If you are thinking about coming to China, hold that thought and don't come!!! As of March 20th, China required that all people returning to China serve a mandatory 14-day government-supervised quarantine in their facility. Our friends Janet and Mike got caught up in this extreme quarantine on the way back from Bali and spent a total of 20 days in quarantine before they could get out because the system was so overloaded. On top of that, a week later China totally shut itself off to foreign nationals because their quarantine system was overloaded by the threat of the return of Covid-19 coming from outside the country.
Today was our last official day of the quarantine, so we wanted to do whatever we could to help Janet and Mike who just started their 14-day ordeal in a strange place a couple of hours away from Qingdao. At least we were able to spend our quarantine in the comfort of our own home. Join us as we send them some fun, high in protein treats to help them endure the 14-day quarantine! What an adventure! Enjoy the 6 minute window into life in a quarantine in a Chinese run facility!
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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Wow, we are really excited about this. Not that it means anything. Yeah, that's true. It doesn't
mean anything at the moment, but day 14, oh my goodness, we've just started. We're an hour into
day 14. It's a little sobering actually because friends that just flew in, they were in Bali for
the last seven, nine weeks. They flew in on the same path that we had taken through Kuala Lumpur
and they were supposed to arrive in Qingdao yesterday, but they were stuck in Xiamen. They
landed in Xiamen at 11 in the morning and they were put into a hotel at 10 p.m. that night,
so they spent an enormous amount of time, almost 12 hours, just sitting in the airport
waiting to be processed, which I think is an indicator of just how things are going now,
and then they flew this morning and we thought, oh, they're going to come in on the domestic
terminal. They're going to be fine. They'll be able to get to their apartment at one o'clock.
They were like, we landed. Everything's good. Five o'clock, still in the airport. Six o'clock,
still in the airport, and then they were put on buses, not told where they were going,
and at the moment they're still on those buses and they're headed north up the peninsula towards
a town called Aishi and we have no idea where they're being taken. We did hear that someone
came in from America and tested positive and the entire plane was put in quarantine in a Chinese
facility, so the rules changed today. We just learned anyone coming back into China now is
being placed in a government facility. You don't have the option to go home. Our hearts are going
out to our friends who are returning today and tomorrow. It's going to be a rough two weeks for
them. We probably won't get out until day 15 or day 16 now because of the overload of people on
quarantine, but I tell you what, we are so thankful that we are doing this. All right, we have the
food processor, cookie maker, extraordinaire coming to the rescue of our friends who are in
Laoshi. Well, we're hoping we're going to have to smuggle these in and my
thought is we have to keep it really simple, so I'm going to pack them in the bottom of this box
like I did this box. I packed in the bottom some brownies for them and then I covered it
with power bars that are packaged. We think we're going to be able to get packaged goods to them, but
we honestly don't know. We don't know, but that's the love right there. Sour Skittles. We have to
really keep it light and simple, otherwise we might be in trouble. Tell people why you're scrambling
right now and what are you doing and why are you doing it? Last night, friends of ours came back to
Qingdao and they were whisked off to the middle of the peninsula. They're two hours north of us.
It took more than 24 hours to process them, 48 hours since they left Bali, more than 48 hours,
so our friends arrived at 1 p.m. in Qingdao and they arrived at their hotel
last night at 10 p.m. and they were not fed. They were not given any
drinks as well, so they're in quarantine at this point and this morning we heard that because they
came in from Bali, they don't have any clean clothes. They've been gone for nine weeks. They
have no medications. They have nothing from their home, so we just learned that they're
going to be able to get a suitcase from their house and we're going to drop some things in
their suitcase. We received a picture of what the breakfast was this morning and it would literally
feed a bird. That's it. They can make an order, a delivery order, once a day. Okay. So that's good
news. Okay. But they're paying anywhere, well, we were told 300 RMB a day, which is about 50 U.S.
dollars, so for 50 dollars per person they get a room and they get three meals a day, but I can
tell you the three meals would not fill someone up. Did you want me to come over here? Yes. Oh good.
Is that better? Yes. So I'm scrambling now to bake some cookies and hide them in the bottom of the
box of power bars so that they have some treats to eat. We're not sure if these will be allowed
through. We're not even sure they're going to be allowed packaged foods through, but I tend to think
they'll allow some packaged foods. So if that's going to happen, we'll know pretty quickly. So
what's happening here and what's going to end up happening in the United States is an extreme
measures in order to keep things under control. And what's exacerbating and making this whole
thing worse is people moving around all over the world and it's just creating an overloaded mess
here in China. Yeah. So I need to finish putting these packages together and then we're still in
quarantine, so it's a little complicated. I'm going to have to text our guards and try and explain to
them to come pick up a package to have it down at the guard gate in order for someone to pick this
up and put it as part of the package that's going to our friends. But just count your lucky stars
that this is not happening to you right now. Let's hope it doesn't happen and when a friend's
in need, we've got to step it up. So you're doing a great job, sweetie. Thank you, love. Don't come
to China. Do not come to China unless it's an absolute emergency. Guys, if you appreciate this
type of programming on our channel, Blown Away, please subscribe. Please hit the like button,
share, and comment. All right. We'd really appreciate that. That's all for right now.
