Post: #1

Hey, a shout out to all the expats on here.

What made you change countries?

What do you miss about home? Whats better in your new land?

How do you cope with everyday difficulties, learning the language, integrating, etc?

What are good websites or communities for exapat info?

I'd say what I miss most is the variety of internation food, that was cool. But I gained friendships and girls that feel more natural and quality. Regarding the language, I am immersing myself in it and am doing well.

Post: #2

I never got to travel as a kid, I decided to seek adventure as an adult.

I miss Chipotle, Reese's peanut butter cups, and fresh air.
My money stretches further, I get to have experiences my friends and family can only dream about.

Learning the language isn't too big of an obstacle. I've been able to get by without it since I arrived. That said, learning it has become a hobby of mine. Having people stop to take your picture is kind of annoying, but I've gotten used to it.

This forum, comebackalive, and the flyertalk forum are all pretty good resources.

I'm keeping it real over in China, what about you POHammer?

Post: #3

I'm enjoying life in the Former Soviet countries. Yeah, Chipotle is pretty good. Restaurants here suck- small portions and prices equal or higher than USA...but I've lost 20 lbs effortlessly, so its a blessing in disguise.

I can see that picture thing being annoying after a while. A black friend of mine is always asked to have a photo taken when he travels to smaller Russian towns.

I also never got a chance to travel much as a kid, so I'm taking the rest of my life to do it. I just visited and awesome cave city inhabited for thousands of years by Jews, Muslims and Christians. Perched on a cliff hundreds of meters above a windswept plain, it was an awe inspiring place.

One thing I've noticed is my English is getting worse.. I'm starting to forget some spelling rules and certain advanced vocabulary. Not surprising really as no one I know speaks English at a high level. In about 5 years, I see myself being moderately fluent in 3 languages, but not excelling at any one of them. Not a bad tradeoff, in my opinion.

Thanks, I'll check out comebackalive and flyertalk to get more info.

Post: #4

(04-17-2013 12:03 PM)POHammer Wrote:  Hey, a shout out to all the expats on here.

What made you change countries?

What do you miss about home? Whats better in your new land?

How do you cope with everyday difficulties, learning the language, integrating, etc?

What are good websites or communities for exapat info?

I'd say what I miss most is the variety of internation food, that was cool. But I gained friendships and girls that feel more natural and quality. Regarding the language, I am immersing myself in it and am doing well.

What made you change countries?


Geoarbitrage and getting more bang out of my buck

Business opportunities

Weather

Building an international network

Saving money while I built several mobile sources of income

Life experience

Exotic women

Finding the strange, unique, exotic, extraordinary, and sublime in what would otherwise be unremarkable situations - going to the 711 in Hong Kong or Bangkok can lead to a small adventure every time. One time I saw a brawl happen between a bunch of Nigerians and Indians, in Cantonese, at Tsim Sha Tsui.

What do you miss about home? Whats better in your new land?


I only miss people, not the US. America is a stale, boring, stagnant, and unappealing place. All of the things I listed in my first response are why I left. I can't think of a single thing I like better about the US than being abroad other than the fact that many of my loved ones are still there.

I suppose the only thing is that I do not need to do visa runs when I live in the US.

How do you cope with everyday difficulties, learning the language, integrating, etc?


To me these are not difficulties but interesting daily challenges to overcome that make me grow as a person. I thrive on learning new languages and adapting to strange new places.

Having to "cope" to me is living in cold, shitty, depressing Boston/NY/Philly and dealing with miserable people.

Meeting interesting new people in interesting new places and acquiring new languages and experiences - that is the farthest thing from "coping" that I can think of.


What are good websites or communities for exapat info?

Internations

Meetup

Linkedin

http://flagtheory.com/

TropicalMba.com

-