Jacqui and Richard Abroad: August 2018

And so it ends. We got back to Bangkok from Australia on the 25th of June, spent the 26th packing all of our belongings and flew out on the 27th. We flew business class, thanks to a lot of frequent flyer points, for both segments of our flight, Bangkok to Beijing with Thai Airways, and Beijing to Toronto with Air Canada. Flying in business class allowed us to have access to the lounges while waiting at the airport - we could have had a free 30 minute massage in Bangkok had we wanted to, champagne before takeoff (and after - they had Veuve Cliquot on our first part of the trip, and sparkling wine on AC). It also allowed us to sleep much better on such a long flight as the seats recline into beds, but most importantly, it gave us extra weight for luggage - 32 kg per bag as opposed to 23 kg. Since we only had four checked bags and all our belongings, it made a big difference; we were able to bring back home everything that we wanted!

Our five year adventure of teaching abroad was amazing. We saw so many places, met so many people and learned so much about various cultures and about ourselves; we would do it again in a heartbeat. We did miss out on special family gatherings on long weekends, on weddings and seeing our children, family and friends on a regular basis, but that was the price to pay for doing what we did.

But after five years of being away, it was time to come back home to Canada and settle down somewhere.

Throughout our travels, we have flown 30 different airlines and visited 18 different countries, not counting our trips back home for summers, Christmas, graduations, wedding, ... Everything always went well; there might have been a few delays at airports, but that's part of travelling by air! The people we met anywhere were always nice and very friendly, always willing to help even though the language could sometimes be a barrier. Here's a quick recap of what we did.

Airlines flown

To/from Canada	Middle East/Africa/Asia	Far East
Air Canada Lufthansa British Airways Swiss Air Turkish Airlines Emirates Etihad Airways Korean Air KLM Cathay Pacific	Oman Air Air Arabia Kuwait Airways Ethiopian Airlines Jazeera Airways Fly Dubai Qatar Airways Egypt Air Gulf Air Royal Jordanian Sri Lankan Airlines Precision Air	Bangkok Airways Viet Jet Air Jet Star Pacific Thai Airways China Eastern Shanghai Airways Thai Lion Air Quantas

Total : 30 different airlines

Countries visited:

While in the Middle East	While in South East Asia
Kuwait	Thailand
United Arab Emirates	Laos
Bahrain	Vietnam
Oman	Indonesia
Tanzania	Korea
Jordan	Hong Kong
Egypt	China
England	Australia
Sri Lanka
India

Total : 18 different countries

Amount of kilometers travelled: not a clue but I'm sure it's quite a few!

August 19th: So now we are back in Canada, starting over again. Need a house (we are currently renting in Cambridge - still in the Kitchener/Waterloo area), need a car, need a whole bunch of stuff that got distributed to others before leaving in 2013, or that might still be in boxes in the basement! That in itself is exciting. It's also nice to be able to read the signs along the road or on buildings, and to understand what people are saying around you, or to find basic stuff at a grocery store that we couldn't get while in Bangkok (wax paper and fly swatters comes to mind!).

There will definitely be more travels in our future plans, but at this point in time, we are closing the book on our International teaching careers, and on this blog. I really enjoyed writing it and trying to share our experience abroad. For those of you that read these posts (319 of them), I hope you were able to get a glimpse of what we experienced over the last five years. Thanks for reading!

Richard