In this video, we document how leaving quarantine revealed a totally new normal for our lives in China. There was a new language to speak in the form of colored papers and QR codes and our phones had, overnight, become the single most important device to our existence in Qingdao. On every excursion out of the apartment, we had to ensure our mask was on and our phone batteries were strong enough to scan and confirm our every move. We had the freedom to enter most locations (though some communities refused and still do refuse access to anyone but their own residents!) and ride on public transportation as long as we complied with the new rules. Scan. Temperature check. Enter. Scan. Temperature check. Enter. And, in between use copious amounts of hand-sanitizer to ensure cleanliness. It's our new normal and it may be yours in the near future.
NEW TO OUR CHANNEL? We are Eileen and Brown Councill. Welcome to our channel and a glimpse into our life adventure! 2020 was a year of uncertainty and change (for all of us, right?), but we overcame the challenges and decided it was time to chase our dream, to sail around the world! Did I mention that we had very NO sailing experience? Before leaving Qingdao, China, our home of 4 years, we sold almost all of our earthly possessions and started our international search to find the right sailboat that we would call "home." After 5 months of unanticipated twists and turns, we found what we were looking for, a used Leopard 44' Catamaran located in St. Lucia.
So, here begins our journey, filled with unmatched excitement and honestly, a bit of trepidation as well. We have much to learn as we travel the world on our floating home and we intend to document that journey and share it with you. We are so glad you have decided to join us, and we hope that you will find our story so compelling that it will inspire you to chase your dreams too!
As a viewer, we consider you to be part of our family and look forward to getting to know you. Don't hesitate to comment on our videos and ask questions. We will do our best to answer every correspondence! All we ask is that you have patience with us as we work really hard to improve our camera/video techniques and ability to tell a story. Hopefully, you will be as BLOWN AWAY from watching, as we are in experiencing and producing our adventures!
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After completing quarantine, the speakers navigate the process of obtaining health access cards to regain their freedom of movement. While they successfully acquire \"white cards\" for high-level access to public spaces, they discover that digital QR codes and temperature checks have largely replaced physical cards in practice.
All right, hello everybody. Good morning. Good morning. We are on our first full day
after quarantine and we're sitting here on the beach. It's just lovely.
Coming to give you an update on what's going on. Right now where are we heading to, sweetie?
And what did we get yesterday? Yesterday we got our pink slips that allowed us the freedom to
leave our apartment, but today we have to go exchange them for white cards. The white cards
will give us access to malls, restaurants, grocery stores, and even communities that we
if we want to visit friends we need those white cards to get into those communities. Depends
completely on the community and the mall and the grocery store, but it's the highest level
of access that we can get so we want to get it. Kind of like the VIP club. Yeah I guess the VIP
of out of quarantine. Very infected person. So we're on our way there and just we have to stop
by the beach. Well actually we were forced to because they locked our other gate to go out
the more convenient way so we're taking the long way around which is okay because it walks us
past this amazing amazing beach so it's all good. We live a three minute walk from the beach
and the weather's getting better and it's just awesome to just live here. Where do we go?
Thank you. This was our first time to visit our community center and we were told to go there
the morning after leaving quarantine. However, we knew something was wrong when we needed a Chinese
friend to explain our purpose in visiting the community center. 25 minutes later though, we
successfully left the office with white cards in hand ready to put them to use. Ironically, we have
never been asked to show these cards. Perhaps once a useful tool to obtain this document, it didn't
take long to realize the cards had fallen into obsolescence and communication had somewhere
broken down. First time in the grocery store. We've got our passes. You want to pull those out?
These allow us to go to do our first attempt at the grocery store. Eileen is really good
with the spy camera so she's going to have it out just in case we run into
anybody who doesn't want it on. So you only get it here on the
channel, this exclusive footage. You ready, sweetie? I'm ready. Let's do it.
Standing in line, we were prepared to hand over our newly obtained white cards but they were not
interested. They wanted us to first scan a QR code with our phones that time stamped our arrival
and then pass a temperature check. We also had to have a mask properly situated over our nose
and mouth. Brown's phone belligerently refused to scan but they granted us access anyway after
I successfully scanned a second time with my phone. I wonder what happens if you don't have a phone
or if you don't have data or if your phone battery dies. It was interesting observing the behavior
and tolerance of the guards at different locations. At the grocery store, the guard was hyped up and
animated. Entering the mall, the guard was very chill. At restaurants in general and McDonald's,
in this particular case, you tested yourself and signed in. Surprisingly, they ask you to leave
your passport number. Of course, we always make one up. In contrast, it is our experience that
the bus drivers are the most aggressive, impatient, and irritable. But then again,
they have a schedule to keep. You even have to scan to enter most parks. We don't know how long
this process will continue, but we are thankful to have the freedom to move about and we are
happy to comply to maintain that freedom. It's all a matter of perspective.
