Englishabroad

When I first arrived back home I told everyone two months, I’ll be back for two months. I leave on the 3rd of August. Oh how wrong I was. I didn’t end up leaving until a month later, on the 4th September. I had a flight booked for August! I had a job waiting! But I had visa issues! The last time I went to China I flew to Hong Kong and got a visa there. However recently China have been more forceful on their visa requirements and a lot more was required. I had my degree and TEFL already notarised by a solicitor so I had one part of the process done. I had to apply and then wait for a police check to be notarised and a letter from my University to prove I ... read more

Living abroad I hadn’t seen my best friend for a few years. With me being home for two months we decided to do something together. We arranged a date and I went up to London and met Maggie after she finished work. We had also arranged to see two girls we went to school with, Portia and Hannah - Maggie had not seen them since she left school 10 years before. On arriving in London I met Hannah and we went to get some food for a picnic. In Hyde Park we met up with Portia and Maggie. We had our picnic in the sun and Maggie told me that she had actually sorted a trip to Paris and Disney for us both, leaving the next morning. She had warned me there was a surprise ... read more

We had to be in Cairns by the 27th May as I had a flight booked but we wanted to be there a few days earlier so we could do the things we wanted to in that area. Luckily we arrived on the 22nd so we were fine. We arrived late afternoon and the first thing we did was find a trip to the Great Barrier Reef. We found a perfect one; we didn’t want to dive, we were happy to snorkel. We found a boat that went to the Outer Reef and included lunch and other things. We booked it for the Friday. The day before the reef we spent walking around Cairns and exploring the town. It isn’t the prettiest of places but it has the reef so everyone goes there. The day of ... read more

We’d heard that Brisbane wasn’t the nicest City but we loved it there. There was so much to see and do and a lot of it was free - which is always an added bonus. After going to a few information centres and deciding exactly what we wanted to do, we got started. We spent the afternoon looking around free markets, trying tasters and buying fresh fruit. The first morning we walked along South Bank, a public area with parks, swimming areas, restaurants and a Chinese temple. It was a lovely place to walk and look around. We always like to head to a city’s China town so after the South Bank we started on our way there. Unfortunately Brisbane’s China Town wasn’t the greatest, it was rather small and most of it was shut ... read more

Between the Blue Mountains and The Gold Coast is 570 miles (roughly 10h drIve) of basically just coast. This drive took us a week and we stopped in three different towns along the way. The first place we stopped was Newcastle. This area was discovered by accident when in 1797 John Shortland was sent to search for a number of convicts who had seized HMS Cumberland as she was sailing out of Sydney. The town became a big coal mining area. Newcastle gained a reputation as a "hellhole" as it was a place where the most dangerous convicts were sent to dig in the coal mines as harsh punishment for their crimes. When we first arrived in Newcastle we went straight to the beach and spent the afternoon reading, sunbathing and swimming. The next day ... read more