People always talk about the “7 year itch”, when you’ve been with someone for 7 years and you start to get sick of one another! Well, lucky for us we don’t have that problem, we have another kind of problem…the 7 month itch. We’ve sat still now for 7 months and our travel itch has definitely come back, it’s just waiting to be scratched! For those of you who don’t know what this “itch” is, it’s the feeling a traveller gets when they’ve sat still for too long, when they know there’s so much more to be seen and done. Our feet are getting antsy and ready to move on, to pack our backpacks and explore more of our beautiful world.
Don’t get me wrong, we love living in China, we love teaching English to our precious little students, but we are travellers at heart. The novelty of having a routine, an apartment and a job is wearing off! When we signed our year-long teaching contract, we figured we’d be able to do some travelling. We had high hopes of going to Japan, Korea or Taiwan, or all three. It turns out that the holiday time we get is during the same time as the rest of China. We tried battling it out for space during the Autumn Festival in Suzhou, but that was crazy. So, when it came time for the Chinese New Year, we figured we would stay put and not bother travelling when 1 billion or so people are moving around.
We’re both so glad we had a month of travelling around this stunning country before settling in and working here in Yangzhou. We were able to see the amazing Great Wall of China, ooo and aww and the adorable Panda Bears in Chengdu, visit the crazy metropolitan city of Hong Kong, gaze at the beautiful rice terraces of Guilin and cycle through the massive karsts around Yangshuo.
Since living in Yangzhou, we’ve been to Shanghai a couple of times, wandered around the old town of Suzhou and made a day trip to Wuxi. We have a fellow backpacking friend visiting us in April so we’ve been saving some of the cities and sights for when he’s here. We plan to see the cities of Nanjing, Hangzhou more of the gardens and sights of Yangzhou.
Our teaching contract is up at the end of July, 2013 and although it will be very sad to say goodbye to everyone we’ve met here, we will be more than ready to set off on our next journey! We need to scratch that travel itch. We’re planning an epic, adventurous, nature filled trip through Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and making our way through Europe by train. We’ll be trekking, hiking, fishing, camping and riding horseback, we’re very much looking forward to it. Stay tuned!
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