Hey y'all, how have you been? I hope you're all doing well. This will be a small life update blog in case you're wondering what I've been up to :)

  Since April, I've been working on moving overseas because I couldn't find a job in Sydney, Australia. In early July, I hopped on a plane and flew to Hong Kong - I quarantined there for 14 days. However, during my 14 days there, Miss Rona exploded and in a small and densely populated city like HK, there were over 100 cases a day on the worst days - so when I finished my hotel jail time, I couldn't go to mainland China, where I was going to find a job. Due to the huge surge of cases, HK citizens were applying for the corona testing, which created a long waitlist even for the test alone - so I lived in another hotel for about 13 more days, until I got notified that my booking is clear and I rushed to get a test so I could go down to the mainland.

  Man, it was TOUGH getting through the borders. The gates opened at 10am, I got there at 12 noon, and there were about 300 people in line in front of me already. By the time I got through the customs, it was already after 4pm. Outside of the immigration centre, there was an empty lot with plastic chairs and so on for travellers to rest but because there were so many people who were travelling in large family groups, I couldn't find a seat so I stood there with 2 suitcases for 2 more hours on top of the 4+ hours waiting in line. We were waiting for the buses to take us to the quarantine hotel - yes you read that right, I had to quarantine for another 14 days in Mainland China. At about 6:30pm, I finally heard my name and boarded a bus that took about 30 of us to a quarantine hotel that was an hour drive away. I was so exhausted by that time so I dozed off on the bus.

  We had to go through another round of testings and paperwork before we were checked into our hotel rooms. The hotel was called Vienna Hotel, which I found out later on was a huge chain hotel brand in Mainland. I was worried that the hotel would be horrible because the exterior didn't look exactly the greatest - there were bars on the windows on every single floor and every single room, and the walls were made out of terracotta coloured bricks from the outside. It reminded me somewhat of a jail. Even the interior of the hotel didn't look too great; the elevator that we boarded was lined with wooden planks on the inside and it was filthy. When I stepped out into the corridors, the red and gold coloured carpets were slightly stained and there was a heavy scent of hospital lingering in the air, which was expected because it was a quarantine hotel and all the hallways were sanitised daily. It was safe to say that my expectations of the hotel wasn't great up to this point, until I opened my door...

  And was greated with a modern, minimalistically designed hotel room that was clean and super nice. I was stoked because I love this type of design in houses. I immediately took a video of the room because it was so nice. It was on that day I was reminded once again to never judge a book by its cover, haha. I had a king sized bed with super soft mattress, and after a long shower I dove into the bed and slept.

  Long story short, my 14 days flew by like a blur and while I was quarantining, I searched online for jobs. With my limited abilities, I figured becoming an English teacher would be my best bet as I was probably good enough to be one in China, seeing that my English is now my strongest point. I also found a place to live, too. However, I would need to apply for a teaching license here to be a teacher, so that's next on my list.

  So that's my life update so far! I've been living in an apartment for a little over a week now, and I'm trying to get used to the environment and society here in China. My favourite things here are that everything is so quick and readily available here, and most importantly, things are CHEAP. Bubble tea back home in Sydney were like $6-$8 for one cup, here it's like under $3 and it's soooooo good. Food delivery here is amazing too, I haven't had to worry about going to sleep hungry just yet. I'm sad that I can't use Youtube and Facebook as much - I have a VPN but unfortunately it only works on my phone and not my laptop, but I'll figure something out later!

  Wishing you all the best and great health ahead! I will post updates here and there!

  xx twosuns