead, I checked in, took a nice hot shower, then crawled into bed, and watched a series of completely absurd Chinese game shows.

I was struggling to stay awake as I watched a contestant attempt to eat noodles while a giant industrial fan blew said soupy noodles back in his face. Around 7 pm sleep finally won and I passed out until 4 in the morning. At this point, I wake up in terrible pain. There’s a reason the Chinese invented acupuncture… Chinese mattresses are the work of the devil! It’s as if someone tried to introduce the mattress to China and everyone collectively said, “Nah, pass. But that box spring seems like a fantastic thing to sleep on.” Anytime I’ve slept on a mattress from China it’s been simultaneously hard and lumpy. A true achievement in bad ergonomic design.

My back was now experiencing intense spasms. So, I crawl down on the floor and lay there until 9 am when I finally shower and head back to EVA airway cargo to meet the dogs. Freedom flight, here I come!

Chapter 2: China - China, My Dog Transport Fail

I can’t believe how smoothly this is going. Just as I get to the terminal, the pet ground transport company arrives with the 5 lucky little rescue dogs. I say hello to everyone, tell the dogs what good boys and girls they are and take a bunch of photos like the good flight volunteer I am.

It’s then I notice something is very wrong at the check-in counter. At this point it’s important to mention I don’t speak Mandarin past ‘hello’, ‘thank you’, and a few choice curse words. None of which seem appropriate right now. But I see the dog ground transport guy arguing frantically with the EVA Air representative. The representative at the desk informs me that while I have a ticket back to the US, the dogs do not. To make matters worse, there are currently five other dogs booked on this flight, so they have no room for my dogs flying in cargo.

This is bad. I frantically text the Harbin girls at the Chinese dog rescue. Maybe I can get on a flight tomorrow to California, rescue dogs in hand. Surely, there has to be a way to salvage this trip. I didn’t fly halfway around the world just to wave hello to five dogs, then leave them sitting in the international terminal. After an hour of texting, calling, and begging we finally figure out what’s going on. EVA Air is in the middle of a strike. As a result, many of their flights have been canceled. While I have been carefully monitoring my flight status for cancellations, it seems at one point, they canceled my original ticket and reissued a new ticket without notifying me. A new redress number is not usually an issue… unless of course, you have five dogs associated with that original redress number. In which case, you’re fucked.

With no space for flying a dog in cargo, I ask if they can put us on a flight tomorrow. But there’s no space for dogs on tomorrow’s flight. Actually, there’s no space on any of their flights for the next two weeks. I can’t stay in China for two weeks!!! I’m going to run out of my medications before then and things will get very bad very quickly. So, I do what any jet-lagged, sad-sack would do in this situation… I start to tear up. My friend at the rescue is texting me, saying I should just take my ticket and go home without the dogs, failing my door-to-door pet transportation mission. But I’m staring at these dogs. Five adorable little faces look up at me with literal puppy dog eyes. It’s my own Sophie’s Choice. Do I get on the plane empty-handed and leave these poor dog meat trade rescues stuck in Beijing? Or…. Or…. Or what? The ticket is in my hand and I have no other options. Flying internationally with a dog is tough. Flying internationally with five dogs is damn near impossible. We call every airline, but there are no other carriers flying from Beijing to anywhere in California that even accept multiple dogs. So, I head towards security as the pet taxi service loads the dogs back into the dog transport van. I can’t even look back. It’s too sad.

Suddenly, I get a call from another one of my friends at the rescue. She proposes another option. Turns out, there is one other airline that will allow passengers to fly multiple dogs to the US, and they happen to have room tomorrow night. Fantastic!!! Except there’s a catch. The one airline is Aeroflot and I will have to fly literally around the globe. My round the world trip itinerary becomes: fly Beijing to Moscow, have a four-hour layover, fly from Moscow to Los Angeles, meet a transport company, where the dogs will be driven up to San Francisco in a van. The entire four-day trip around the world will be a little over forty hours of flying. I can already feel my joints revolting in pain. But I promised to get these dogs to safety, so I agree. And I take my friends up on their offer to fly up to Harbin for the night and hang out with them. This is an unexpected turn of events, but at least I get to see my friends before heading home tomorrow. With that, I walk over to the China Southern counter and purchase a ticket to Harbin.

Chapter 3: An Adventure Volunteer In Harbin Summer

I touch down in Harbin at 8 pm. A very nice driver meets me at the airport to drive me to my friends who are currently enjoying a few beers in Harbin’s bar district. The driver doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Mandarin, yet I like this guy and I think he likes me. At least he’s smiling and laughing at whatever I try to say to him, and as a comedy writer, this is all I need in life.

