Wanderlust

After posting several melancholic posts the past few weeks and reading all your comments. I promised myself I'll stop feeling sad for the choices I made in the past. I'm still young. I can still do what I wasn't able to do when I was in college. The things I had to give up because of my dream (aka finish one of the most grueling course in UST). Now, I can do all those and more.

The only one stopping me is myself. While I was busy with life, I lost my youthful courage.

I used to go on sudden trips (to Baguio) without any clear plans of where I was going. I joined Red Cross and the UST Crisis Management team, switched PE to tag along with the Yellow Jackets, and volunteered to build houses for Aeta's. We climbed a no name mountain in Tarlac to get to the Sitio. I don't remember ever being happy than when I finally saw some rooftops! Oh that trip was dreadful but it was also very fulfilling. We built houses for 30 families. The kids escorted us everywhere, gave us "nilagang kamote" (boiled sweet potato) during snack time and taught us how to sing a lullaby. On our third day, we camped outside and saw the first meteor shower I have ever seen in my life! It was magical.

Nevertheless, like most of you reminded me, I can only move forward and should stop dwelling on the past.

“There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't sit still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest; Their's is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.”

-Robert W. Service

My HS friends and I are planning a trip to Singapore & Malaysia to start 2013. I halfheartedly said I would go but now the feeling of wanderlust is slowly coming to me.

In the next five years [this is me dreaming *haha*] I hope to visit 2-3 more countries. I need to make a lot of changes to my lifestyle if I really go for this. I need to get a passport. I need more traveling buddies. I need to lose weight. I need to spend less. I need more work. I need to get a proper camera! I need a backpackers insurance. You never know what will happen — accidents, food poisoning, stolen or damaged items! These are what makes traveling "troublesome" for me. It's better to cover your bases than feel helpless in a foreign country.

Anyhow, I'm eye-ing these countries: Japan — Korea — Thailand & Cambodia — India, Nepal & Bhutan — China. Now I'm super excited! :)