Blonde Hygge

The much needed life update…

There is so much news to share about our new lives in Hong Kong. There’s good, bad and ugly…

First of all, some good!

We found the most amazing apartment to live in shortly after I shared the last blog post. I always intended to do a cool time-lapse video of us making it our home or maybe some before and after shots but I was enjoying life! So, I never got around to that. I’m not sure vlogging will be my vocation… The apartment is gorgeous and light filled, with high ceilings, open plan with two bedrooms. We are lucky to have the rooftop area above our apartment because we don’t have a balcony. Our landlady is so lovely and our best Hong Kong friends, our Hong Kong family really, live below us so we feel very lucky.

It turned out, you can have the best intentions in the world but sometimes life gives you lemons and you have to make lemonade. Although FYI, we love lemonade so nothing against actual lemonade, just figurative lemonade. So, here is our bad and the ugly. Matt’s job didn’t work out the way he had hoped it would. It turned out Matt needed back surgery. After being shooed away from hospitals and GPs in the UK for years he was finally taken seriously in HK. He had to take a month off and spend a gross amount of money, which was then followed by us losing a really special human from our university days which came as beyond a shock to the system. Matt needed an adjustment to his shifts, in the interim, that the company weren’t expecting and they parted ways. They were pretty shocking in all honesty. Thanks to our visas he still has his right to abode and my visa isn’t affected so we’ll be onwards and upwards from here working on finding him a new position. I have to say the infrastructure of Govt. departments in HK left us feeling very supported and our friends here helped us in every way possible!

Back to good! It looks like, paperwork going well, I will be working in a local school come September. I am chuffed because I decided I needed to get back into the groove of work after Matt’s work situation and this is a lovely, local, govt. primary school. I will be teaching English as a local teacher (not the NET scheme) and have already met some amazing people in the team that have got me all excited to begin. I was looking at trying to get into acting/ voice work but not understanding the language means I haven’t had the confidence to go looking too much and I saw a quote one day that said something like ‘why does your passion have to be your job’. I mean, I love teaching but my passion is acting and I thought, maybe I should just settle into a job I love and try to find ways to act without stressing myself out over money to begin with. Maybe work and a career will follow, but to strive for both feels too stressful so far from home. I think, talking lots with Matt, we have come to learn that having fluidity and no rules in how we grow old is the best way for us and living life like this is sort of doing that. Rather than going upwards, you can go a little sideways and even stand still too!

Anyway, the paperwork is my teacher registration process which I have already begun and having to sit the BLNST in HK because I am going to work for a govt. school. It’s a 20 question test on all things HK law… nervous to say the least but my friend found an app called 7 Days BLNST which claims to have you ready to go in 7 days! So, wish me luck.

What else is new…

The weather. I can’t be a true Brit if I don’t mention that. I wasn’t sure if summertime would hit in the same way here and it hasn’t. For one, the daylight hours are so different to that in the UK and Europe (the sun setting at 7pm at the latest). But the glorious blue skies are here and you feel, that whilst everything is muggy AF, there is the lightness in the air that comes with summer.

Our doglet is doing well, Matt has been away for about 2 months working and volunteering with charities in Afghanistan and Ukraine (another blogpost to come soon). I’d like to dedicate a post with links etc. So, she has been forlorn but I think she feels my excitement that he is back very soon and so she’s more upbeat – walking further (she hates walking when Matt is away) and generally not so gloomy. I do physio with her daily and massaging so she’s still a pampered pooch.

Anyway, thanks for reading! In the next blog post I’d like to write about Matt’s charity endeavours and share some links where you guys can support if you feel like sharing or donating.

L xx