You Got To Take The Shot!

I was gonna start this post with “Recently, I was playing FIFA on my PS3″, but Jo, in her infinite wisdom says that AT LEAST half of you would read that line and close the browser window immediately. Also, ”Recently, I was playing FIFA on my PS3″ would probably not be the best line to start my first post of 2013 with (now the first line of 2013 that I am writing in this blog has “Jo, in her infinite wisdom” in it. Go figure…).

Anyway, trust me, there is a point to this story.

So…

Recently, I was playing FIFA on my PS3.

I was using the best team in the game (Barcelona) with (arguably) the best player in this part of reality (Messi). I was playing against the AI-controlled Norwich City (yeah, I cheat, so what?) and I was dominating the game so much I was able to try to play the “beautiful game”. I passed the ball around.. OK, actually, I passed the ball to Messi every time I could and tried to razzle and dazzle my way near the goal area to take my shot. You should have seen it. It was beautiful!

Yet somehow, throughout the game, I never managed to get my shots off. I would get tackled just as I was preparing to shoot, or, more often than not, I would dribble past the touch line for a goal kick to Norwich. I was waiting for a perfect chance.. for all the factors to line up perfectly before making an attempt at goal.

Norwich, on the other hand, took pot shots whenever they could and by the end of the game, they had 15 shots at goal and 2 goals. My Barcelona, on the other hand had a 75% possession rate and ermm.. 1 goal from 1 shot at goal (I have to emphasize that it was a shot where everything fitted together – where, I swear, I could hear choirs sing and see angels dance, a moment in time when the Universe seemed magically aligned)

And the point of this whole story?

I had an epiphany watching computer-generated Messi’s dejected face on screen.

You GOT TO take the shot!

No matter the circumstances, you GOT TO take the shot.

It is true that sometimes Reality will shift to make everything fall perfectly in place for you to make your move. Most of the time, for most of us, we just gotta take the swing and hope for the best, because at the end of the day, you need to be a bit of a fool (or have Messi on your team) to wait for that perfect moment.

And sometimes that Perfect Moment never comes.

And at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if it’s Barcelona or Norwich, we all have the same 90 minutes to make our mark. And sometimes, when/if you wait too long, the game would have ended and you would have lost your chance to score forever.

See! A point! And They say video games corrupt the brain…

In that sense, 2012 was an awesome year.

I had the chance to take swing after swing after swing.

See… the key words in that sentence was “had the chance”. I did not succeed in scoring knock outs with every attempt (actually a lot of the punches were what they call in basketball – “nothing but air”), but I’ve never felt more alive. I tried, I failed, I try again. There is something liberating knowing that the world did not end just because I hit a dud.

Life goes on, the world continues spinning, fleas continue to attack dogs.

And that’s it. You brush off the dust, get up and try again. And with every try, you learn a little bit more about yourself. About what you are good at, what you are not. And perhaps, more importantly, about what you like and what you do not.

What I am saying is, Screw Yoda, the worst thing you can possibly do is not to try at all.

So, here’s hoping I get another year of trying and trying and (hopefully) succeeding in some of the tries.

Thankful

We are back in Singapore and I had given myself a two-week break from blogging to concentrate on what’s important: Stuffing our faces with much-missed food from home.

But today, I decided to take a break from my break from blogging (and stuffing), not to show off the sh*t that we have been gorging ourselves with, but to give thanks.

I know, I sound like a pretentious douche to myself too, since we don’t really do the Thanksgiving thing here in Singapore. But as we continue with our extended travelling, I find myself appreciating the concept of setting time aside to think about the good things in life… things that we are thankful for.

First off…

This Opportunity to Travel

As much as I’d like to believe that we had just dropped everything and go, it did not happen that way. There was considerable planning and quite a bit of hard work to save up along the way. Regardless, I believe that no amount of planning/saving could  have placed us in the unique time/place that allowed us to do what we are doing right now.

For this to happen, we more or less had all our dominoes lined up in a row. We were lucky to have good jobs prior to the travelling, that as long as we were willing to work hard, we never really had to worry about putting food on the table. Consequently, as long as we were prudent, we were able to squirrel away a bit of our savings every month to contribute to the travelling funds. Coupled with the relatively strong Singapore dollar, the little bit of savings every month goes a long way.

Furthermore, at this stage in our lives, we are still not too encumbered with responsibilities yet. In short, on this front at least, our dreams were within reach. We just needed to close our eyes and jump.

