Since embarking on the self-employed track three years ago, I’ve never really had a great sense of “time” or “days” or “dates.” That feeling is amplified when you’re traveling around from city to city, and country to country. So unsurprisingly, Steve and I had no idea that we had been traveling for over a month until our friends Pete and Kimra came out to join us for part of our Japan leg.
It simultaneously feels like we’ve been gone forever, and that we just left last week. Vietnam seems like a distant memory, and we were there 12 days ago.
Long-term travel is overall exciting, but transitioning from vacation-mode to traveler/worker mode has proved challenging. When you go on vacation, you make your plans ahead of time, and simply go full-force and soak it all up. Long-term travel means remaining flexible, and making travel plans several times a week. Booking a hotel, booking a flight, booking a train, and deciding where to go next all take time. More time than we anticipated.
Which is a big reason why I haven’t been doing as much arty work as I intended …. yet. I’ve been gathering inspiration everywhere. We’re slowly trying to get into a schedule as much as possible and I hope to be posting some artwork (and other tidbits) soon.
In our first month, we’ve acquired a lot more travel rules, and one of them is to simply stay put for a while. Not only does that let us really experience a city, but we also get to relax a bit. Rushing around from city to city, packing and re-packing, taking new transportation, and figuring out a new place can get exhausting. But I’m not an idiot, and I know how fortunate we are, rushing and stress included.
So for now, we are holed up in Fukuoka, a city in Kyushu, the southern-most main island of Japan. (And a mere hop, skip, and a jump away from South Korea, so all this North Korea business is very exciting. hrmmmm.) We’re spending 10 days here, which every Japanese person we’ve spoken to thinks is hilarious. But it is a great city, with convenient shopping and INSANE food. (This is no surprise if you’re following me on Instagram. Sorry if there is drool on your iPhone). It is ground zero for ramen, specifically tonkotsu ramen — that milky white pork bone broth affair that is the King of Ramen Broths (TM pending). We have been absolutely spoiled by the food here, and I don’t think I’ll enjoy a bowl of ramen in the US in quite the same way again.
After we’ve had our fill of ramen, gyoza, and nihonshu, we’re off to Penang for further food adventures. Stay tuned.
I have been staring at the top picture all day, thinking “that can’t be a real place. It’s papercut art. Right???”
That whole place looks like one big paper cut. Bai Long (near Halong) Bay, Vietnam. That was in the floating village area. Totally insane views.