Since late November I have been working as an English teacher at a school here in Jiangmen.
When I decided to come to China, I knew that besides studying chinese I also wanted to find a job to make money for travelling. Teaching English is what most people come to do here, so I thought why not try. Even though I am not a teacher by profession, I did tutor kids back in Chile so I had a little bit of experience in the area. But teaching a classroom full of kids is a totally different thing.
I have been away from my blog for a while,and since I haven’t travelled around just yet, I thought I would just write about my life in China.
The foreigners community in Jiangmen,where I live, is very small. Most of them are english teachers or business people. Having just finished my year abroad in France, my expectations about what my university in China would be like were pretty high. I figured there would be more people my age from different countries that were looking for the same experience I was. Wrong. Our classes are pretty small, and even though we have really nice classmates mostly Korean and people of chinese origin , we were pretty bummed about not meeting a lot of new people.
I had been hearing about Macao for a few years now, like Hong Kong, it’s also a “special administrative region” of China. This means that it’s officially a part of China but maintains its own ruling systems.
It used to be a Portuguese colony, which is why the architecture is very European looking and Portuguese is the official language (as well as Cantonese).
But what Macau is famous for is its casinos, revenues are higher than in Vegas and the “Venetian Macao” is actually the largest Casino in the world.
So all in all , I was pretty pumped up to see this luxurious yet historically rich place. Unfortunately it turned out to be a pretty disastrous trip.
I love Madrid and at the beginning of this year I had the chance to spend a wonderful weekend there. The Spanish capital is very much my style of city, big , cosmopolitan, multicultural and vibrant by day and night.
Puerta de Alcalá
Jiangmen, is my new home in China. This city is located in the Guangdong province of Southern China, just a couple of hours from Hong Kong. I came here to take what it seemed to be an impossible challenge, learn chinese.
Learning mandarin or putonghua has been quite a feat, it’s a very complex language to say the least. It frustrates me that there are 4 different tones to each syllable, which if I mess up I could be saying something completely insulting. The tone difference between kiss and please in mandarin is one that I haven’t mastered yet, and it’s a pretty dangerous mistake I would say.
I came to China 2 months ago to learn chinese, and let’s just say it has been no walk in the park.
I love travelling, learning from new cultures and trying new things but in China, my trip didn’t start off all that well. Nothing bad happened, nor was I unhappy, it was just a major culture shock and it took a toll emotionally. I had been to China before, as a tourist but actually living here changes things.
Here I am, finding myself in the same situation I was one year ago when I was leaving to France to finish my studies. After only 2 months of being back home, today I’m off to China.
I have done this “leaving” thing a few times before, it’s easy because even though you will miss your family and friends, what you are leaving for is all that you want and will make you happy. But the return gives me mixed emotions, on one side being back home with my family is great, but on the other I look back on the life I built and friends I made, and I will miss it dearly.
Crete is the largest of the Greek islands the last stop during my trip in Greece.
I took a ferry from Santorini to Heraklion, which is the capital of Crete. But I was spending the night in Chania which is 3 hours away from Heraklion by bus and from where I had a flight back to France the next night.
Oia is a small town in Santorini. If you have ever seen pictures of luxurious hotels in Santorini it’s probably in Oia. It is so amazingly beautiful, that at times my friends and I just couldn’t believe we were there.
I had been wanting to visit Santorini for years .It was my ultimate wanderlust destination and I would say the main purpose of going to Greece was visiting this island.
Greek Island Hopping
The first stop in Greece was Athens. After a day of sightseeing, which honestly disappointed me, I embarked on a ferry to Mykonos. The ferry was the best way to get there and only costed 34 euros! The ride lasts for about 6 hours and it’s pretty smooth.
Istanbul was my last stop in Turkey, but I had already spent a night there upon my arrival in the country. That little glimpse of the city by night making my way to the hostel through Istiklal avenue, one of the busiest streets in Istanbul, was enough to make me excited about exploring this place for 4 days.
The landscape created by erosion and volcanic eruptions in Cappadocia, Turkey, is unlike anything I had seen before. And civilizations back in the day took advantage of this and created underground cities and caves to live in.
I never thought I would take a ride on a hot air balloon. It wasn’t even on my bucket list on the first place, but then Turkey happened and Cappadocia was the perfect place to do it.
I was staying in the tiny but picturesque town of Goreme, and asked around many agencies that offered hot air balloon rides.
It’s expensive, which is why if you are planning your Turkey trip make sure you have already made up your mind about doing it and consider it in your budget. Prices range from 90 to 160 euros, I paid 110. When asking why there was such a big difference in prices, the reply was always the same: experience and quality of service.
My first stop in Turkey was Selçuk, a town in the Izmir province, known for being home to the ancient Greek city of Ephesus and other ancient archeological sites like the “House of Virgin Mary”, the “Temple of Artemis” and “St John’s Basilica”.
Upon arrival we were welcomed by heavy rain which we were not prepared for, so we made our way running from the train station to the nearest restaurant we could find. Turns out, we had found the main square and our hostel was just a few blocks away. What I’m getting at here is that Selçuk is pretty tiny and you can easily walk around town in a day.But I liked it, people were friendly, the food was good and the place was interesting. Plus staying in Selçuk is a good base to make day trips to Pamukkale or the beach such as Bodrum.
RESTLESS FOOTPRINTS 