This Blog is a Study Abroad Ambassador Award Winner!

Somehow my blog has been selected by the lovely people at eCollegeFiner as a travel website that provides "priceless information to students as they prepare to leave" to study in another country.  I suppose although this blog documented my life as a teacher in China rather than a student, the same principles of travelling and living in a foreign country apply.  I am extremely flattered to have been chosen out of the many hundreds of blogs about living in China to appear on their site.  I genuinely hope some of the ramblings on these pages give a hint of the ups and downs of modern life in China (and what to do if you fall in love and decide to move back home after 3 years!).


You can see the list of all 75 sites chosen here, including short passages of travel advice written by the winners -- including one from yours truly.    


Although my life in China is officially history, it will always be a part of me (thanks to Kimi).    

Kimi Got Her Visa

I have been hugely delayed writing this post, but a few weeks ago Kimi and I received the good news that the British embassy had decided to grant her a visa to come to the UK to marry me.  We had waited months for an answer to our weighty application, going through Halloween, Christmas, New Year and Chinese New Year with no hint of an answer.  Finally in mid February, Kimi received a package containing just her sole passport, but with the new visa stuck inside.  That was that!

The application for the marriage visa was no small feat, the amount of paperwork needed for such a visa is quite astonishing.  It was something we had to study to get right (the first problem was which one to go for!), and we even paid an agency to help us on the way too.  Over the coming weeks I will be posting a step by step guide to applying for the marriage visa with the aim of helping others who may be planning on taking the same steps as we have.

What's next for us?  In one month Kimi will be arriving in the UK, and then within 6 months we will be getting married.  Once we have tied the knot, the time will have come to apply for the next visa....

MINDSCAPE Hypnotherapy

As I mentioned previously, I have trained and am now qualified as a hypnotherapist.  For the past 5 months I have been slaving away on a website for my company, which has finally been completed (apart from the odd mistake I keep stumbling across, if you find one please let me know.  Web designing is not easy when you have to compete with so many different browsers, operating systems and screen sizes).  It is funny how things work out really, today was the day that not only did I finally get my website uploaded without any major disasters occurring, but I also moved into my new office.  I am renting a room in The Holistic Therapy Clinic in Manchester where I actually studied and learnt about hypnotherapy.  At the moment I will be balancing hypnotherapy work one day a week while I still work at my other job full-time -- for now anyway.

My new office, the chair is very comfortable

I am very excited, and really can't wait to get started.  If you have a second, take a look at my website here:  http://www.mindscapehypnotherapy.com 

On another note, I have also started another blog here which will be linked to the website.  I will be concentrating my efforts on that blog for the foreseeable future, but I will of course occasionally still post here.  Once I am an expert, I will certainly be posting tips and advice for visa applications and the progress of Kimi's move to the UK.

Kimi's visa status:  Still processing (almost 2 months of waiting now).