[ayukobaby]

Chili, trust me. its not as easy as u might think to make this decision to go. coz i got a very stable job here n the income is not bad. i will have to quit my job to go to england n im scared that i cant find a job there n i'll use much of my saving. even if i find a job there, its still a big decision to make to quit my present job. im a social worker in international school. there are not many posts of social worker in international sch now thats not filled up. plus once i leave the job, the starting point will be 5k less than wat im earning.... so its really not easy. but on the other hand, i also think that life is short and i wanna try things before its too late. so if i dun come, maybe i'll be stuck here forevere coz i can only apply the working holiday visa before 30yo n im getting old
so im still thinking....

Originally Posted by chilli

ayu, just go and worry later...if you cant seem to find decent jobs or dont like it there for another reason you can always come back....if you don't go you might regret it in the future...

[ayukobaby]

hi mat, thanks for ur advice but i actually went to england in mar n apr n i've seen how its like. cost of living there is much higher than here n its very inconvenient to travel to places. but still i wanna live in a new environment n make some new friends. i wanna see more of the world. wat i will have to lose is all my saving n my job. wat can be worse than that haha so ur from london?

Originally Posted by Mat

If you can take a few months off from your job in HK (no pay leave for example) and check out London for a few weeks/months. If you land a good job there, then you inform your company in HK and quit. If you don't then you just come back after a couple of weeks/months in HK. at least you would have tried.
You are 27, apparently not married or anything like that..what do you have to loose???

(Perso I'd rather live here than in London..but taste..)

[ayukobaby]

It sounds like i dun even have to worry then coz afterall i might not be able to get the holiday working visa haha n i will lose the bloody thousand sth application fee. but i might just keep trying until im 30 haha not many years left...

Originally Posted by hullexile

Why is it that people go on about how many immigrants there are flooding into Uk (I am from there) but it seems really difficult to get a visa if you are non-european and I would guess a few other favoured countries? Tried to get my girlfriend (filipina) there for a week last year and gave up. I know of a vice president of a Chinese University who was refused permission to visit, and a Chinese family who are millionnaires and own their own manufacturing company who were also refused. I work for a UK university and we are always having problems with students being refused visas.

[ayukobaby]

are u a friend who i know? haha i reckon u got the same email address as a friend on my msn. dun tell me ur the lan kwai king haha

Originally Posted by chilli

ayu, just go and worry later...if you cant seem to find decent jobs or dont like it there for another reason you can always come back....if you don't go you might regret it in the future...

[thetokyoproject]

i have 2 words for you:

australia instead!!!

[nation]

Ayuko - the rules regarding the UK working holiday have changed a number of times over the last few years. The 3 months you mention were old rules that no longer apply. If you are on a HK passport the current rules are that you are allowed to live in the UK for up to 2 years, of which you can work for 12 months. There are no restrictions as to whether this is full time or part time work. i.e. it is perfectly legal for you to work for 12 months full time (you can do this with one employer for a continuous 12 months or with multiple employers working 2/3/4 etc months at time with breaks in between). Regarding jobs you will be limited to the contract employment market given employers' attitudes once they find out your visa status. This is very different to HK and is actually not a bad thing - the contracting market is huge in the UK and pays better than the permanent or part time market.

Don't worry about working in pubs, restaurants that sort of stuff. The UK has a shortage of health care professionals, including social workers. You can use your HK social worker skills to a get a job in the UK. Not can that only land you a job but if you're lucky can lead to the company wanting to sponsor you so you can stay more permanently (once again due to the shortage this happens quite regularly). If anything it'll give you good experience when you come back to HK. Here's a couple of google searches for social working in the UK:

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=so...s=&safe=images

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=so...s=&safe=images

But best to actually contact these people directly and get a better gauge of the opportunities availaible and how your background fits. What's written on the internet doesn't necessarily reflect reality.

[lapin]

a suggestion for you. instead of looking for a job in london, maybe you should work a bit more in hk and save some money and then take a look vacation and travel in europe. i lived in paris before and i can tell you things are quite different than you expect. working in europe (unless you have a decent job ) is not that job, and the living standard there is pretty high. you wont be able to have much spare money to go out for drinks. you have to bear in mind for the budget you have, you will end up either cooking at home a lot or having sandwiches all the time. and if you are planning to travel in other part of europe, unless you are working in the chinese restaurant, its very unlikely that you are able to look for jobs. and even if you are working in china restaurant, there are already a lot of illegal immigrants and local chinese who speak the local language and chinese to compete with you. just for example, i think its very very unlikely that you can get a job in france and in spain. so imagine you have to always travel back to london to work in chinatown and save enough to travel again in europe. thats not v cool, is it?

[chilli]

Originally Posted by ayukobaby

are u a friend who i know? haha i reckon u got the same email address as a friend on my msn. dun tell me ur the lan kwai king haha

[ayukobaby]

Hi nation, thanks alot for your info and advice. maybe i should give it a shot coz i always want to live in other countries and get some new experience. i dont know if it'll be so hard to be a social worker there, consider that i dunno much about the culture and systems there and my english is far from perfect!! and to be honest, im actually thinking of changing career coz i wanna try something new, just that i dunno wat i can work for yet haha but i think its fun to just work in bar or restaurant haha easier n less "mind draining" i guess. i'll check out the site and see how the social work there works. cheers.
are u in hk then? wat do u do here?

Originally Posted by nation

Ayuko - the rules regarding the UK working holiday have changed a number of times over the last few years. The 3 months you mention were old rules that no longer apply. If you are on a HK passport the current rules are that you are allowed to live in the UK for up to 2 years, of which you can work for 12 months. There are no restrictions as to whether this is full time or part time work. i.e. it is perfectly legal for you to work for 12 months full time (you can do this with one employer for a continuous 12 months or with multiple employers working 2/3/4 etc months at time with breaks in between). Regarding jobs you will be limited to the contract employment market given employers' attitudes once they find out your visa status. This is very different to HK and is actually not a bad thing - the contracting market is huge in the UK and pays better than the permanent or part time market.

Don't worry about working in pubs, restaurants that sort of stuff. The UK has a shortage of health care professionals, including social workers. You can use your HK social worker skills to a get a job in the UK. Not can that only land you a job but if you're lucky can lead to the company wanting to sponsor you so you can stay more permanently (once again due to the shortage this happens quite regularly). If anything it'll give you good experience when you come back to HK. Here's a couple of google searches for social working in the UK:

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=so...s=&safe=images

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=so...s=&safe=images

But best to actually contact these people directly and get a better gauge of the opportunities availaible and how your background fits. What's written on the internet doesn't necessarily reflect reality.

[ayukobaby]

haha i guess ur the one. german rite? hehehe

Originally Posted by chilli