On my first trip to Harbin I learned it’s incredibly rude to refuse gifts. The driver starts offering me tiny Chinese cigarettes, the really little ones with the gold wrapping that make Virginia Slims look like Cuban cigars. Not wanting to be rude, I accept the cigarette, light it up and dangle it out the window of the van while we drive through the streets of Harbin. The last time I was here was January, it was -20 F. It’s now summer, nearly 90 F, and more humid than an Orlando steam room in summer. This leads me to believe there is no best time to visit Harbin.

Three tiny cigarettes later, we finally find my friends at a small pizza place on a torn-up street. I hug them like crazy, then lug my carry on up the flight of stairs into Tree Pizza. I’m starving. Apart from the protein bar I scarfed down at the hotel this morning, I haven’t eaten today. It’s now 9 pm and I’m ravenous. The owner of the place is a forty-something, muscular, bald guy from Queens, NY who several of the patrons affectionately call, “Pug.” Pug and I hit it off immediately. A real New Yorker is going to make me a pizza in China! Finally, things are looking up!!! Except, I’m wildly allergic to wheat and gluten-free travel is next to impossible with Harbin food. But I’m starving and I don’t want to make a fuss, so I decide to chance the upset stomach. Besides, I should have a few hours until any discomfort kicks in and by then I’ll be checked into my hotel room. ...Except that’s not how it went at all.

It’s been a rough day. I’m a sweaty, tired mess. But the pizza is amazing, and I’m thrilled to see my friends. We decide to head to an expat bar and have a few drinks.

It’s now a little before 11 pm. We enter a dark bar to the booming sounds of Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road.’ The place is packed with Russians. This area of China used to be part of Russia many years ago. You can still see that influence in the architecture… and the drinking. Slowly, a variety of people pile in. I meet a slew of teachers who’ve come to Harbin from places like Costa Rica, Italy, the UK, the US, Serbia, Australia, and Canada. Somehow drinks keep materializing in front of me, yet I never order a thing. Credit cards aren’t really accepted here and as I mentioned before, I didn’t change my money over since I was not expecting to stay. Yet here I am. It’s getting late and tomorrow I have to finish circumnavigating the globe, so I go easy on the drinks. Also, public bathrooms in China can be difficult for me to use given the prevalence of Chinese squat toilets and my increasingly bad back.

In larger cities and more touristy areas, public toilets in China offer the option of a traditional western toilet or Chinese toilets. But here the only available bathroom is a squat toilet and I’m not sure my knees can cooperate with squatting at this point. No matter! As long as I don’t drink too much, everything will be okay. I’m meeting amazing people, chatting with my friends, and making the best of an otherwise crummy situation. This goes on until 2:30 am when my total disregard for traveling gluten free starts to become problematic. My wheat allergy suddenly rears its ugly head and my stomach decides that amazing NY pizza needs to go back to Jersey, NOW. I head to the bathroom to assess the toilet situation.

Picture your average LA bar bathroom at 2:30 am… now picture the bathroom in Tokyo Delves at 2:30 in the morning, but without western toilets or any toilet paper. Behind each stall door is a urine and/or vomit soaked hole in the ground, aka a squat, or Turkish toilet. This is bad. I’m tipsy, I’m in pain, and I just slid a little on some barf. My stomach is rumbling and I’m running out of time. Being a somewhat classy broad, I head back in the bar and work up a reasonable lie. I tell my friends all this travel is catching up with me and I simply must get to my hotel and get some sleep immediately. Luckily, Sia’s Chandelier is blasting, because my stomach is making noises previously only associated with Mount Vesuvius. After saying goodbye to literally everyone in the bar, we head to the hotel. I check in to The Chianti 45 by Holiday Inn and make the mad dash to my room where I can have violent diarrhea in a private western toilet like the good lord intended.

Chapter 4: There’s Something About Chinese Bathrooms

It’s 3 am. I’m exhausted, a little tipsy and I’ve just evacuated every ounce of food from my system. I go to flush the toilet and realize, it’s not flushing. I try again and it fills up with water. This is bad. There’s no plunger, no wire hanger to form into a makeshift drain snake, nobody at the front desk speaks English, and I’m an asshole who should have probably learned some Mandarin Chinese by now. But I’m also completely mortified that I’ve managed to decimate the only western toilet I could find in the city of Harbin. So, I put down the lid, resign myself to the fact that I’m a disgusting human being clogging toilets wherever I go, and pass out on another ridiculously hard mattress.

An hour later, I awaken to the sun beating down on my face and realize just how far north I am. This is north of North Korea north. It’s just after 4 am and people are beginning to go about their business on the street below. Not me. I’m over people. I’m over the sun. I’m over forty and I shouldn’t be doing this shit. I shut the blinds, take my pain medication, and crawl back into bed. I have seven more hours until check out.

