When I returned from China, I was absolutely dead!
I had green chunky stuff coming up from my chest and waterfalling out of my nose-I wasn’t a pretty sight!
I vividly remember coming through Hong Kong International on the way home and seeing signs everywhere about the MERS outbreak and advertising that people who either had a fever or were sick or were coughing should not be in the airport or travelling and myself and my boyfriend at the time stifled so many coughing and spluttering fits, just because we wanted to be at home (I know, I was that annoying person!).
Despite being sick for half of my holiday though, I had an absolutely incredible time! We landed in Beijing on Chinese New Year, so the celebrations were well underway-as they celebrate a week before the day and a week after- and there was actually hardly any pollution at all! I was very surprised!
A word of warning though: Chinese New Year is THE most expensive time to travel to mainland China because of all the internal tourism and although it was pretty cool, if you’re on a budget, I’d say try to avoid those two weeks of the new year (check out Taiwan for the lantern festival though!).
Check out some of my most well remembered memories from China and how you can re-create them if you’re destined for China any time soon!