About Me

I am from London and I think that London is one of the best cities in the world, but I also love travelling and have a long, long list of places that I want to go. I am a big advocate of travel to broaden your horizons and to challenge your world view. As well as an insatiable wanderlust, I love food and tend to judge a country by how good the cuisine is. Eating my way around the world sounds like a good plan to me! As I get older I also find myself drawn to languages and have tried my hand at Spanish (Hola!), Mandarin (你好!), French (Bonjour!), Korean (안녕하세요!), Arabic (!مرحبا) and very tiny bit of German (Guten Tag!).

I originally starting this blog in 2014 when I decided to uproot and move my life to China. It was a way for family and friends to know that I was still alive without actually having to talk to them - charming, I know - but over time it became a hobby and sort of diary for myself. As I returned to "normal life" back in London I have sporadically updated Getting out of the Bubble to document my travels and, more recently, cooking endeavours.

I have been to:

32 of 195 countries

4 of 7 continents

45 of 1007 UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Countries I’ve Visited
Europe: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom (including England, Northern Ireland, Wales)
Africa: Tunisia, Morocco
Central Asia: Russia
Asia: Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Sri Lanka
North America: Mexico, USA

Places I’ve Lived
London, England (currently living)
York, England
Suzhou, China
Yinchuan, China

My Journey

In 2013 I graduated from University and started to apply for lots of jobs that I wasn't even sure I wanted. After not a lot of luck with the graduate job market I wasn't exactly sure where I was going. That was until my friend from University, Jenny, came to London and mentioned she was applying to teach English in China for 6 months. Within a few days I was convinced, I was going to become a TEFL teacher in China.
This wasn't a completely random decision for me. The summer of 2012, I worked on an English Language summer camp in Spain and TEFL had been something I was looking into when Jenny mentioned China to me, but I was looking at Spain. I hadn't even considered going half way across the world. Deciding to go to China was the start of my journey out of my little bubble, and since then I've never looked back.
I first went to China with LoveTEFL on their China Internship programme. LoveTEFL was a great way to go to China because of the comprehensive support system. There was always someone to answer questions or to sort out any problems, which there can be a lot of at the beginning, and they gave us good training before we were sent off to our placements. I spent six months teaching in public schools in Suzhou, a satellite city to Shanghai, which was manic. Classes are huge in public school (upwards of 40 students) and support from Chinese staff can sometimes be lacking, especially with the language barrier. But the students, while trying at times, were a lot of fun and teaching was very flexible with no books to work to. I loved Suzhou, and LoveTEFL, but at the end of my contract Jenny and I made the decision to move on.
Next I worked in Yinchuan, with a company called Aston. They are a private company and one of the largest English Languages providers in China. Aston is more of a serious teaching experience, because at the end of the day it is a business, and the experience is very different to in Suzhou. We got training every week so that we could constantly develop and become better teachers, and classes followed a strict syllabus with mid-terms, final exams and report cards. But don't let the seriousness trick you into thinking that it wasn't fun! It's still an amazing place to work, and with three and a half days off a week no one was complaining!
After a year and a half in Yinchuan I decided to head back to the UK to try to build some kind of career for myself. It was a difficult decision and, although I have joined the regular 9 to 5, ultimately I think it is a good next step for me. I worked in the travel industry for just over a year and loved every minute of it - if you can't travel full time then work in a job where you can talk about travel all the time! But working full-time doesn't mean the adventures will stop, if anything it's made me more determined to make the most of the time that I do have off!

TECS Summer Camps - Work With Us
TECS is what really started my journey and was so much fun. Summer Camp is so much fun, and something that I would definitely consider doing again.

LoveTEFL
The company that started my journey to China.

Aston
The company that formed the majority of my China experience, Aston English Schools.

Flight Centre
The travel agents where I worked when I came back to the UK.