On the 22nd of March, we’ll be singing a little ditty about homecoming as we wing our way back to Sydney. That’s right, for those who haven’t already heard via Facebook or Twitter, we’re both bidding farewell to HangZhou, China after over a year living in the Orient.
Unfortunately, neither of us were able to find suitable work in the region (let alone the city) and late last week I decided to accept an offer to work on Sydney’s Northern Beaches district. This means that we will both be settling in in April to a new lifestyle near the beach in Sydney.
We don’t want to leave, I think by now we are well acclimated to the Chinese way of life, and perhaps also enjoying the vibrancy of the location and its exotic qualities. Certainly we have adapted to the low cost of living – going back is going to be tough. One thing we have managed to grasp, whilst living in China, is how to be a bit more frugal with money. Hopefully that won’t be lost on us when we return to Oz.
It’s (obviously) a pain to relocate once you’d really settled into a location – we had at least over 200 kilograms of possessions here in China – and the process of organising what gets sold, what gets shipped and what comes with us is daunting and depressing. When we land in Sydney we will only have the possessions on hand, or whatever we managed to stash in Canberra. We’re starting anew.. again.
It’s not all doom and gloom, of course. We have a great deal of possessions in storage up in south east Queensland, however the logistics (and cost) of getting everything in one location is going to be.. in a word.. hectic. Our current plan is to rent a small one or two bedroom apartment close to all the amenities and to slowly rebuild our lives back home. We still own two cars, and we have a great collection of friends and family, so I’m sure it’ll be fine!
Anyhow – we depart on the 21st of March so wish us luck!