2014: Of Greatest Hits and Encore Visits

I honestly don’t know where my year went. One day I was cramming my 2013 year-end post at home in Manila, and the next thing I know, I’m sitting in a café in one of my favorite areas in Seoul writing my 2014 year-end post, which is exactly what I’m doing right now. It’s the last day of the year and I’m spending it in Hongdae, at least until we head out for a big New Year’s Eve party somewhere else in Seoul later. I’ve never been away from home during the holidays, so this New Year’s trip is a milestone, and it’s been a great one so far! 

More on this trip in another post, though. For now, I’d like to look back on the year that was, because I don’t think I’ve really had any time to reflect on how I spent it. Between so many changes at work, finally turning my tiny matchbox of a house into a home, getting into a new hobby / business venture, and taking so many random trips, it’s been a whirlwind of a year! It’s been pretty exhausting too, and I got sick for nearly a week this month (right when all the holiday get-togethers, parties and dinners happened! Friends, please don’t forget me! Let’s catch up in January) as a testament to the toll the year has taken. So this trip away from everything as the year ends is much needed, and I’d like to think, well-deserved.

I kind of feel the same way for all my trips this year, actually. Six holidays and two business trips and I didn’t plan a single itinerary for any of them. My trips this year were all pretty relaxed, fairly spontaneous, and all of them were repeat visits. And what I loved most about them was how unhurried all these trips were – there was no urgent need to get to anywhere quickly, and to pack a day with so many things to see and do, because technically, I had already been to these places. It was just about revisiting old favorites, without the pressure of getting nice pictures taken or finding anything “blog-worthy”. It was all about soaking up a place and living in that travel moment. I wonder if this is what it means to mature as a traveler?

I look forward to discovering new places in 2015, though. We have a big trip planned, an epic one I’ve been waiting to do for years, but it would be nice to do a short backpacking trip to an exotic place some time in the year too. Nepal or Sri Lanka, maybe? This year’s trips were all in cities and fancy hotels and resorts, so I would really love to be climbing temples and walking through dirt roads with my huge backpack again in 2015.       

And as far as the big elephant I’ve been ignoring in this post goes, yes, I do hope to blog a whole lot more in 2015. Too many things happened this year and I honestly just wasn’t able to find the time and I guess the drive to do it. And I have so much to write about! I’ll work on it. Next year will be a better blogging year, I promise!

Closing this out with a few pictures from my trips this year. We’re gonna head back to our hostel in a bit to take a disco nap before we head out for tonight’s festivities. Hopefully it’ll be an epic night! Have a happy new year everyone! Friends, let’s run into each other next year, in a tiny airport in the middle of nowhere, on a dreary red eye flight home, in an untouched, pristine beach, or at sunset in an ancient ruin. Dinner in BGC is fine too. Haha.   

2013: Lessons Learned from the Road

So I'm starting 2014 with a 2013 year-end post that's five days late, but I'm cutting myself some slack because as it turns out, I've been writing year-end posts since 2006. Over the holidays I was too busy being lazy (hehe) and just didn't have the drive to blog. I don't want to make excuses so early in the year, so maybe we just let this one go, yes?

Anyway, as this is my 8th year-end post (and that fact doesn't make me feel old at all), I'm running out of ideas on how to make this different from the previous year. I had half a mind to just make a picture collage from my trips, but 2013 had been such a great year and it deserves much more than that. I thereby present my last minute attempt (and last ditch effort) at a creative concept, in which I share with you five things I learned from the road to sum up all my travels from the year that was.

A blessed and fruitful new year and new travels to all of us!

Breakfast at The Kitchen Table, W Hotel Bangkok

I love a good hotel breakfast - there's no other way to start the day right (except maybe a kayak trip to a nearby empty island, but then the hotel breakfast would definitely come after that). I love its seemingly limitless gastronomic possibilities, and always hope that it's an optimistic parallel to the day it headlines.

I had a great time staying at The W Bangkok, and one of the main reasons for my rather enjoyable stay was the breakfast at The Kitchen Table. Great food with a wide variety of options, the stylish presentation of the food and the relaxed yet posh ambience - I looked forward to waking up early every morning knowing I was going to start my day with a hearty meal. 

Explore a bit more of The Kitchen Table at The W Hotel Bangkok under the cut!

Checking in at The W Bangkok

I recently made a post about trading in my backpacking ways when I go on business trips, which would usually mean a stay in at least a decent hotel. But a few weeks back, I had to go to Thailand for a working session and stayed in my favorite hotel yet - The W Bangkok. I had never stayed in a W Hotel prior to that trip, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that a W Hotel is apparently no ordinary hotel - in particular, The W Bangkok is edgy, youthful, and just...really, really cool.

