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Automating with Xiao Mi

Automating with Xiao Mi

So another contract is signed and life goes on much the way it always has.

It strangely feels like I’ve been living in China a lot longer than I actually have, and while last year I lived in such a way that felt like I was only in transit, I’ve decided that this year I’m gonna start living here like I actually live here.

The first step in my plan was to automate my apartment with the help of…

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Owning a Crack Den

Owning a Crack Den

For those reading who’ve stumbled across this post and haven’t read the previous one, give it a quick read first then come back here. It provides context to the following story.

So I’ve just bought my first property with my little egg of savings from my time in Melbourne and now I’m babysitting my infant New Zealand bank account containing $0 and my obese mortgage balance that sucks directly…

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The Wild West Day’s of New Zealand Property

The Wild West Day’s of New Zealand Property

For those of you who read the blog way waaaay back in the day, and have a robotically good memory, you may recall that in 2014 I bought a house in New Zealand and in 2015 I bought a second one.

I’m not rich by any stretch, I’ve never been given anything and I’m not even a particularly good saver; but there is a story, and this is how it went down.

For an 8 month stretch in 2013 between working…

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Guy Raz is Ruining my Life

The trouble with life is that too often things aren’t black and white enough. Nothing is ever just fantastic or terrible, it’s a sickening combination of both and the combination of the two just add up to life feeling… meh.

The easiest way to give an example of something good being mixed with something so bad is the podcast “How I Build This with Guy Raz.”

The podcast itself is fantastic because…

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Contract Re-Negotation

It’s that time of the year again; for many of us educators, tutors, teachers and mentors; the end is nigh. The end that I’m talking about is the end of the Chinese school year, which like the American school year ends in June rather than November (Aussie Aussie Aussie) So now that it’s April, some among us (including me) have begun casual conversations about contract re-negotiation that will…

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Pop Ups for Grown Ups

Pop Ups for Grown Ups

My computer was supplied by my company and it seems to have been used by people doing similar jobs since the middle ages because it has aged beyond horribly. My favorite aspect of this pile of junk is the pop-ups. Every morning after I turn on my computer and wait roughly six weeks for it to finish booting up, I am greeted by many pop-up ads. I know the first thing that comes to the mind of many…

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The Fiverr Life

I’ve been having a blast lately, and making bank doing it. (By bank, I mean enough to sponsor my morning coffee each day). And I’ve been doing it all on Fiverr. Fiverr is place I’ve been turning since 2010 for all my online needs. I go there to edit my self published writing (not this content though, for my blog you get to suffer through my self editing). I also go for any sound editing I can’t…

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One Sick Bastard

To those who noticed, I’m very sorry for my tardiness. I’ve been unwell and when I’m unwell I’m too moody and divaish to write. I only have time to prop myself up in bed and speak fake Spanish through a raspy sickness tone of voice.

I caught a stomach bug that went a bit viral and threw a bacterial party in my lower quadrant, so once again I was back to the Chinese hospital to enjoy another…

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F*ck it, I’m Writing an Erotic Novel

F*ck it, I’m Writing an Erotic Novel

It goes without saying that whether your Chinese or Wai Guo Ren (foreign) you can’t say just anything you feel like saying while in China.

For as long as I can remember I’ve always lived daily life within a relatively thin bubble of restraint. While on a date for example (unless I’m drunk) I won’t say anything too offensive or too stupid (except a couple times).

But in my everyday life and…

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Making It as a Travelling Freelancer

Making It as a Travelling Freelancer

Once you’ve moved to your dream city and have fled far away from the sticky confines of where you were born, sometimes it’s easy to get the feeling of entrapment in the full time job you took on to make the move possible in the first place.

Often the jobs we take on aren’t dream jobs, but are gateway jobs to a new life. So when that job starts to eat away all your time and strips chunks off your…

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Samples for Days.

The following is from my sexy lil ebook available now on Amazon about moving to China. Hope you love it!

Everyday life in Shanghai has some major perks, especially when it comes to tech. People still use QR codes here and they use them with a vengeance. Literally everything is linked by QR codes and more than helping you find websites and enter competitions, they help you pay for everything,…

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Where’s the Beef?

Is it just me or is ground beef the rarest commodity in the entire Middle Kingdom?

When needed I can easily source beef of various forms from any of the large and well stocked Chinese supermarkets surrounding my apartment. I can have it in shanks, steaks, cubes or jelly. I can have the feet, the ears – hell, I could probably have the tail.

But for the love of God why is mince such a rare thing?

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Getting Tested for STD's in Shanghai

Getting Tested for STD’s in Shanghai

So you’ve spent a reasonable amount of time in China and you’ve had lots of sex while enjoying your awesome new life and kick-ass job. But whether because of a burning sensation in your nethers or because a reasonable amount of time and partners have passed, it’s time for you to be tested for disease.

I was tested in Auckland before moving to China so that I wouldn’t have to worry about it for…

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Getting Tested in a Chinese Hospital

Getting Tested in a Chinese��Hospital

*Warning – the following post is about disease, hospital and sex related themes*

Anytime I travel I always assume that nothing will go wrong with my health and that insurance is always a scam. However only weeks into my stay in Shanghai I participated in some very risky and stupid sexual activities and not long after felt some very tingly sensations in my loins.

The first place I went after…

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Are We Eating our way into an incurable Sexually Transmitted Disease?

Are We Eating our way into an incurable Sexually Transmitted Disease?

First a warning, this post includes content of a sexual nature, reader discretion advised.

Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD’s) should be on the on the forefront of the minds of all expats living kick-ass sexually active lives in China, although we don’t always like to think about it when things start to get hot and heavy. It’s always been risky sleeping around the Middle Kingdom, but lately it…

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Coffee is liquid gold in China

Coffee is liquid gold in China

When everything I eat in China is so inexpensive, why does my coffee cost so much?

Shown above is a screenshot of my payment app AliPay after paying for my Starbucks coffee.

What I bought was a venti caramel macchiato and it works out in my homeworld currency (Australian dollars) to be just shy of $8.

At first I questioned my memory of what things cost back in my home world of Australia, but I’m…

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Personal Space

Now that I’m back in New Zealand I’m really starting to realize how cultural conditioning really affects even the smallest parts of how we act every day.

One such observation I’ve been making is the distance people stand apart from each other here in New Zealand. I was in line at a cafe this morning waiting to order my coffee, and the distance between everyone waiting was at least 60cm without…