The decision to move to China for a year has been part of my plans for a long time. Had I been a little more organised during my final year of university, I would have ideally been here just after graduating. One year on and a lengthy application process later, here I am back in the motherland at a teacher training camp in the middle of some mountains in the far west of Beijing. I'll be here for the next week and a half to obtain the TEFL qualification and teaching experience required for me to be an English language assistant (ELA) in Tianjin on behalf of British Council.
Packing up my life into 23kg worth of luggage was a true achievement (I got it in 22.7kg - score!) and getting to the airport and actually boarding my flight was a whirlwind. Before I knew it, I was on a plane set for Beijing and the plan to go to China that I'd been speaking about for so long suddenly became very real.
Before leaving my lovely hometown of London, I threw several leaving parties to see as many of my friends and family as possible. I didn't ever consider myself a sentimental person but I was genuinely sad and emotional at the prospect of not seeing my loved ones for a whole year and for the first time ever, spending things my birthday, Christmas and Chinese New Year without them.
Many of my friends have written me letters to open on certain occasions though - for my birthday, when I arrive in China, when I'm homesick or sad. It's the little things that count. Alice wrote me one to open on the plane. It included a sweet note which made me well up, some Friends references (she knows me too well) and a little red origami crane I'd once given her when we all went our separate ways for uni.
I'm aware of some of the challenges that lie ahead of me during my time in China, which I'll be sure to talk about in later posts. But for now, this little red crane will act as a constant reminder of all the positive reasons I decided to travel half way across the world and that ultimately, this will be a good year.
I hope to blog fairly regularly on my life here in China, so stay tuned to hear more about my adventures.
Until then!
Annie x
