Upon landing in Beijing in 2015 to take up the China correspondent role for the ABC, I could have never imagined how the posting would ultimately end — 1,700 kilometres away in Taipei, looking in from outside.
When I arrived in Beijing, Taiwan was a backburner story in Asia; now it's a flashpoint that some fear could see the US and China fight a war.
It's lucky then that I got the chance to finish reporting the China story from Taipei to see how people on the ground view the military threat from the giant across the water.
Every day, Chinese fighter jets, anti-submarine warfare planes and drones fly near, and sometimes around the island as People's Liberation Army (PLA) naval ships lurk not far off the coast.
In general, those in Taiwan's government and armed forces are very worried while the broader public is far less fussed than you might expect.
More than one Australian visitor has quizzed me about why Taiwan isn't on a war footing, but I can hardly blame people here for being indifferent.
Daily life on this island of 23 million people hums with a delightfully laid-back pace.
It's a great place to raise my two-year-old Casper, who speaks Chinese now with a cute Taiwanese accent and has become the best customer at the local fried egg pancake shop.
I leave Taiwan and the broader China reporting patch feeling that fresh eyes will be very good for the next correspondents taking on this assignment.
It's fair to say my time reporting on China has been the most disrupted in the history of the ABC's coverage of the country.
For first time since the bureau opened in Beijing in 1974, we have been unable, for almost three years, to obtain visas and station journalists in China.
I left in late 2020, chaperoned by Australian diplomats after Chinese national security police interviewed me as part of a deterioration of diplomatic ties.
After being advised to stay inside the Australian embassy for five days, I was questioned by police about Cheng Lei, an Australian presenter on Chinese state TV who had been arrested in Beijing weeks earlier.
The interview was part of a deal to allow my safe exit from China, but it left no Australian media on the ground.
China's pandemic measures then stalled new journalist visas, and even though China has given up on its COVID-zero effort, obtaining new visas is still a difficult dance.
Journalists from other Western outlets like the BBC are starting to get visas again, although some Indian journalists were kicked out last month due to diplomatic tensions.
The ABC, like other Australian outlets, is seeking to get back on the ground in Beijing, but the next East Asia correspondent, Kathleen Calderwood, will be covering the region from Taiwan.
Covering China from Taiwan is the best of the regional options but it can still feel a world away.
As 25 million residents in Shanghai were being locked down in an increasingly draconian and futile push to keep COVID out last year, Taiwan began easing its pandemic measures, choosing to live with the virus rather than mobilise a nation against it.
On the Taiwan-ruled outpost island of Kinmen, just off the Chinese coast, we found the internet works as per normal, just four kilometres from a Chinese city, Xiamen, where the world's most pervasive internet censorship program keeps Google, WhatsApp, YouTube and many others blocked.
Still, there are some similarities, like the final story I did looking at why Taiwan's government is going slow on a pledge to remove statues of the island's three-decade dictator Chiang Kai-shek.
A bit like Chairman Mao in China, there's plenty of nostalgia and fondness for the former Cold War-era leader, which Taiwan's government fears could backfire at the ballot box if they're seen to be eradicating his legacy too aggressively.
Our last interview was with an activist who hated the former generalissimo so much, he went the next day to the biggest Chiang statue in Taipei and tried to shoot at it with a paintball gun.
It's hard to imagine that happening across the water in China.
One thing that makes the China patch a bit tedious to report on is constantly having to engage with state media and the highly repetitive rhetoric of government officials.
Not to mention the increasingly aggressive tone of some Chinese state media figures and supporters of the government on social media.
Under Xi, the country is moving in a more nationalistic direction where "security" and control is prioritised, with warnings to be on guard against Western values, raids on foreign firms and tougher anti-espionage laws.
Some in business or academic careers who seek long engagement with China play the game, second guessing every tweet or public utterance, saying soothing things in Chinese state media interviews and calculating what they can and can't say on certain issues to try to keep visa access open, while still maintaining credibility back home.
But as a journalist, walking on eggshells in your reporting in exchange for access is a disservice to your audience.
Hopefully, we'll see the return soon of Australian correspondents into China.
In the meantime, Taiwan remains its own very important story for the Australian and other international journalists based here.
I'm heading to Jakarta to take up the position of ABC Indonesia correspondent, covering much of South-East Asia.
I'll miss Taiwan's relaxed pace, the entertaining TV news channels and the openness of people here to discuss politics.
My son will miss the fried egg pancakes.
