🇮🇩🇲🇾🇭🇰Would You Survive a Travel Gap Year?
After 23 days on the road, we are thrilled to be back in Hong Kong.
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Moments of the Week (Jan 1-7)
They say don’t eat street food or drink the water and stay away from anything with ice. We’ve been doing it since day one and it was only a matter of time before one or more of us got the Bali Belly. The What? A euphemism for traveler’s diarrhea. The good news is it only lasted for 24-48 hours and after all the island hoping, we enjoyed staying in.
While in Kuta we were looking for something touristy to do. Eureka! Waterbom, a water park splurge. While Maricar recovered from a cold and Jero read, Feris, Lea, and I got wet. Their favorite slide was the “Constrictor”, the longest slide in Asia and they went so many times that they got on a first name basis with the slide attendant. Disaster struck for me on the Fast N Fierce, when I burned a hole through my favorite T8 shorts and got a bad rug burn on my bum.
If we knew the food was second only to Thailand, we would have stayed longer than the 36 hours in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. As soon as we landed, we started walking and eating. We are good at this. We even had time to recreate our photo in front of the Petronas Twin Towers from 2006.
We said you should visit and Randy came, just hours after we returned to Hong Kong. In Bangkok, I asked him what do you want to do? His response? “I purposefully don't make any lists. I just want to experience something unique. While surviving.”For the first day I proposed MacLehose Section 4 but I was vetoed by Maricar and the kids. Instead, we played it safe by exploring public transportation (MTR, buses, ding ding, Star Ferry, DB Ferry), ate the HK tourist usuals, and even said hello to Bruce.
Thinking Out Loud
What if we traveled around the world for a year?
After 23 days “on the road”, we are happy to be back home in Hong Kong. In addition to the weather right now, we are all craving routine.
Did you know that our initial idea was to take a gap year to travel? We took a different path because we got overwhelmed with the budgeting and the planning. In other words, we got lazy. Looking back, I think this home base abroad approach works better for us; giving us a new normal and opening up a lifestyle that encourages exploration in sustainable chunks.
If you had the choice, would you travel for a year, or take extended holidays every other month or so?
On The Move
Run With Me on Strava - 62.91 mi, 3,586
I’m holey. My socks, my shoes, my shorts and my underwear all have holes.
I used the same set of running clothes everyday for our holiday. After my run, I hand washed my stuff in the sink, wrung em out, wrapped em in a towel and then hung dried outdoors if there was direct sun or indoors if not. My experience in HK has taught me that clothes don’t dry when it’s humid outside.
Injury prevention is key and I’m proud of myself for not getting hit by a scooter or twisting my ankle in a pot hole.
With the Bali Belly for ~2 days and an early Saturday flight, I’m amazed I hit 60 for the week.
Hong Kong winter is like California, dry with sunny skies. It’s good to be back and run in these conditions. Seasons are good, even HK ones which many people around the world wouldn’t count.
We love it when we can stay in the same place for 5 days! It's our treat. Solving the work/travel/experience/friends/home balance is a conundrum!
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