After a successful first Mini Retirement in BKK, where I got to test drive this whole location independent thing while running my online biz while travelling, I'm now at the planning stages of my next mini retirement. While I do want to do a mini retirement in South America (Brasil, Colombia and Peru) in the future, I'm going to return to Asia as I really had a blast there and I feel and want to get to know other areas of this fine part of the world. I loved the 3 months I spent in BKK and I enjoyed my 3 weeks in the Philippines (Cebu) and I was blown away like never before in my short time I spent in Tokyo. Japan would have been, without any hesitation, my # 1 pick for my next mini retirement. However and unfortunately, in light of the current situation, any trip, whether short or long term to Japan will be put on hold until things get back to normal. In the meantime, I have been reading with increasing interest about living in China.
So I would like to know from those of you have experience with China and living there:
- what it is like to live there
- is it easy to find mid term accommodations (say 3-6 months)
- which would be a good city to select for my base given that I dont want to be in a place that is too cold. But I want a city with fairly good infrastructures, reliable and fast internet (vital for me to run my biz), fairly safe, open minded and sexy girls who are foreigners friendly etc...
- how are the people generally speaking? (friendly? foreigner friendly or hostile and racist)?
- cost of living: would $2-3k/month be enough to have a comfortable lifestyle (decent apart in a nice area of town, eating out all the time, going out 4-5 times a week etc...).
Now, I have read elsewhere that teaching English in China, while it may not pay much, is a great way to meet locals, make contacts for business and also, meet girls, on top of being an obvious way to get integrated into the social life of the city. Would you guys agree that it might be a positive thing to teach English, say on a part time basis, not for the extra money but for the social aspect of it?
Also, I'm starting in 2 weeks time, a Japanese course in the local college. Do you think it would be counter productive to learn at the same time, both Japanese and Mandarin? While I'm good with learning languages having self taught to near fluency Italian and Brasilian Portuguese, I never learned 2 languages at the same time. So would you advise on focusing on one at a time or is learning both at the same time, not going to be a problem? What do you guys suggest on this?
All in all, for now, I'm very curious about China and China is a very likely destination for my next mini retirement. Thailand and the Philippines are also and always an option. Depending on how things work, I may even do an extended series of mini retirements back to back to back there like say 6 months in Thailand, 6 months in the Phils and 6 months in China. Nothing concrete yet, still in the planning stages. Departure is scheduled for end of September 2011, but again, seeing how bored out of my mind I'm here, I'm seriously toying with the idea of going away for 3-4 months back to Asia (BKK/Phils or Bali, KL and Jakarta) soon.
I appreciate any feedback you China pros can provide.
Cheers.
So I would like to know from those of you have experience with China and living there:
- what it is like to live there
- is it easy to find mid term accommodations (say 3-6 months)
- which would be a good city to select for my base given that I dont want to be in a place that is too cold. But I want a city with fairly good infrastructures, reliable and fast internet (vital for me to run my biz), fairly safe, open minded and sexy girls who are foreigners friendly etc...
- how are the people generally speaking? (friendly? foreigner friendly or hostile and racist)?
- cost of living: would $2-3k/month be enough to have a comfortable lifestyle (decent apart in a nice area of town, eating out all the time, going out 4-5 times a week etc...).
Now, I have read elsewhere that teaching English in China, while it may not pay much, is a great way to meet locals, make contacts for business and also, meet girls, on top of being an obvious way to get integrated into the social life of the city. Would you guys agree that it might be a positive thing to teach English, say on a part time basis, not for the extra money but for the social aspect of it?
Also, I'm starting in 2 weeks time, a Japanese course in the local college. Do you think it would be counter productive to learn at the same time, both Japanese and Mandarin? While I'm good with learning languages having self taught to near fluency Italian and Brasilian Portuguese, I never learned 2 languages at the same time. So would you advise on focusing on one at a time or is learning both at the same time, not going to be a problem? What do you guys suggest on this?
All in all, for now, I'm very curious about China and China is a very likely destination for my next mini retirement. Thailand and the Philippines are also and always an option. Depending on how things work, I may even do an extended series of mini retirements back to back to back there like say 6 months in Thailand, 6 months in the Phils and 6 months in China. Nothing concrete yet, still in the planning stages. Departure is scheduled for end of September 2011, but again, seeing how bored out of my mind I'm here, I'm seriously toying with the idea of going away for 3-4 months back to Asia (BKK/Phils or Bali, KL and Jakarta) soon.
I appreciate any feedback you China pros can provide.
Cheers.