Yes…
My plan was to visit Iran twice, first just in transit (and then via Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan to enter China from Almaty to Urumqi). A multiple-entry visa would have allowed me to re-enter and visit my friends. However, if you still want to go to China, not having an Iranian visa definitely means flying, because Russia is out of the question, and crossing Azerbaijan by land is also impossible. (I even got a second passport for Azerbaijan to avoid arguments about the Armenian visa, but it remained impossible.) From Yerevan, I thought I could just take a shorter flight to Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan, but there are no direct flights there, and Urumqi is, surprisingly, the only (and direct) flight from Yerevan to China.
We went for a another nice walk and another delicious lunch at another beautiful spot, and then things got serious.
We didn’t just have “another” dinner; it was a farewell dinner, and the walk home was meant to collect my luggage and say goodbye. Then a taxi, airport, check-in, surrounded by a mix of Armenian and Chinese passengers. I saw a woman crying outside the queue, holding a dog, and two girls holding the cage. The tears were for the dog, and the dog, perhaps, for the girls, but I would have expected additional emotions between the mother (?) and daughters (?). Maybe they were just professional dog walkers, and the dog moved to China and left its owner?