Which brings me to…

(More or less) supportive folks

Like anyone who love us, there were… “voices” of concern when we announced that we were gonna commit financial kamikaze and crawl our way into the uncivilized bowels of the earth.

We had a mortgage to pay off and tonnes of bills to pay. Yet, here we are, giving up stable jobs and steady pay cheques for some pipe dream of traipsing around the world. To make matters worse, we don’t even have a concrete exit strategy. What do we do after the madness is over? Are we going to sleep on the streets? And are we really certain that the places we go are safe? What if we get mugged and are left to bleed out on some remote corners of the earth?

I know there was a fair share of eye-rolling and exasperated sighs on my part when we heard the protests, but I just want to say that we know that everything that was said was said out of love. We are grateful that in spite of all the uncertainties and doubts that you guys have, you decided to let us do things our way and letting us know in no uncertain terms that you’d have our backs when if we screw this up.

I guess what I want to say is that we’re thankful to have family members who were crazy enough to (more or less) trust that we had a method to our madness.

Old Friends that care and new friends that share

Sometime over the past few days, I came up with a startling revelation, “Some friendships are like Farmville vegetables… they spoil if you don’t tend to them for a period of time.” (I think I went on a bit of a gaming spree since we came back too)

In this respect, we are lucky to have some mutant superstrain of vegetables. They forgave our absence at important life events (weddings, births, deaths, breakups and hook ups) and actually made the effort to keep in touch to update us on the happenings at home.

And then there are the new friends we meet along the way. Beside the comfort of knowing that we are not alone in doing what are doing, it is a blessing that we came across so many who inspired us in ways that we never thought possible. We’ve seen some truly amazing sights so far in our trip, but I’m sure that the things that we would remember the most are the times we spent trudging through the wilderness together and the numerous (sometimes literal) fireside chats.

Of course, for myself, I am extremely thankful for…

The best travelling companion anyone can ever ask for

Other than the seemingly impossible ability to fall asleep at any time and in any place, Jo has got to be one of the least fussy and lowest maintenance travel companion around. She would agree to go on 72-hour bus rides without batting an eyelid and actually survived the trauma with relatively little side effects (the only casualty being a chunk of her hair #anotherstoryforanotherday). All things considered, her complaints of not having enough pretty clothes seemed rather mild for the amount of shit that we had to go through.

But more than that, I am thankful for her sense of wonder (Spoiler: Jo teared up when she first saw Machu Picchu). Her ability to see the wonder in the wonders around us makes me even more appreciative of the wonderful life that we are leading right now.

Of course, I don’t want to belabour the awesomeness of being able to travel with my best friend.

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Regular programming will (more or less) resume next week. First off.. Santiago de Chile

Slumming it out with awesome Chilean street art

On Travel and Blogging

It’s official… I am three months behind on blogging about our South American adventures and strangely enough, I am ok with that.

This was not really the case a year ago when I tried (REALLY tried) keeping this blog up to date every day as we ventured through China. It took me all of two weeks to realize that it was not really possible to do that.

Fine… it is possible, but definitely not optimal.

One of the best/worst parts about travelling is that more often than not, you wake up to a new adventure everyday.

So, sometimes, after a long day of travelling, I would sit over the laptop and try to squeeze some words onto the blog. That, and spending the two hours difference between Jo’s waking up time and mine choosing and color-correcting photos (instead of gaming or catching up on the latest TV shows), blogging just stopped being fun… and actually kind of stressful.

So why do I still blog?

The fame, fortune and glory, of course!

Nah… seriously… This blog was started so that friends and family could keep tabs on us as we traveled around. I think we were seriously lucky that we received some benefits/work opportunities because of the blog, but (not wanting to sound ungrateful), I would not base my next air ticket out on these rare occurrences  Personally, I’m more thankful that the blog has provided us with the chance to work with some amazing organizations and link up with even more inspiring fellow bloggers/travelers.

So, really… why blog?

Growing up, I’ve never really kept a diary (not for any long period of time anyway), but I like the idea of putting down your thoughts for the day at the end of one.

I really think it helps put things into perspective. For us, particularly, it makes me thankful that we are able to do this at this period of our lives… That is why, no matter how many times we’ve been scammed, or how tired we are, looking at things through these particular filters, I’m still glad that I get to be out here pursuing the dream of travelling with my best friend.

And then, of course there are the memories. Even though we’ve ONLY been travelling for slightly more than a year, our recollection of time and places are starting to getting misty and mixed together.

