What’s funny about life, and especially that life is just so different here, is that time doesn’t run the same. What I mean is, two years seems like a long time to those not here, but two years seems like an instant for those of us who do remain. Something might happen unexpectedly in one day that changes your entire outlook on life, and your future intentions.

In February of this year, I was so depressed and wanted to leave China. In March, I began working really hard to the point where I had no social life but wasn’t bothered by it because I was earning “insane” amounts of money (if $1800 a month could ever be considered insane in the eyes of an American). I worked this way from March until now, averaging $1800 each month. Now I’m at a point where, even though it’s only weeks away until I make my return trip to the US for the summer, I can’t think about anything else but the future past this summer.

I’ve been speaking to my family seriously over the last week and have come to realize that life here is sometimes good, but overall not my first choice for places. In the end, my idea right now is to go home for the summer, come back and earn as much money as I can (quite possibly getting a work visa but no full-time job so I can only do part-time work and private classes), and then doing an all-out Asia trip starting January 27th, 2011 (purchased my tickets to Vietnam already).

My goal would be to travel as long as I could to as many countries as I could before I run out of money. Lily is planning to join me for as long as she can (mainly Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand), and it’s my hope to meet up with Danny Tobias and his wife somewhere in Asia to continue traveling. They have a website about their trip around the world. The end result would hopefully be Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Nepal, Burma, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Bali, Brunei, Philippines, Taiwan, back to China. I think this might take 4 months and about $15,000, so I’m hoping to have that much saved before I leave at the end of January. Call it crazy if you want, but I call it amazing.

After the money has run out, I’ll return to the USA and start a business and STAY for good. Ideas?

During the last May Day, it was my original intention to spend 5 days traveling around Nanjing, Wuxi, and Suzhou (located near Shanghai). I waited too long to buy tickets and so lost out on that trip. Then I tried to get people to go to a local hot spring with me, which also failed due to people’s indecisiveness. I resigned myself to once again not being able to leave Wuhan and sulked. Then came the free time, and it was extremely nice to just have a break from work. Since the holiday came and went, my part-time job hasn’t increased my hours, so I’m a bit angry with them. Last month I worked 60 hours for them, which is about 1 month’s salary from my other job, thus allowing me to earn 13,000 RMB in April (this is about $1900 USD).

I still have quite a lot of free time since I haven’t been working as hard, and this bothers me because even though I have many things to do, working and earning money is more important to me at this point in time.
My business has finally started and the shipping calculator on the website has been fixed, so feel free to check it out and buy what you like! Check back often, as I’m always adding new items to the Oriental Emporium store.

Having broken up twice, Jessy and I have certainly had our ups and downs, but we’ve finally come to an understanding we can both agree upon. We know that a relationship isn’t possible, but the bond we have and the feelings we share makes staying away from one another quite impossible. I’ve tried dating other girls, but none of them have been right for me. I’ve changed my search from looking for a girl to have fun with, to a girl I can be serious with, but finding someone like that here is difficult for me. Life goes on.

While I was on my trip, I managed to lose about half of the numbers in my phone, so after I returned I began picking up the pieces and trying to get those numbers back by any means. These last few days have been extremely hectic, as I’m in the process of calling all my friends, Salsa students, and English students. It has also been extremely cold, apparently the worst winter in 60 years here (I’m aware it’s about the same back in the states).

I found out that my school goes on break starting the 20th of January, so I’ll be off from work for another month or so, but without any real significant of money left over to attempt another trip. If I do, it’ll be a short trip for a few days, especially since it’s so damn cold all over China. Look for my posts about Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore coming soon on here and my travel page.

As the months creeped by, I became ever more happier and excited for the trip. It wasn’t just the idea of seeing a new country, it was also that I hadn’t been outside of China since I got back from Thailand in September 2008. It was my chance to reconnect with the closest semblance of my own culture. I had so much time to think about the trip it made me crazy. I had to plan other trips before this one to help get my mind off how far away it was from the time we purchased the tickets.

When I got my new job in Hankou (on the other side of the river), I decided to take my salary from work and put it straight in the bank so I could afford to go on the trip. I earned 5000rmb (~$900) a month, but I knew I only needed about $1500 for my trip, so I knew I’d have enough money to buy a nice Canon SLR. In all of our previous trips together, I always relied on them to take good pictures because my Fujifilm was a terrible camera. I wanted to take responsibility and take pictures for myself instead of relying on others, and so right before I came to Australia I bought a camera for 4600rmb (almost a month’s salary!).

During autumn I had a fight with Matt, and he threatened to abandon me at the airport. I wasn’t worried about it because there was still so much time before we went and I knew he’d forget about it. Matt is very quick to pick on me and joke, but I’ve realized that’s what Aussies do when they are being friendly. Odd, I know.

At one point when I was still with Lily (if you didn’t know, we broke up again, and this time for good), she was invited to come along as long as she took care of her money and visa issues. She failed to do so, and so she didn’t end up coming.

