Wanchain's Space

I had watched Eckhart Tolle's video on the Power of Now, which teaches us to be present and mindful. It is not a new concept, but his elaboration reminded me of my stories. There is a time in my life where I was a very light traveler of Earth. I had little possessions. Many of the things I came to accumulate, I would throw away. One of the things was my expired passport. I did not carry much memories nor memorabilia. Many of my earlier solo travels were done with little or no photo-taking. I will never be missing out on not taking pictures. Because while I am busy snapping shots, and viewing the beauty behind my camera, I am not truly enjoying the vastness of the new place. The camera is the barrier between me and the place I'm visiting. Why record my memory on a camera when I can record it on my mind and psyche? Why bother to go all the way to a new place, to take pictures of it, when I could have gotten much better quality pictures of it from the internet, at the ...

Changing landscape. Changing landscape. Changing landscape. These words reverberated in my head repeatedly today. Then, I began to muse over the question of whether to respond with inaction or reaction?   Every change in our external environment brings about an internal change in our psyche. Call it a psychological rebalancing act. As within, so without. The Law of Attraction states that our outer environment is the reflection of our inner environment. When the change is not in our favor, the conflict lies between our conscious self and sub/unconscious self. Thus far, I am somewhat neutral to my changing landscape. There is still some breathing room between one wave of change and another, for me to rebalance myself, to return to my point of neutrality. However, the waves are getting stronger, and more frequent. I feel that time is running out. A catalyst may appear, to push me to react. In my state of neutrality, I curiously and eagerly observe all the players in my environment ...

A Hong Kong actor inspired me to write this post. He confessed that he did not know how to take care of basic things in his life. He would defer things like re-filling his Octopus card (a smart card for electronic payments) to his assistant or his mother. He said, if he had no assistant or anyone else to rely on, he would immediately ceased to function. I know how that feels like. It is not an exaggeration. Because I am actually quite like him. I used to not know how to withdraw cash from an ATM. Now, I could withdraw foreign currency from ATM abroad. To me, this is a tremendous growth. I had to fly half way across the planet, to have my Egyptian friend show me that my phone had a SIM card. My brain is not designed to take care of a phone. He even suggested that I should unlock my phone and install GPS app next time I travel. I thought, @_@! On my round-the-world trip, I cried in Dubai. I was so moved at myself for being able to go around the world, alone. I am a simple p...

At one point in my life, I was an excessive planner. My itinerary would be planned by the hour. Now, my travel plan is 'no plan' or 'cannot plan'. The main catalyst of my transition was frustration. Roughly 90% of my plans failed. As I become less reliant of plans, I grow more reliant on intuition. While researching on the methods of transportation within Egypt (felucca, cruise, air, convoy transfer, coach, etc.), none of the options sat well with me. In a moment of insanity, I clicked on the option to fly from Egypt to Cyprus. The option made my heart sing, very loudly. The abrupt shift in feelings was an unmistakably clear sign of my intuition. Some signs are subtle, others are bold. Upon picking up my rental car in Cyprus, I was informed that they ran out of GPS devices. My left-brain said, it's not a good idea to drive on the other side of the road in a foreign land with no navigational assistance. My right-brain said, it's okay. I carefully p...

Not long ago, I was someone who could not venture beyond my city's confines, without a chaperon. How did I go from that to being a solo female traveler who had completed one circuit around the globe? I live in a city that has more than 160 kilometres of walking/biking trails. Naturally, I walked a lot, within the city. Then I got bored and flew to another Canadian city to walk. From domestic travel, I graduated to international travel. Now, from walking, I graduated to international driving. Travel does not have the same meaning to me as to most others. For me, it's a leisurely stroll. A plane ride is just like a bus ride. I have a simplistic view of travel. I enjoy simplicity. However, complexity finds its way to me when others try to alter my concept of travel to match theirs. My simplistic concept of travel has taken me to a few dangerous places. Dangerous from the perspective of the less seasoned travelers. After returning from my Egypt trip, a colleague ask...

A friend once told me, that his father never knew how to enjoy life. He worked and saved money. He retired with no hobbies. All the money he saved, he gave them to his sons. His father is very similar to my own father. As my father phases into his retirement years, I am becoming more wary of his health, not only physically, but especially emotionally and mentally. Those who have exited the working world are more prone to depression, as their social status has changed and their social exposure shrinks. In Amsterdam, I asked an old gentleman for direction. This retiree ended up walking with me, for a long while, talking about the glory of his previous work life and the doom of his current retired life where his kids didn't want him around and his wife also didn't want to spend time with him. It sounded to me as if he had not have a human contact in a long while, despite the fact that Amsterdam was full of people. As he reluctantly parted ways with me, I diagnosed him with depress...

