Author: samuel-thorpe@live.com.au

We made it to Shanghai baby! What an interesting city it is. Picking up from my last post. We got stuck in Hong Kong for an extra hour and a half while we waited for the plane to take off. It had already been delayed by around 25 minutes and this apparently meant we had to wait for even more flights before we could have our turn. Eventually we landed in Shanghai and was greeted with a wave of icecream melting heat. If you plan to visit Shanghai do not come in summer time….

After making it through all the usual processes with customs and what not, we were picked up by a lovely person from Claire’s new work and taken to our hotel. After that it was setting up everything, like the apps to pay on and our new sim cards. By this point I was trying not to fall asleep because it had been such a looong day.

After conking out for twelve hours, we woke up and decided that it was time to explore our new city! That…was a mistake. It was 38C and about 90% humidity. So lets say there was a lot of sweat and three showers throughout the day. We did get to see some incredible sights though! Including The Bund, which is a very iconic skyline of buildings across the main river. As well as the Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street (thanks google) which was just a huge shopping street. While we were going through in the day it was actually rather quiet. Little did I know, and that I would find out later, was that every man and his dog seems to come out when it isn’t blazing with the heat of a thousand suns. I am talking fighting through waves of bodies. Being claustrophoic doesn’t help but at least off the main shopping street it was much better.

Getting across the river was a fun little experience including a sightseeing tunnel, that yes was a little gimmicky but still kinda cool. It went under the river and took around 10 mintues.

We also went to the Pearl Tower and did a river cruise. This being now night time but still incredibly warm and sticky. Both were very cool. The river cruise was fun because we went there at sunset and got to watch all the buildings start to turn on light shows. It felt a little like being at Vegas except it wasn’t trying to entice people to come gamble.

The other thing I have to mention is how incredibly clean the city is. It’s mind bloggling that they can keep a city of 23 million people basically spotless. While we did see a few cleaners walking around picking up the odd trash it was still impressive to say the least.

Anyway, this blog does lack a few photos. I am having technical difficulties so I shall be posting them on my Instagram.

Hope this was enjoyable! Talk soon xx

S.

P.s. The title is the greaterer migration because i thought it was funny and everyone would be wondering if they missed the greater migration part 2. You didn’t. Or did you…?

We have finally landed in Hong Kong. What an absolute beast of an airport. It’s honestly huge! This won’t be a big update. The flight was pretty plesant but we did have to leave Perth at 12:10am. A first for me leaving so late in the evening.

Surprisingly it only takes around 8 hours to fly from Perth to Hong Kong. In my head it was way longer. My entertainment for the flight was the first Matrix (a classic) and Wall-E. Something I haven’t watched in a very long time. Wholesome movie. Claire on the other hand attempted to rewatch Project Hail Mary and then fell asleep all over me because we had a spare seat in the middle. Am currently running on maybe 2.5 hours sleep and feeling ALIVE! The journey has now very much sunk in. We are doing this baby! And there ain’t no turning back now!

I have told my friends countless times that I have always wanted to live overseas and enact all the millions of plans that my brain seems to construct daily (just ask my two best friends). But this is the real deal. The t’s crossed and the I’s dotted. Except not that I because it’s a captial.

Now we are waiting for our next flight with an incredible view of the surrounding mountains that are drifting in and out of the fog. Truely a wonderous place. There will be an updated blog on Hong Kong as we will be coming back in roughly two months. But for now just imagine lush green mountains, a bit of light rain and a whoooole lot of humidity.

Here’s to hoping I am able to get some sleep on the second flight. I’ll work out how to add a Gallery so I can keep posting photos. But for now its just text.

Laters! xx

S.

Tell you what. If you ever decide to drive from anywhere in Australia to Perth….be prepared. Pick your driving partner carefully (thankfully mine is the same brand of weird as me) and load up audio books, songs and whatever else you think you need to help you stay sane. As Scar says…Be Prepared! Except in this case you aren’t taking over Simba’s birthrite, you are instead driving 2700 kilometres across some of the most interestingly bland country full of a shit load of NOTHING!

