The year 2013 has come to an end! We’ve been reflecting on all that we did, the people we met, the food we sampled as well as the countries we experienced…all in 365 days. It was a extremely adventurous year! I like to phone call it “The Year of Firsts”.

2013 started off with a hangover in China. We were living as well as mentor English in the city of Yangzhou. We rang in the new Year with all of our expat good friends from around the world, it was a excellent party! We spent January to the end of July mentor English, checking out close-by cities in our province as well as enjoying our life in China.

A lady weaving in Suzhou, China
That was the very first time we had ever lived abroad as well as the very first time we had ever taught English for much more than a week!

Around 7 months after signing our mentor contract, we started to get itchy feet. We’re travellers, it’s difficult for us to sit still! So, we began planning as well as dreaming about what we would do after our year-long contract was finished.

We came up with a plan to travel on the Trans-Mongolian Train from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar and then travel around Mongolia for a month. From there, we would hop back on the train as well as make our method with Siberia in Russia as well as into Kazakhstan. After that, we would be completed with trains, however wished to backpack with Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan as well as surface our journey in Iran, somewhere we had been dying to see for a long time.

Lots of planning went into our trip with Mongolia, Russia, central Asia as well as Iran!
Lots of planning went into this legendary 4.5 month trip. purchasing whatever we needed, booking train tickets as well as figuring out visas were all challenging tasks, however we got the task done. between the two of us, we were able to save $21,000 mentor in China as well as had sufficient money to go on our trip. When July arrived, we stated goodbye to China as well as all of the fantastic good friends as well as memories we made there. It was a extremely emotional time for us, however we were prepared to relocation on. We were off on a extremely long train journey from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar!

Moving out of our house as well as stating goodbye to China
This was the very first time we had travelled on an worldwide train.

We did numerous interesting excursions while in this region. A few that stand apart in our minds are:

Trekking by foot with Mongolia for 8 nights.

Doing a two night horse-trek over a 3,700m high pass to Lake Song-Kul in Kyrgyzstan.

Flying in a helicopter over the Pamir Mountains.

Sleeping at a stranger’s house for 5 days while being treated like nobility in Esfahan, Iran.

Eating camel meat as well as drinking fermented mare’s milk!

All of these were firsts for us. We had never trekked in the middle of nowhere, while depending on only ourselves for navigation, food, shelter as well as water. We had never done a horse-trek before. This was our very first time in a helicopter. We had never stayed overnight in a stranger’s home, as well as it was an fantastic experience. eating unusual meat as well as drinking gross milk was likewise a first!

Us with Mehsa as well as Saroosh, the remarkable new good friends we made in Esfahan
Apart from all of the amazing things we’ve done over the past year, we likewise discovered a great deal about ourselves as individuals as well as as a couple.

Our site has taken off (thanks to you guys!) as well as this was the very first time in our travel profession that we had to balance working with travelling. It shown to be rather a task as well as we had to offer with numerous down days, however over time, things got easier.

We’ve discovered that we now delight in travelling at a slower speed than we utilized to. In fact, if we’re going to be full-time bloggers, we have to travel slower or we’ll shed out. costs 5 nights or so in a city before moving on will provide us a possibility to catch up on emails, social media, composing as well as will provide us much more time to check out the city we’re in.

Travelling slower will provide us a possibility to catch up on the site as well as satisfy regional people
Speaking of slowing down, we have likewise joined a program called trusted home Sitters. This year we will be experiencing a new career: home Sitters/Pet Sitters. This will be an fantastic method for us to integrate whatever we love: sluggish travel, experiencing new cultures, living like a local, enjoying the business of a furry good friend as well as on top of all of that, it’s a method for us to travel without costs money on accommodation.

We’ve homesat before, however this will be our very first time checking out this as a career.

Phew! That’s rather a year. We’re now in Canada costs the holiday season with good friends as well as family, however we’ll be taking off once again in the middle of January. We’re both so thrilled to see what this year has in store for us. stay tuned to discover out where we’re heading to next!

How was 2013 for you? What interesting things did you get up to? show us in the comments below!

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