(blame Pats and Djong for this rambling ;p )

It's a dream I've been nurturing since I started dutifully following Ian Wright's exploits on Lonely Planet. We are now in the year 2008, and that was back in 1998--10 years and still an unrequited love. You wouldn't think I've been harboring such notions just by looking at my grande Starbucks tea frappe and perfectly applied eyeliner.

My friend Eric, whose now in Cambodia, laments the absence of the ubiquitous chain in his new home city, yet he makes me salivate by announcing that massage places litter the streets like 7-11s.

I want to visit him in Cambodia, Pats in Singapore, dear Ryan in South Korea, Rony, Gerwin and Charlie in Singapore, life partner Louie, sexy Ems and Lifebunny in Hong Kong, Jon in Spain, Janne in Finland, Donna in the UK, Graeme in Scotland, Dwayne in Indiana, Yas in Dubai, maybe Emi in Romania, Essi wherever she is at the moment...

During the bad in-betweeners of my life, I swung from blaming family and circumstances, to blaming myself--both in highly passionate ways that boggle the mind.

Still, there is a shining nugget I managed to pick up--strength. Life's hell-bent ways gave me tree-trunk-like sea legs, and I want to keep using them.

Now that life is being quite kind and cushy to me, I can't help but look for the imbalance that only a churning ocean can provide. I long for the comfort that I've always found in constant change.

Instead of expecting the unexpected, I don't expect at all. Deal me what cards you will, and with those, I'll play like a loony. I'll probably even wager (and lose) everything, yet find redemption in smiling like a drunken sailor.

In life, I can strategize, plan and mind-f**k like the best of them. But I'd rather I didn't. I really would much prefer to be thrown somewhere and I'll be happy to learn how I'll deal with it. I can't imagine a purer heaven. Give me something and some things never to be defined. Give me the raucous, the sweaty and the revolting. Challenge me in ways that will make me rant and spit and give birth to strange, unwieldy energies.

I have always believed that by traveling, my sea legs will find happiness.

I want to talk to different and differing people, be forced to eat strange food, work for my breakfast...

You know what they say about potential? I can do it, therefore I must do it.

Damn the comfort zone and its accompanying delusions. I am dying to have a taste of the biggest possible perspective by constantly being in motion.

I want to see The Frames live in Ireland, Dave Matthews Band in Virginia and join the Burning Man community at least once. There are also fairy conventions in various part of this weird, wonderful world. Yes, I want to be there, too.

Sometimes, I think I'm too old to start backpacking, Couchsurfing and going on trips that plenty of those half my age have probably already enjoyed. But I reckon I can always lie and say i'm only 27.

Until when shall I keep to where the Starbucks stores are aplenty?

Boom-de-ah-dah!

Advocacy + adventure
Need i say more?
For those whose sense of adventure go beyond personal learning

pick your trip's poison, thanks to these "travel mixologists"

(warning: drama mode)

the truth is, i'm not particularly very good at it, but this thing that my friends introduced me to makes me feel like nothing else.

i started surfing in 2005, before la union was as popular and crowded a destination as it is now, but still many years after my friends first got into it. i would probably be a third or even fourth generation model if surfers were marketed like ipods.

generally, i'm pretty resilient but many, many, many things have really started beating on my armor. sometimes, i really do feel there's nothing left for me on this planet, except for trying to take care of my internal organs so someone can make use of them when i can't anymore. and in between seriously considering if i have mononucleosis or, well, that thing that will put you in the 7th circle of dante's hell, is the shining thought of paddling out towards the horizon.

everytime i catch a wave, life feels completely peaceful. i don't have a care in the world but for the speed of the water that's carrying me, the wind on my face, and the shore that's coming up to greet me. then i paddle back out, raise my upper body with every wave i meet, and crash down on the water with the board as my protector. there's nothing more exhilarating than maneuvering myself in a current that's always changing and deserves the utmost respect. the perfect marriage of man and mother earth.

and when the city, with all its unnecessary trappings and misplaced priorities, staggers me with a sense of profound futility, nothing jolts me awake quite like the thought of hopping on that bus and getting ready to greet the water. and i move on with a renewed sense of joy, looking forward to my next surfing trip.

the mighty, mighty water and what it can do to and with you, that's something to worry about, not the rules that the modern world dictates. money, sex, beauty, social image, i don't really care. what would hefty savings and "name" mean if i went through this life an empty shell--cooing over my next gadget or fashion purchase, or worrying too much about money that i've forgotten the richer gift of loving?

and when the story feels like it has gone on too long, has become too tiring, or is going around in circles, an ending seems the best solution. or i can just throw the book out.

and once more, i retain my tenuous hold on the tether to life for just one more ride, or even just one more wipeout. the water--it keeps moving me along :)

thanks, guys.

nice! this speaks to me, and i'm sure to all of you gypsies, too :D