When I finally get up, I head back into the bathroom and try again to flush the clog. Toilet’s still not working. Confronted with my inability to fix backed up toilets, I decide to make a hasty checkout and get as far away from The Chianti 45 by Holiday Inn as humanly possible. I meet my friends back at the pizza place. Having learned my lesson the night before, I pick at some French fries with a new commitment to gluten free traveling. The rest of the day is a blur of sitting in my friend’s apartment half napping, half watching the HBO miniseries, Chernobyl. Which, by the way, is a fantastically depressing thing to do the afternoon before one flies to Russia.

Chapter 5: Hope, Rescue Dogs, and A Slight Hangover aka: Attempt 2, Mission to Moscow

My flight back to Beijing departs at 9:55 pm. I head to Starbucks with my friend and grab a quick iced soy latte before she puts me in a DiDi back to the Harbin airport. (DiDi’s are China’s version of Lyft.) I adore my friends, but this has been an insane trip and my pain levels are creeping off the charts. I’m eager to get home to my own non-lumpy bed.

I land in Beijing a little after midnight and try to get some stretching in before I meet the dog transport van. At 2:45 am the dogs finally arrive. We go through our whole ritual. “Hello, shipping guy.” “Hello, dogs.” “Good boys.” “Good girls.” Photos are taken. I whip out my passport, get the money ready for the international pet shipping costs and look at the woman behind the counter. It’s here, the moment of truth…

The dogs are accepted! My tickets are printed and I send out a group text announcing our victory. Realizing I have one, lonely Xanax left from my recent dental surgery, I pop it at the gate, board the plane, and pass out for the entire eight hour Aeroflot flight from Beijing to Moscow.

I land in Moscow with 5 safe rescue dogs and instructions from my friend to visit the Aeroflot desk just outside customs and request an upgrade for my remaining twelve-hour flight to LA. My back is on fire. I’m saying a prayer in my head that there’s something left with slightly more legroom. My prayers are answered. For $160 USD, I’m able to upgrade to comfort class on my Aeroflot Los Angeles flight. I know Aeroflot takes a lot of abuse for their terrible safety record in the 1970s, and their, well… Russian-ness, but I actually found it to be a pretty great airline. Maybe it’s because I was now completely delirious from being in literally ALL the time zones, and maybe it’s because for $160 I was able to upgrade to seat spacious enough to be first class on a US domestic flight. They also happen to be one of the best airlines to ship pets. I spend the remaining three hour layover taking a quick nap in an airport sleep capsule, then wandering around the Moscow airport, looking for a suitable souvenir for my fiancé who talked me off more than one ledge during this trip.

With souvenirs secured, I check Sheremetyevo departures, see my plane is on time, and head to the gate. I’m out of Xanax and Benadryl, so I read a bunch of trashy magazines, watch ‘Isn’t It Romantic’ and sleep through the remaining four hours of my flight. We touch down in Los Angeles a little before 3 pm. I’m a beaten woman. But my volunteer rescue mission is almost complete. I wait by the animal claim area for an hour before the dogs are finally brought down. The elevator doors open and out wafts the unmistakable smell and sound of K9. Rescue dogs still safely packed in their crates, I rush over to make sure everyone is alive and well. Happily, I’m greeted by five adorable, wet noses. We make our way through customs where they inspect each of their dog passports and vaccination records. My little pack of Slaughter House Survivors are now safely in America.

I deliver them to the veterinary dog transport waiting outside so they can make the final part of their journey, the drive up to San Francisco.

I went home that night and spent the next two days in a delirious stupor. It was a grueling trip, but at the end of the day, it was a good dog rescue. I’m happy to report everyone made it safely to Jelly’s Place, where all five dogs eagerly await adoption.

I can’t say I’d ever plan an around the world trip in four days again, but I will definitely be volunteering in China again. I’ll just be calling to confirm my plans with the airline next time.

Chapter 6: Getting Involved with Dog Rescue In China

If you are interested in learning how to assist with rescuing dogs from the dog meat trade, please see the links below. There are many ways to help. You don’t have to fly to Harbin. (Though I 100% recommend the experience if you are physically and financially able to do it.) You can donate cash or purchase items from the Harbin SHS Amazon wish list, foster rescue dogs, volunteer in China at the safe house, adopt a dog from the meat trade, become a flight volunteer, sponsor someone else’s flight, or start a fundraiser of your own.

For more information, please visit: Harbin SHS Animal Rescue

To make a donation, please visit: SHS donations

To find out how to adopt one of these amazing dogs, visit: Jelly’s Place

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