To everyone, MERRY CHRISTMAS. Wishing you a happy and peaceful Christmas. I hope this year has been a good one for you all. I hope you’ve made the most of it, taken chances, and picked yourself up after any bad times. This year I’ve realised what taking chances can mean; it leads you to places you never imagined. I wish you and your family a most wonderful festive season. Love and peace, Helen xxx
Author: bristolianbackpacker
Shanghai Shenanigans
Hangzhou is ideally located an hour away by train from Shanghai. We left from the snazzy East Hangzhou train station. It felt more like an airport as it was very modern, full of restaurants, and even had proper boarding gates with ticket checks and security. For a mere £7 we left Hangzhou in our comfortable economy seats and arrived an hour later in Shanghai. I still can’t quite comprehend the size of the city: 23 million. That’s nearly 4 times the amount of people in Hangzhou and London. Needless to say, only being there 2 days meant we saw a …
Celebrating Thanksgiving in China
Being British, I have never ever celebrated Thanksgiving. So when I got a message from a fellow British expat here in China, asking a group of us if we’d like to celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday I wasn’t too bothered. I told Mitch but he thought we should go, sure, we’re in China, but why not celebrate other cultures and festivals.
Why You Should Visit Muscat, Oman
It was only the second time I had ever been on a flight by myself before. It was my first time to the Middle East and I was off to a country I’d never heard of six months ago: Oman. I was primarily going to see Mitch, of course. Long distance relationships are surely a good reason to go to a new country! Wikipedia did a great job giving me a brief history and allowing me to find out where it was actually located. Oman is a rich country, full of oil. Mitch wanted to show me everything Muscat (the capital) …
Teaching in Hangzhou, China
I wake up feeling groggy at 6am as my alarm goes off. Sometimes, if my hair doesn’t need a wash, I give myself the luxury of staying in bed until 6.30. I leave Mitch in bed asleep and feel envious. I enjoy a hot shower to wake me up and put on some ‘teacher’ clothes. A lot of the Chinese teachers dress casually, in jeans for example, but I can’t bring myself to do that. I check that I have everything in my backpack, eat a banana for some energy before my cycle to work. My school is split between …
Autumnal Evenings in Hangzhou
It’s technically autumn here in Hangzhou but it doesn’t feel like it. The temperature can still reach about 25 degrees in the daytime and I get hot walking around in jeans and a t-shirt. There are a few times when it does feel colder. I leave the house about an hour after the sun rises and you definitely need a jacket. The evenings are similar.