After my Dutch colleague told me his story with the ex-convict, who had invited him to lunch after the ride, I realized, not everyone had to stay in our lives, to make it interesting. Some are meant to fill a small role in a short disjointed story in our lives. I have many of those stories. The characters are no longer in my life yet I remember them just the same. The guy in Montreal who had nothing better to do, carried my luggage for me, from the hostel where we met, to the bus station, which was about a 20-minute walk. The Chinese couple who picked me up from my hotel, and took me to Bethlehem with them, because I did not want to spend the day alone in Jerusalem. The Chinese tourist who invited me to wine and dine with him, in Zurich, and walked me to the train station the next day. We may wonder what happen to them after our stories.  I think it is safe to say that they have moved on to add little memories to other people's lives.  We all do.  ^_^

There is a common topic about taxi drivers and tourists in less developed countries, ie. overpriced fare. My experience in Egypt did not deviate from the norm, nor did I expect it to. However, in the process of being overcharged, I came to marvel at the ingenuity and innovation of the taxi drivers. I always asked the hotel to arrange for a driver for me. Some hotels have connections to honest drivers. Some don't. Some taxi drivers pay a fee to the hotel, to maintain a business relationship. Even when a hotel had negotiated the taxi fare for me, I would usually end up paying more. As soon as I got in the cab, the driver started to change my itinerary, to a longer one. First, they would befriend me. Then, they would ask about my entire trip. For example, where are you going after this? How long you plan to stay here? Once they knew my schedule, they started to re-shape my journey, saying that this place is on the way, you might as well go, or that place is a must-see,...

After hearing my Dutch colleague's story about his hitchhiking experience from a driver who just got out of prison, I feel compelled to write my own travel experience. I would summarize my Egypt trip as rewarding. I did experience all the usual tourist complaints, plus more, but I came away with a very positive memory of the nation. The reason is that I went with an adjusted expectation and an open mind. Open mind means to open the mind to accept all that life has to throw at me. Tourist complaints expected and encountered: 1 double-standard in pricing: one for locals, one for tourists 2 local men do like to "interact" with me, a female solo traveler 3 lower sanitary standards 4 tourist touts 5 poor public transport system 6 poor maintenance of attraction sites The list goes on. I readily adjusted to them all, but I was immensely curious, so instead of complaining, I was stubbornly asking questions. The only thing that actually scared me was the Bedou...

In the middle of the desert, I spent one night in a hotel owned and operated by a German and Japanese couple. I was surrounded by nature, which was both peaceful and hostile. The hostility came from a group of hungry mosquitoes, who ambushed me while I was standing in the reception area to use the wifi. They flew there to enjoy their free Chinese-Canadian dinner buffet. I think the dinner was very good, because they ate very ferociously. The peace came from a group of cicadas who lovingly lulled me to sleep, after I retreated to my chalet, and kept me company the entire night. Bittersweet memory!

I booked a rental car at Larnaca International Airport. Upon pick-up, I was told that the rental company ran out of GPS devices. Hence, I drove off the lot without a navigation device. I let the wind direct me. It was so liberating! I felt like driving a big bumper car in a big arena named Cyprus. A friend asked, why did it feel like a bumper car? " Did you bump into other cars? " You are so cute! :) No, I felt like I was driving a bumper car, because it was so spontaneous. If I wanted to turn left, I would turn left. If I wanted to go straight, I would go straight. There was nothing to guide me. No one to say "Re-calculating". If I wanted to drive on the wrong side of the road, I would do that too, only to be honked at by the on-coming bumper cars. It was so much fun! On top of that, I managed to go to different cities, and to arrive safely back at my hotel every evening. Go where the wind blows!

In Brighton, I warmed myself up with a cup of tea on a dreary spring morning. The taste was absolutely perfect. After returning to Canada, I craved strongly for that same flavor in Brighton. I started looking forward to making tea in the morning. I used to add a lot of cream, but now I scale it down, to let myself focus on the tea. I was not able to chase back the flavor of Brighton, so I continued my chase every morning, like a donkey chasing for the carrot overhanging the front of him. Then one day, my tongue surprised me.  I finally understood what my Pakistani colleague said. He said that Bigelow English Breakfast had a sweet flavor at the end. For the longest time, I could not discern the sweetness, no matter how hard I tried. Now, I can taste it clearly, as I learn to shift my mindset to tea-tasting. We could be talking to the same person every day, without seeing the true essence of the person . As I try to chase the flavor of Brighton, I come to appreciate the...