MY SUMMER BUCKET LIST RESULTS

What felt like the hottest and longest summer of my life has now come to an end. I am back in Chengdu, teaching my second semester at my school. Although I am feeling pretty miserable that it has ended, I enjoyed all that I did, and even managed to tick off everything from my summer bucket list. If anyone is interested in seeing my summer bucket list, the link for that post is here.

Earn money. 

Through working at my school, doing a couple of summer camps and extra shifts in a nursery, I successfully saved up a really decent amount of money over summer. I didn’t think I would enjoy working on my summer vacation, but I had fun and gained experience. Made some wonderful memories with friends and students too! 

Summer Camp work 

Practice my written Chinese. 

I have to admit, I did a very small amount of this! Because of all the travelling I did, I didn’t leave myself much down time to focus on writing Chinese. However, I have been practicing it in the classroom with my students, writing the odd word on the board in Chinese, as well as using my old school vocab lists to get back into the swing of writing characters.  

Explore as much of Chengdu as possible!

Towards the beginning of my summer holiday, I took the time to get on the metro and see as much of the city as I could. My favourite place I visited were the botanical gardens. Even though I have seen most of this city, I am still finding hidden gems quite often! 

Chengdu Botanical Gardens 

Explore Sichuan.

I was lucky enough to do some travelling around Sichuan (the province that Chengdu is located in) this summer. I visited a variety of places including Dujiangyan (都江堰- where I did my summer camp), Leshan (乐山– to see the Giant Buddha) and many others including Deyang (德阳), Meishan (眉山), Qingcheng (青城山), Luodai (洛带) and Huanglongxi (黄龙溪). 

Huanglongxi 

Leshan 

Dujiangyan 

Qingcheng 

Luodai 

Travel out of China! 

Because of all the summer work I did and money I saved up, I managed to travel to Bali and Thailand. I had the most amazing time going to these places, and also gained a lot of confidence traveling to Bali alone, something I never thought I would be able to do. Definitely the best summer of my life! Now in the process of trying to plan where I can go next summer! 

Bali 

Thailand 

Focus on my blog!

I have spent a long time on this, probably a bit too much time! My blog is something I am immensely proud of and I love planning posts about my travels and experiences. I was worried with such a busy schedule over summer I would neglect it, but I instead did the opposite and posted a bit too much. Over summer I hit 25,000 views and my blog turned 1! I also had a month off blogging while I did some travelling and relaxing – excited to get back into the swing of things and continue my routine of posting weekly. 

I’m sad it’s over, but I can honestly say I had the time of my life this summer! Now it’s time for some serious teaching before I make my final flight back home to London in a few months!

B x