As it came time to leave for Australia, I was so pumped that I stopped caring about my job. I know it’s bad, but I couldn’t get Australia out of my mind. This was my chance to escape the cold, bleak winter in Wuhan and go back to the beautiful summer that reminds me like home.

The day arrived, and I woke up early and it was freezing cold and raining. I took a taxi to the station where the bus would take me to the airport. After getting to the airport I met up with Nick and Fey and we moved to the terminal, where Matt was waiting for us. After an hour and a half, we arrived in Guangzhou, our first connection. Guangzhou was raining and cold like Wuhan, but not as bad. After an 8 hour layover spent inside the city, we happily scampered back to the airport for our next flight to Kuala Lumpur.

Unfortunately with budget airlines, things don’t always go as planned. Thankfully the only problem was that our flight was delayed from 8:45pm to 9:30pm. Four hours later and we were in Malaysia. We checked into the beautiful hotel built by the same man who built the airport and owns AirAsia (he’s brilliant). In the morning we took a bus into town and got some Chinese Malay food. After checking out the clothing market and buying a red shirt (If only I’d known how hot it was in Australia, I would have gotten a white shirt instead), we hopped over to the monorail and checked out the mall. We knew we’d have 2 days in Kuala Lumpur on the way back, so we just walked around enjoying ourselves and eating. Before heading back to the airport, we stopped for Indian food. We had Chicken tandoori, garlic naan bread, and curry.

Time having flown by so quickly, we rushed back to the airport for our final flight: Gold Coast, Australia. I was extremely lucky to have no one sitting in the 2 seats to my right, so as soon as the seat belt sign was turned off, I laid down and went to sleep after having a nice codeine to put me down for the night. At one point in the middle of the night we had some turbulence and so I woke up and sat up, only to fall asleep again within a few minutes. When I woke, there was a Chinese woman sleeping sitting up in the row of seats I had previously conquered, so I was quite upset because I wanted to lay back down. I wanted to shake her and tell her to get up, but I refrained.

When we arrived in Australia, the sky was amazing and it air was clean. To continue reading about my arrival in Australia, go over to my Australia page.

As I think about it more and more, I become increasingly afraid of this trip for the fact that I believe it will change my life. I try not to be too philosophical or existential as it hurts most people’s brains, but in this case I feel it’s the only way to express my feelings.

I’m afraid of a few things: I won’t fit into Australian society (which would generalize into all Western countries); I will love it and regret coming back; I won’t want to leave.

When you stay in a country like China (or any other country which isn’t the place you grew up in) for such an extended period of time, you begin to change and become more like the people you surround yourself with, and in this case it’s Chinese people. That’s not to say it’s a bad thing because I’ve become much better with my money, and much more generous towards others, but there are other little things I couldn’t begin to explain which might make my return to the West a bit awkward.

On a brighter note, I got $1000 Australian dollars converted over yesterday, bringing me even closer to my trip only 12 days away! All that’s left is getting my school to pay me before I leave so I can pay the landlord, and I have myself an extra $300 to play with when I get back in January. Methinks a trip to Vietnam in February is in order!

Australia is even closer now, and I finally purchased the last remaining flight needed to complete the journey. As surprising as it may sound, I’m paying $50 to fly from Wuhan to a city in the south of China called Guangzhou, $80 from Guangzhou to the capital city of Malaysia called Kuala Lumpur, $50 from Kuala Lumpur to Brisbane, Australia, $50 from Brisbane to Kuala Lumpur, and $80 Kuala Lumpur to Shenzhen, a city in China very close to Guangzhou. Altogether for my flights I’ll be spending about 1/4 the price of a round-trip ticket from America to China (MIA>LAX>Beijing>Wuhan).

I’m having a lot of problems at work, as my co-teacher finds it necessary to challenge me and fight me on every little detail possible. I can’t stand it, and I haven’t told her that in 3 weeks she’ll be forced to fend for herself and teach the kids for a month on her own. I don’t have time to deal with people’s bullshit because life is too short and I want to enjoy myself. Maybe she’ll be even more angry when she finds out I’ve left for such a long time, but she’ll have a month to get over it!

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This is my second Thanksgiving away from home. I was teaching my students about Thanksgiving yesterday, and I explained how unlike our other holidays, we don’t exchange gifts, and instead say what we’re thankful for. My example for them was that I’d be thankful for being back home with my family on Thanksgiving, because I live in China and can’t see them every day. As I said it, I sniffled a bit but didn’t let anything show.
Expats always talk about life in their new home, yet usually refrain from thinking about their old home for fear of feeling emotions one would call normal. I have to admit I have fallen victim of that at some stage in my time here, but talking about these things is normal and all expats should do it to maintain a healthy mental status.

I often wonder if what I did by leaving was the right thing, especially because being a teacher in a developing nation is so hard, and it’s even harder to leave because you can get so comfortable and stuck in your ways.

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That first portion was written a few weeks ago, when I was going through a rough time. Since then things have been looking much better. I’m getting ready to sign a contract with a primary school for 1 year, commencing September 1st, 2009 and ending June 30th, 2010. I did a demonstration class in front of the woman in charge of hiring foreign teachers, and she was extremely happy with my performance.