This is my version. We started in Adelaide at 7am. The car fully loaded and packed with our whole lives. Preparing to make one of the Great Migrations that seems to attract way too many retired caravaners. While it was 3 days of 10 hour plus driving, it was totally worth it. Whales are something I never thought I would see on the long drive over. We infact saw about 20 of them in the great bight. They are far larger than I remembered. Like honestly huge. They apparently hang out in the Bight because its fairly safe, there’s absolutely nothing there and their little calfs (which are also the size of a bloody 4 wheel drive) can learn to live in peace. It was just amazing to take a small 20 minute detour to see these incredible monsters of the sea. When you seem them its not hard to imagine where all the myths of magical creatures of the sea came from.

I digress. We spent three days trekking across our beautiful country to make it to Perth where the other half was born and raised. I am currently sitting in the living room writing this out and slowly counting down the hours until we jump on our plane and make our next great migration. Although I suspect that sitting in a plane for 10 hours and travelling four times the distance might be alittle easier on my body. My stupid circulatory system makes my feet puff up something fierce though if I don’t move around so I better make sure I do that. They (my toes) seriously look like little sausages if I don’t. And no I won’t post my feet pics to prove it. So fear not.

Anyway back to the trek. We listened to two lovely audio books by Andrew Hunter Murray (from our favourite podcast No Such Thing As A Fish) which really did help keep our sanity. The first one was called “A beginners guide to breaking and entering”. I won’t pitch it here but its a great listen. It really helped zone me out while I was driving at 130kms an hour and feeling like we were getting nowhere, until suddenly we were stopping to get some surprisingly not that expensive fuel, buying a drink and of course going to the toilet. Then it was back to seeing a whole not of interesting nothing.

At one point I decided we should play a game of Eye Spy which honestly was a bit of great fun and burnt up some extra time. We also saw Camels! Which was so awesome because I knew that Australia has the biggest camel population outside of their native countries. The journey did sort of all blend together. Except I can vividly remember driving for three hours on a dirt road….yes three hours, I am not exaggerating here, to get to a place called Wave Rock. All so I could do a stupid surf pose (worth it!) and keep on driving.

It was worth it. Everything about this drive. The countless hours of passing landscape that ever so slowly changed. Seeing the whales and camels and stopping at little towns in the middle of dingo woop woop (a great way of measuring if I do say so myself). There’s just something about a road trip.

Well thats all for this post. Talk soon xx.

S.

P.s. I edited this and changed all the I’s into capitals because the other half was annoyed that they were all lower case. Something about proper grammar or whatever. Blame my english teachers.

How the hell do I start a blog? That’s the question I was asking myself as we drove home from Melbourne, Australia. My mind jumps from thought to thought with no real connection. I am currently sitting here writing this while I wait for this final meeting for the day is over. I am leaving my job and following my incredible other half to a brand-new country. China! This is the main reason I wanted to start this. So I can keep track of my exploits – or as of right now…lack there of.

I am an English/Hass teacher, newly minted in 2024. After, to what feels like me, several lifetimes of terrible and meaningless jobs, I found passion in education. It’s a wonderfully difficult and stressful job but has some of the most rewarding interactions I have so far in my 35 years experienced.

Back to the blog starting. I just wanted to start this to keep my friends and family informed and also simply put words to paper. I have always wanted to write a book. I’ve tried several times to actually start something, but I never really get very far. I love fantasy and sci-fi and I’m constantly listening to audio books and playing games. Everyone who knows me, knows all of this. So why am I writing it down? Maybe a simple release of emotions I can’t quite explain, or maybe a simple “fuck it” (sorry mum). This blog will simply be what it is to be me. Undiagnosed. This might be a bit pretentious on my part. Hell, maybe no one will ever see this. I just want to do something.

Reading that back I realised I used a lot of “simply” and “simple”. Exactly the opposite of what I would tell my students to do. Ha. This is exactly what this blog is going to be about. A smattering of thoughts with honestly who knows what in between. I’ll try to stay consistent. I’ll try to add photographs. But let’s be real here. Knowing my brain, I’ll give up in a week and go back to my hairbrained schemes.

Now the real question is…how on earth am I meant to end a blog? I am writing this while sitting in an uber driving to my second to last day of school. New adventures await…and honestly I’m pretty petrified. This is a dream come true. To live and explore the world. Problem is that I really really love my creature comforts. Well…Wish me luck.

S.