In the movie “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”, the main character, Oskar noted that if the sun were to suddenly explode, it would take seven minutes before the people on Earth would know about it. When his father died in 911, he went on a quest to hunt down the door that a mysterious key left behind by his father would open. After a while, he noticed that he did this partly to prolong that “seven minutes” with his dad – so that the memory of his dad would not fade as fast.

We’re enjoying our time in the sun right now. Trying to squeeze a strict daily blogging routine into our already packed schedule is like worrying about the sun exploding.

Instead, what we do now is take notes at the end of everyday. So, when the time comes to flesh out the bullet points into words, the process of blogging allows us to prolong our “seven minutes” with the incredible places we’ve been to and the amazing people we’ve met.

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In other news, we’ve been featured again by TakeMeToTravel! The piece documenting our adventures through Green Island in Taiwan “Men In Black (and White)” is currently the featured article on the TakeMeToTravel website.

Hmmm… Maybe I really can achieve fame, fortune and glory with this blog….

One Year Later (aka We’re not Bankrupt/Broken Up/Dead yet???)

A year ago today, Jo and I bundled ourselves into a taxi and breathlessly told the taxi uncle to “bring us to the airport, FAST, please!” Our plane to Chengdu, China was departing in two hours and Jo had just finished drying her hair at home.

In a way, it’s a good thing we were distracted by the recurring thoughts of “SHIT FUCK SHIT, WE’RE GONNA MISS OUR PLANE!!”

We had thrown ourselves into travelling for an indefinite period of time and quite honestly, I would have been freaking myself out (more) if I had thought about this for a smidgen of a second more.

We’d been planning for this for a while now. Personally, I started planning/saving for this trip for the past five years (at least). Emotionally, we knew that it is something that we really wanted to do. Intellectually, we knew that if we are really going to be doing this, this is the best time to do it.

Yet, getting on that plane to Chengdu was like that big leap of faith – it’s the first concrete step we would be taking on our grand trip around the world after years of planning. It’s the point of no return.

Even when it comes to trying to pursue things that I really want, I still feel the butterflies in my stomach when I have to venture into the territory of the unknown – the uncharted waters where nothing is certain.

On the one hand, if this half-assed plan was to succeed, we could potentially have achieved something that we’ve always just dreamed about. And yet, for all our planning, I know that our plan is far from foolproof, and there might be a 1% chance of complete and utter failure (plus/minus 99%). The easiest thing to do would be to retreat back into our comfort zone.

One year later, I know now that I was a nincompoop for even thinking of not doing this.

Over the past year, we’ve travelled through countless cities/small towns/hamlets in eight countries (who’s counting, right?). We’ve seen sights that truly boggled our minds. There’s nothing quite like trudging for four days over the Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan, China or traversing through the Salt Flats of Uyuni, Bolivia with newfound friends. We took approximately 673 pictures of the whales in Puerto Madryn, but nothing can do justice to the experience of seeing them splashing about 100 metres in front of us, hearing them breathing loudly all around us, with the backdrop of a spectacular Argentine sunset. We’ve walked through the GORGEOUS graffiti covered streets of Barrio Bellavista in Santiago, Chile and viewed works of art by ancient maestros in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. We’ve swum with whale sharks in the Philippines and run from giant tortoises in Galapagos. We’ve eaten the most awesome steak in the world in Bariloche, Argentina and (unwillingly) sampled raw, decomposed goat meat in Zoige, China.

And that’s just a small fraction of the (sometimes overwhelming) experiences that we’ve had.

I don’t know if I can say that we’ve grown and learnt a lot from everything we’ve seen/felt/did/ate, but I know that I’ve changed.

It’s hard not to.

For one thing, our wallets have unmagically became A LOT lighter. Yet I know that there is very little else I would rather have spent all that money from. True, I would still love to own that Canon DSLR, that latest Iphone or even that Lamborghini, but I don’t think any of that would have enriched us the way the past year had.

I LOVE my friends back home. But the endless talks with other long-term travellers pursuing their one true love are some of the most passionate discussions that I’ve ever had. These talks inspire me to believe that it is POSSIBLE to live for something you love instead of always being tied down by practical considerations. We can always find a way.

And then there’s the part of us travelling together. We’ve been together for more than ten years now, (and in two days we would have been married for two of these ten years) (Happy Anniversary!). I think it’s safe to say that we’ve been best friends for most of the time, but the past year has allowed us to understand each other even further.

