MY FIRST FEW DAYS IN CHINA

I thought I would wait a few days while I settle in before I wrote a post about how China is going so far. On Sunday the 11^th, I said goodbye to my family, an emotional day with mixed feelings of sadness and anxiety, but excitement too! I won’t lie, my flights were filled with a few tears as I said farewell to my home; London! This post is just going to be a very quick and short update about how everything has been going since I landed a week ago, I hope you all enjoy! 

So, this trip is actually my first time outside of Europe as well as my first-time flying solo. I used to be deathly scared to flying and airports, they have been the main stage for many panic attacks! But as I have mentioned in previous blog posts, through forcing myself to take lots of flights over the last 12 months, my fear has subsided a lot making my 15 hours of flying to China relaxed and pretty chilled!

My first week in China has mainly consisted of getting over my jet lag; I am tired all day apart from bed time (currently editing this at 4:30am on a Saturday morning)! I have done some of the final part of my teacher training and will soon be placed in a school where I can finally start teaching and will officially be a teacher! I have also been getting to know some of the locals who live here and my fellow TEFL (Teaching English as Foreign Language) course mates too. It has been a bit of a whirlwind so far, mainly just because I have never been so far away from home all by myself before. I am still adjusting to the time difference between here and London, which so far hasn’t proved to be too difficult to cope with. 

The whole experience of changing everything about every aspect of my life has so far been very jarring as well as being emotionally and physically exhausting! I have been kept very busy with my training which I am really enjoying and exploring this massive city has been a great adventure so far! It hasn’t been easy, and I have barely started but I am gradually getting more excited about being here. 

As I have said before, moving to China is different to anything I have ever done. I have had to completely uproot my whole life basically. The longer I am here, the more I realise the huge differences between China and the U.K. (I will talk more about this in a post coming next week). Moving here is different to just starting a new office job for example, it’s a complete lifestyle change, and in my opinion, a lot harder than anything I have ever done before! 

Pretty much every day since moving here I have been getting messages from friends congratulating me and saying how proud of me they are. Nine times out of ten, this has moved me to tears, mainly because my emotions are still a bit all over the place! But also, because I agree with them, I should be proud of myself for making this massive commitment! 

I am excited to see what my future in China holds and I hope you all enjoy reading about it!

我爱你！

B x