On going away and coming back...

Firstly, apologies for the delayed silence. I actually had 3 blog posts written and ready to go, but none of them are time-dependent, so I think I’ll save them til later.

Anyway, as most of you know, I’ve been back in the UK for almost 2 weeks, and returned to Shanghai last week.  I know, I wasn’t in Shanghai for very long before my first trip back.  The reason being that I had stuff booked in the UK I didn’t want to miss, so I arranged for this trip to come out of my home leave flight allowance so I could afford it, and my boss (who has now left) approved the holiday so it was all sorted.

I was so excited about coming home and I think in all honesty it made those first few weeks easier, so even on low days I knew it wasn’t long before I was back. I think that’s the key here – making sure you have trips/breaks planned so you always have something to look forward to.

So, my trip home. It was awesome. I never thought of myself as hugely patriotic, but living away even this short time has changed all that I think. I was so glad to be home, and not just because of my family and friends – I actually missed England too. Especially proper tea.

It was a packed agenda. Standon Calling festival, then a few days in Whitby with the family, then a quick trip home, then over to Maidstone for 2 days with my new agency before flying back, so I was pretty busy.

What I did notice is the ‘I’ve come all the way from China’ card is pretty handy. The best use of it I found (apart from getting out of the washing up) is to use it to meet your favourite band, which is what I did at Standon. We found a nice security guard, I played the ‘I’ve come all the way from China for this’ card, and got to meet Paul Smith from Maximo Park!!!! It was worth moving to China just for that!!!!!

So coming back was a real mix of emotions, which was not helped by the fact that I had 5 minutes to make my connecting flight from Amsterdam to Shanghai so I had to sprint (yes, me, sprinting, not pretty) across Amsterdam airport and only just made it. And then when I got back to Shanghai, I was nearly in a taxi pile up on the motorway which wouldn’t have ended well (and was a typical welcome).

I was sad to leave, but I’m also excited to be back. This is just the start of my experience here and there’s so much still to come. And it was nicer leaving and knowing what I was coming back to, nowhere near as scary!

Things I learnt from being at home:

There’s never enough time. You can’t see everyone you want to, and you’ll send yourself crazy if you try.

The sky is blue!

We never appreciate how lucky we are living in the UK. Being able to drink the tapwater, seeing blue skies, green spaces, family nearby…it could be a lot worse.

After living in China, your definition of a place being ‘busy’ and someone else’s will be drastically different.

Not having to use a VPN makes the internet so much quicker

Finally, I wanted to say a big thank you. I have been overwhelmed by the amount of people reading this, and coming home and hearing everyone say they were enjoying it means the world to me (especially Anne, who can’t normally even open her laptop! ;)).