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Picky Girl Travels the World

Defy convention. Embrace adventure. Regret nothing.

China, Expat Life

What Inquiring Minds Want to Know – My Life in China

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Expat Life, Pets, Travel

What You Need to Know About International Pet Travel

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Travel

Travel Like a Pro: 9 Apps To Elevate Your Travel Game from Beginner to Boss

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  • China,  Expat Life

    9 Things I Won’t Miss About Life in China

    By Adalia Aborisade

    Given the difficulties of flying with a pet during a pandemic, I’m not sure when I will be able to leave Hefei, my home of the last year and a half. It’s no secret that China is not my favorite place. Actually, it’s the one country I knew without a doubt that I did not want to live in. Ever.…

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  • China,  Expat Life

    COVID-19: Then and Now

    By Adalia Aborisade

    Over the course of this pandemic I had the pleasure of being interviewed twice for the Fancy Face & Friends podcast. Our first conversation took place while I was traveling for Lunar New Year in eastern Europe. At this time, the virus was still being referred to as a novel coronavirus. Our second conversation took place after I’d returned to…

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  • camera and passport on top of world map
    Expat Life,  Finance

    How Much Does it Cost to Move Abroad?

    By Adalia Aborisade

    I originally came to China in 2019 on a four-month contract. Although I don’t love China, I opted to renew the contract for an additional year. The job didn’t suck, and the city wasn’t horrible. I figured another year wouldn’t kill me. I bet there’s a coronavirus joke to be made in there somewhere… Even prior to the onset of…

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  • China,  Teaching Abroad

    Teaching in China During COVID-19

    By Adalia Aborisade

    Teaching in China this spring has been quite the experience. The semester began, as scheduled, on February 10th. Instead of physically returning to campus after the month-long Lunar New Year holiday, we started teaching online. The epidemic prevention period in China, AKA “Coronavirus Lockdown” was already a few weeks old by then. From late January until just recently, all across…

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  • Travel

    Chernobyl Exclusion Zone: Bucket List Gem or Radioactive Hellscape?

    By Adalia Aborisade

    I’m pretty sure just reading the words “Chernobyl Exclusion Zone” instantly conjures images of death, destruction, and nuclear contamination. This April, it will have been 34 years since the meltdown in Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in northern Ukraine. Despite the scale of the disaster, the official death toll is just 54, which doesn’t include the…

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  • Open laptop with the words Life Behind China's Great Firewall on the screen
    China,  Expat Life

    Using the Internet in China…the Frustrating Truth

    By Adalia Aborisade

    If I’m honest, there are quite a few things that annoy me about living in China. The Chinese don’t understand my need for personal space. They stare at me ALL OF THE TIME. Don’t even get me started on the spitting… I could go on, but I won’t. But by far the biggest frustration has been the internet. There hasn’t…

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  • China,  Travel

    How to Visit the Three Gorges Dam Without a Tour

    By Adalia Aborisade

    Scroll down if you only care about HOW to visit the Three Gorges Dam on your own. But keep reading if you’re curious about WHY I even bothered. It is no secret that I have a love-hate (mostly hate) relationship with travel within China. I don’t like crowds, something very difficult to avoid in a country of 1.3 billion people.…

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  • China,  Expat Life

    Black and Living in Asia

    By Adalia Aborisade

    Here’s the conversation Nicholas “Fancy Face” Harris and I had discussing our experiences living in Asia as Black people. He lives in Taiwan. I live on the mainland. Although we technically live in the same country, in a lot of ways our experiences have been vastly different. You can read more about my experiences living in mainland China below: teaching…

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