Snapshots: Behind the Reclining Buddha, Bangkok, Thailand

I'm not sure what the offerings you place in these bowls are used for - perhaps to maintain the place? I like how this shot looks though, and I've been looking forward to sharing it for a while now. I wasn't able to take too many "artistic" or "poetic" shots in Bangkok (I was overwhelmed with all the shopping that just HAD to be done) and this is just one of the very few shots I was able to take.

Snapshots: Reclining Buddha, Bangkok, Thailand

He was quite a sight to behold! I'd like to go back to Bangkok and see more of the cultural places. And do some more shopping.

Snapshots: Exploring A Temple, Bangkok, Thailand

I received pasalubong from Bangkok from two friends this week (thank you Carms and Mabs!), so I thought I'd post a photo from my own Bangkok trip. Happy Sunday!

2011: The Other Side of Happy

Happy New Year Everyone!

This blog has been witness to the past few years of my life, years that have been nothing short of crazy - from jumping off buildings, backpacking across three countries in ten days with four awesome friends, flashpacking cross-country for two weeks with 11-hour bus rides, amazing temples, dazzling sunsets, quaint ancient towns, and being offered a baby in between, to braving a communist attack to experience snow and K-Pop (hahaha). Every year of my twenty-something life so far has probably been characterized by a hunger to explore, to seek adventure, to live, in the craziest, most daring sense of the word - as the cliche goes, to live as if every day was the last. I guess it's a common attitude when you hit your 20's - for the first time in your life, the world is truly at your feet, a horizon of seemingly endless possibility laid out in front of you, so what else is there to do but grab life by the balls and spend every waking moment as if it were an adventure? So I did.

Of course, being in your early 20's isn't exactly a walk in the park. More often than I'd like to remember, the period of my early 20's was laced with twenty-something angst - a distinct kind of angst that can perhaps be attributed to that dreaded quarter-life crisis. What am I really doing with my life, is this what I really want, etc., etc. In not so many words, an existential drama.

Overall, putting together the overwhelming sense of freedom and possibility with the bitterness and confusion of an existential crisis made for some really amazing, albeit crazy years - exhilarating to the point of insane sometimes, exciting beyond words, but always with a hint of a question in the back of my mind: are you always going to want the adrenaline rush to cover up the angst? Are you always going to be on the move, never settling for one place, always wanting to go somewhere and never appreciating enough where you are? It's not unlike the feeling I got when I did that bungee jump, that "Holy shit, I really freaking did that, I really freaking jumped!" followed by "Well, now what? You can't be jumping off buildings every time just to feel alive".

I think what I took for granted in my early 20's was this - contentment. Understandable, given the situation, the life stage. At 20 or 21, fresh from college, starting out in the real world, there's hardly any room to be content or fulfilled, because there's just so much to do, so much to accomplish, so much to experience, so much life to live. It was easy to forget that "living" sometimes also meant taking a step back to be thankful and content.

But in 2011, I finally did.

If I were to describe the year that was and how I felt throughout it, I'd say I was generally pleased, in the simplest sense, happy. Content, as it were.

It isn't that I wasn't happy before - I was! There was so much going on, so much I had done, so much I had experienced, it all gave me a sense of fulfillment. And it isn't that every moment of the past year had been joyful either - lots of things, both good and bad, still happened along the way. My new job, though pretty amazing, wasn't devoid of challenges. This year, we also lost a very important member of our family. But I was able to overcome those challenges, and grieve about our family's loss, in between the moments when life was fairly simple and uncomplicated, when weekends were weekends, and work was work, and outside of that was time for myself, my friends and family. For once, after a really long time, life wasn't driven by a need to succeed, a need to prove something, a need to be excited and exhilarated. For once, it was just about being content.

It amazes me now, how it took me an entire year to figure out. All throughout 2011 I had wondered what was different, what had changed, and now maybe it's a little clearer: maybe the thing about 2011 is, it's the year I learned about the other side of happiness - the one about contentment.

Oh gosh, I meant to just write about my travels this year, and here I am rambling on about some existential epiphany, if you could even call it that. My apologies, I guess I'm merging my personal year-end post with my year-end travel post this year, because I honestly can't be bothered to update my personal blog anymore, which I have effectively not posted on for exactly a year (my last post in there was my "farewell 2010 entry"). Anyway, I leave you with some of my favorite travel pictures from the year that was - as I had hinted at above, no crazy bungee jumping photos this time around, although I did learn to surf this year, and did some pretty intense shopping in Singapore from all my business trips, and in Thailand too. I guess in travel terms, this year felt a lot like one long, extended beach trip - not a lot of adrenaline, but a whole lot of chillin'.

Um, yeah, that was kind of lame. And it rhymed too, oh gosh.

I do miss the crazy of years past though, to be honest. I think 2012 will have a load of that. Maybe striking a balance between the crazy and the content is my resolution for 2012. Sounds like a plan, yes?

Also! To the people that made 2011 such an amazing, HAPPY year, you guys know who you are - here's to you, and have a great year ahead!