Blind Date

So last night we met up with another couple that recently moved to Xiamen and shared some of our stories with them. It was a good time and interesting to listen to how everyone that moves here all has a similar list of observations.

Way back when we first got here, those long two months ago, and we started blogging our experience it occurred to me that other people would probably be doing the exact same thing and blogging their own stories. I'm a little slow, I know, but for some reason it never occurred to me to look for blogs written by people living over here until we arrived.

The couple we met last night are fellow bloggers, and I found their site http://www.myadventureinchina.blogspot.com/, that they started up well before they moved. We started e-mailing back and forth little bits of information that we had learnt, and then set up meeting for drinks.

As Tina put it, "It's like going on a blind date...." We're meeting people that we've only read a few posts from and we've sent a few e-mails about banking, we have no idea what they look like other then an idea that forms when you hear that they live in Vermont. They had the advantage, as we have pictures of us on our blog - so they were the ones that stepped up to us in the bar "Mark?"

It's easier making friends here, as everyone has that common thread of living far away from home. And, to some degree it takes a certain type of personality to up and move to a new country and deal with all of the fun learning that comes with it. It's also just really nice to talk to others when it's not in broken English....