Three years living in China! To say ‘time flies when you’re having fun’ would be a massive understatement at this point.
It blows my mind to think of all the amazing, and some not so amazing, things that Steve, Liv and I have seen and experienced since moving to Shanghai. And I’m all of a sudden regretting not keeping a diary of our time here.
I honestly can’t believe we’ve been gone for as long as we have! I almost feel like I’ve stepped into a time warp where days in Shanghai disappear at breakneck speed, and life outside of China has only rolled on a year. Crazy thoughts I know! Maybe it’s knowing there is so much to experience here, in what will inevitably be so little time to experience it, that I’m constantly racing to take it all in before it’s our time to leave!
I realize there are so many family and friends I haven’t had the chance to catch up with since we left Australia, and for that I’m sorry.
Virtual Private Networks (VPN’s) aside, other than quick updates on Facebook and Instagram, the China Bubble (aka The Great Chinese Firewall) means that if you’re not on WeChat it’s hard for us to keep in touch, but please know you’re always in our thoughts.
There have been countless moments I’ve been somewhere and seen something and thought ‘OMG I wish _______ was here!’ so I could show you this, or tell you about that and have a laugh, but then life happens and I forget to write to you.
One of my New Year’s resolutions (back in 2017/18!) was to download/upload, sort and save all of the thousands of photo’s I’ve amassed since arriving here. Better late than never, over the last few weeks I’ve finally started working on that resolution.
As I’ve been sorting through photos I’ve realized I didn’t need to keep a diary, because the mountains of photos I’ve taken are the perfect chronicle. Not just happy holiday snaps but photo’s I’ve taken of everyday life – from the beautiful to the crazy, and all of those ‘what the fuck?’ moments in between.
I keep thinking back to something I said to Olivia as we were preparing to leave Australia. I told her “We are going on an amazing adventure, and we will have so many stories to tell”, and we do, but we’re not getting a chance to share them with you.
As you well know, normally I’d love nothing more than to catch up with you over a cup of coffee (or more likely a glass of wine or three!) but as I don’t know when we’ll next get a chance to talk, I’ve created this blog where Liv, Steve (on occasion) and I can share everything we’ve been dying to tell you about our adventures here in China!
I hope you get a chance to drop by once in a while and catch up on what we’ve been up to. Just know that I will be writing to you with coffee, or vino, in hand and imagining we’re sitting across the table from one another, sharing stories and a laugh.
Missing you & chat soon
xxx S