I had originally mentioned how I had my trip to Australia planned out for the middle of December. The school said this was a huge problem, as their winter holiday was from the middle of January to mid February. As a result, I’d be missing a month of work, something you just can’t do in a public school when the students are meant to have one stable teacher for the entire year.

As a result of my performance and attitude towards the job, the woman said she’d push the principal to accept my trip and let me go. The only downside is I would be unpaid for that period of time. The upside is I’d have 8 weeks off from school instead of only 4! I will know in a day or two what they say. If they agree to it, then I’ll go to Australia and then probably do a second trip for the following month either to India, Malaysia/Singapore, or Vietnam.

—

Things with Lily had a little snag, but has since been resolved and we’re quite happy! As we approach our third month, something I haven’t been able to do in many years, my 23rd birthday also comes quickly upon us. She had been asking me to go to this remote village with her called Fenghuang (in English “Phoenix”), and I decided that I wanted to go for my birthday.

We must endure a 16 hour train ride to a city called Huaihua, and then a 3 hour bus ride through the mountains into this remote and untouched landscape. I’m really excited to see an area of China that’s not a metropolis! Because my birthday falls on a Friday and I have to work on the weekend, we’re leaving Sunday night the 21st after I finish work, and coming back Friday the 26th before I have to work the next day.

When we return, Lily and I are going to finalize the preparations for the business, hoping to run classes from July 5th until the 31st. The week after our classes end, I’ll be going to a coastal paradise called Zhuhai for a 12 day Summer English camp. They pay pretty well and it looks like a lot of fun. This will be from August 5th until August 16th. The next day, Alfred, Richard, Melba, and Emma (Alfred’s gf) will arrive in Shenzhen from Hong Kong, where I will meet them to begin another trip!

I will leave them on the 27th to return home to begin moving to the new apartment before my job begins, but they will stay here until September 6th. I wish I could stay with them the whole time, but I’m just glad to get 10 days with them, and a chance to see them travel outside of America (one of the main goals for my travel website: getting people to travel).

I was commissioned to write an article bout family related travel and another about traveling in Shanghai (not to mention having to write/podcast something for my own site). I’m working on those now, but after having returned from Shanghai, I strongly believe that China isn’t meant for a family with young children. I’m having a hard time writing the family related travel article because I don’t think I would ever bring my family to China. I do, however, feel that if my parents came to visit me in China that think they’d love it.

Lily lost her job at Rise and I’m going to find out why it happened by talking to my boss when I go into work this weekend. Her trainer is a mean person, so getting her trainer’s boss to rehire Lily would be poetic justice for me, as I personally have never liked this person (who’ll rename nameless, as some of my co-workers read my site).

After having traveled a few times since moving to China, Shanghai was my first time traveling alone. I feel much more confident in my own ability to make decisions, and think that solo travel is much better than group travel because you can do what you please. Along the way, I met many amazing people that made me experience unforgettable. In the end, I’m glad I didn’t take the job in Shanghai with English First because I feel it’s not a place I could ever feel comfortable calling home. In fact, being away from Wuhan (and my girlfriend) made me appreciate it.

As an aside, I managed to not get hurt on this trip!

Ok, I’m quite busy preparing my articles for these other websites. My Shanghai pictures are up. I want to say thank you to my friend Simon for letting me use the amazing pictures he took using his Canon Digital SLR. The first 40 or so pictures are mine and the rest are his.

Now you may be asking yourself, “why is he going to Hangzhou?” The answer is that I am going to teach in Hangzhou for a 7 day spring camp, so I am going 5 days early to see Shanghai (because you voted for it) and Hangzhou before the camp begins. I will leave the night camp ends in order to be back in Wuhan for work at 9:30am! I know it sounds crazy, but I love my job so I don’t want to miss 2 weekends in a row!

I will try to continue posting while I’m gone, but there might be a few days where the website is silent.
I am going alone and bringing only a duffel bag with clothing, my camera, and a notebook. I hope you are as excited about reading the posts as I am about experiencing something new!

Is there anything specifically in Shanghai or Hangzhou you think I should do? Let me know by commenting below!

We’d be leaving for Australia in the middle of January, most likely the 15th. And we’d return to China (from Australia) most likely January 31st or February 1st.

More information on Australia to come.

I’ve come to make good friends and have enjoyed being responsible for myself (and earning money that is MINE and no one else’s, except for when I borrow money ).

I had more to say but when I wrote the part up until now I had to leave suddenly for a meeting at work, so I forgot the rest of my message. So sue me. Deal with it. Now look at my pictures before I glue your eyelids to your forehead and use my projector screen and tell you boring stories about how in this one picture, I was riding an elephant.

I expect to do most, if not all the things I’ve never done in life, so expect to hear crazy stories and see crazy photos and videos. I’m going to snorkel, dive, bungee jump, ride elephants bareback, to name a few. That’s it for now