Travel
STATE OF THE BLOG ADDRESS: AUGUST, 2013
Read on for updates on my life, future travel plans, some big announcements and more!
A lot of people have been wondering what exactly I’m up to seeing as my initial teaching contract ended July 1st. This time last year, I was dead set on returning home promptly after one year in Hong Kong– and now everything is up in the air.
And while I can’t tell you exactly what the future holds for Johnny and myself, because we ourselves don’t know (yet), I can at least tell you what we do know–
We’re not ready to leave Asia yet
(For multiple reasons that I’ll get to soon)
For now, despite my desire to quit teaching in order to find something more inline with my future career, I’ve signed on to do summer session at the English teaching job I’ve been working at this past year.
Why?
Because:
1) I’ve settled into a routine there.
2) I was given reasonably good benefits for staying on longer.
3) I love my coworkers.
Although more importantly:
- When it’s not summer session it gives me plenty of time to write blog posts.
- I am now able to work on a month-to-month basis instead of being locked into another 1 year contract.
- I was able to have my Hong Kong employment visa renewed for an additional 2 years– which gives me a lot of flexibility.
I’ll be seeing many more faces like these.
But unfortunately, it is currently summer session now until September, which means my days are longer, busier, and crazier to the extreme. So for the month of August you can expect a lot of travel videos and shorter posts (probably focused on Japan and Disney-related things because it’s my birthday month so I’ll do what I want! Yeah!).
Things will also be scaled back a little bit with blogger interviews and guest posts being featured only every-other Tuesday.
But in return for some scaling back on my site, you’ll begin to see a much bigger presence on Youtube and Pinterest. Another announcement on that to come hopefully soon!
So back to why we’re not ready to leave Asia. The first reason is that it’s easier here for both of us to break into our dream careers. See? I told you we have no plans to become traveling nomads.
Johnny’s career has many opportunities in Asia and I want to continue to write and travel, but that’s a hard industry to break into in the US. It’s been a lot easier seeing job openings in Asia where the amount of native English speakers is lower…
Which brings me to my 1st big announcement!
I’m the new blogger for JTB USA!
When I was younger it was my dream to work for JTB (Japan Tourist Bureau), because they played a large part in opening my eyes to my love for Japan, so I guess you can say it’s a dream come true! Depending on how things work out between us, ideally they want me to live in Japan, which means I might be reapplying to the JET program later this year. Something I’ve been considering anyhow so I can finally bump my Japanese to the next level.
The second reason we’re not ready to leave Asia, or okay, maybe my reasons more so than Johnny’s, is that with so many places left unseen, I’m just not ready to head back to home. Places that are high on my bucket list, and places that are cheap and easy to travel to from Hong Kong. So you may be thinking, ‘well if they’re so cheap and easy to travel to, why haven’t you gone yet?’
If you haven’t noticed, we actually haven’t traveled anywhere outside Hong Kong since our trip to Japan in April. Why? As much as we love Japan and believe it’s worth every penny spent, our wallet took a good beating from our trip. It took us a good two months of paychecks just to finish paying off all the damage (a post on the reality of the cost to visit Japan coming soon!).
Although we do have some smaller trips planned over the next few months, such as to China to use up my visa before it expires at the end of September, we don’t have any real travel plans until November.
Originally I was hoping to take some short trips to Taiwan or Kuala Lumpur this fall while saving to quit my job and explore South East Asia for a few months before returning home. But all of that has been put on hold because we’re saving for bigger and better things.
We were going to keep it a secret until we were about to leave, but we’re just too excited not to share it. So it’s time for big announcement #2:
We are going to the Maldives!
That’s right, come November we’ll be relaxing in paradise. I can still hardly believe it! As far as what we’ll be doing and where we’ll be staying, all details will be revealed as it gets closer to the departure date.
So obviously that means we won’t be coming home until at least after November, but who knows what will we end up doing afterwards.
Whether it’s finishing out a second year in Hong Kong or relocating to Japan for the JET program, you can be sure that the next year will be filled with adventures for you to continue following!