Reintegrating into Sydney

I had a fantastic experience living and working in Laos for a year. I returned a couple of weeks ago. Being there made me think of all the fun things there are to do around Sydney so I thought I'd blog about them. I thought I'd blog about my reintegration into Sydney life also.

First step- getting over reverse culture shock. I found some good articles here and here. The tips I'm first going to try to follow are:

• Keep in touch with your experience
• Integrate the best of the two cultures

One of my first missions is to make a kangaroo larp. A larp is a very popular Lao dish made of minced meat, lemon juice, mint and coriander. Lao people love variety in their meat so I think they'd like kangaroo larp and it is my dream to one day bring them kangaroo larp!

Moments in reintegration

• Talking to my Lao counterpart over MSN who was the sweetest, most polite guy ever. He had a small emoticon that shows up when he types a question mark that reads 'I asked you a fucking question!'. Obviously my capacity- building hadn't quite covered everything!

• I've joined up to couchsurfing. It gives you the chance to meet people over a drink or stay with them when you're travelling. If you're at home people you can meet people from overseas! My friend got love from a grandma in Taiwan when he stayed with a family. A girl I met stayed with expats while travelling in Cambodia.