We had our fair share of fights. We ARE in each others’ faces 24 hours a day. But because of this, we know better what it is that annoys the hell out of the other. (Sometimes, it is fun to know when this knowledge can be used for some hilarious hijinks. IMPORTANT: This maneuver should only be attempted by professional husbands/significant others)

The experiences we had were great, but sharing the experiences together brings the awesomeness to another level. It’s amazing to be awestruck by the sunset in Boracay together, to stroll through the Gobi desert hand in hand and to walk down the coast of the End of the World side by side.

And now, here we stand at the beginning of another adventure through the islands of Galapagos.

Have I regretted the decision to commit financial suicide yet?

No. HELL, no.

Taking the Plunge

Well… That was probably the last post from Taiwan… for now.

Next up: South America!

South America as a continent has many of those places that have always been on our travel radar. Getting our asses to South America rates damn highly on our bucket list, so it’s actually kinda surprising that it took so long for us to get here.

One of the main excuses reasons that I gave was that it’s REALLY REALLY far away. And that means expensive airfares and very long travel time. So we figured to make the trip worthwhile, we’d need to go for a very very long stretch of time.

This little problem was solved when I quit my job and Jo decided to take an extended break from hers.

Yet, South America was not the first destination we set off for on our travels.

We told ourselves that we needed to get in the groove of travelling first. That’s why we went for a stint in China, followed by Philippines and then Taiwan with frequent visits home.

All the while, I was telling myself that South America would be next. It’s a long journey, so we really need to take our time to plan it.

Maybe we should take the time to learn a spot of Spanish, since that’s the main spoken language in South America. We could learn Spanish from an audio course while we are spending long hours on the roads!

I’m proud to say that between the (seemingly) endless bus rides and the long cruises on ferries, we now speak fluent Spanish.

Not the whole Spanish language, of course. I mean we now speak one fluent Spanish sentence, specifically:

“No entiendo ¿Habla Inglés?” (I don’t understand. Do you speak English?) (You can tell we have it down pat by the way we are able to enunciate the upside down question marks)

Number of audio tape lessons we went through to achieve this level of fluency? Zero.

Who has time to go through audio tapes when you can climb some crazy mountains, trek through pristine forests, dive in azure waters or just stone out at the amazing scenery outside the bus window???

I know now that it was just more excuses to put off this trip.

It’s strange. I know.

It’s one of those things that I know I WANT to do, but it’s been romanticized so much that I am afraid that nothing I see could measure up to what I have in my mind’s eye.

I’m afraid of being disappointed.

And then there’s the uncertainty factor. South America is not a very common travel destination among our friends, so we really don’t have too much first hand information about the place. Add to that the constant “scares” from concerned family, friends and the media about how “dangerous” South America is – definitely does not help with the anxiety factor. (at this point, I’d also like to give special blame mention to one too many viewings of City of God).

One of the first steps to resolving a problem is to acknowledge that there is one. It took us eight months of travelling to realize that we’ve been making excuses and South America cannot be put off any longer. (re: dwindling cash reserves)

There are some things you just can never be totally ready for. You’d want all the information available and all the preparations you can possibly make, but it is just not possible. There is a point where you really have to just say,”f*** it!” and go along with it. Take too long dragging your feet, and wonderful opportunities will pass you by.

So that’s how, with a song in our hearts, and a dummy “for mugging” wallet in our pockets, we bought our tickets and here we are!

We’ve been here for a month now and I’m happy to say that the song is still in our hearts. (Our mugging wallet was gone within the first week in Buenos Aires) (more on that later).

It really has been pretty AWESOME so far. We’ve seen some really incredible sights and met some of the most charming/adorable people around. Of course, there were times when we felt that maybe we could’ve planned parts of this trip better, but they are not things that we cannot get around. We are definitely out of our comfort zone, but I guess that’s what makes travelling the experience that it is.

You throw yourself in a culture/place that is foreign to you. You live. You adapt. You learn. You grow. And you have a kickass lot of fun where you are at it.

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In other news, one of our entries for Tiger Leaping Gorge “Not Easy” is currently being featured on TakeMeToTravel’s website. The blog was also spotlighted as the Featured Blog as well.

Do take some time to check out TakeMeToTravel’s website.

It’s an AWESOME resource for travelers and has some fantastic photos of various destinations around the world.

I don’t think I say this enough, but thanks for the support, everybody.