The adventure planning has gone very well. So well, in fact, that I have barely had to do any planning.

I have been offered a job in China as an outdoor activity instructor for an outdoor adventure company (as featured on National Geographic's Best Adventure Companies in the World!) run by Australians. Living in an utterly foreign land 5000 miles from home for 6 months, working as a professional adventurer...I'm not sure you can get more adventurous without actually being Ray Mears or Ernest Shackleton.

I owe this entirely to two friends who pointed me in the direction of "the Best Thing Ever". What really clinches its title as Best Thing Ever is that these two friends also got offered the job! The "China Crew" are all flying out together on the 17th of August to Guilin, Guangxi, in southern China. Guangxi is a small Chinese province, but is the same size as the entire UK. Daaaaamn! China itself is the same size as the USA. It is a big place but I am going to drink up (or paw desperately with chopsticks) as much of Chinese life as I can in my relatively short stay. Bring on the rice and tea!

Flights are booked, visa is in the passport and jabs are in the arm (except for rabies, which I won't be able to complete before I go...but oh well. I mean, how bad can madness and death be?). I am now wrestling with the Learn Mandarin guide (soon I will be completing Chapter 1, booyah!) and ruing the day I wasn't offered a GCSE in Chinese.

I try to live by the philosophy "not even the Gods can help the man who misses opportunities" (incidentally a Chinese proverb) and I think that it very much applies here. I admit I was somewhat dubious when I was informed that the Best Thing Ever had been found. Whilst supping a delicious pear cider inbetween exams in the back of garden in Gilesgate, covered in a light, meaty smoke from "80% meat beefburgers" cooking on an instant BBQ, you don't expect the Best Thing Ever to just drop into your lap.

But sometimes it does.