a previous chapter

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine

My parents recently told me that they did not need to know everything. I know the way I travel scares them, hitchhiking, sleeping outside if needed, and making no plans as I go. But to tell you the truth, I am a total product of how these two people influenced and raised me.

Some of my earliest memories are of falling asleep to the glow-in-the-dark stars and planets on my ceiling a few inches above my head, as I was lulled to sleep by the familiar growl of our purpley-pinky (my dad prefers maroon) greyhound bus we lived in when we traveled, showering on the side of the road by having a bucket of water dumped over my head as I scrubbed furiously to complete the job in time and making friends in three seconds flat with the nearest kids my age, in whatever town or country we happened to be in.

My most recent trip was by far one of the craziest I've ever undertaken; I went to Poland for Christmas, and then flew to Istanbul the day before new years eve, and from there things just kept getting more and more interesting.

I was alone the first night, and had one of the craziest 'still can't really talk about it much' nights of my life, but then met up with my friend, Ben, the next morning. 

We hitchhiked our way from Istanbul, through Greece, up north through Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and finally across Poland to our destination of Warsaw.

We slept outside, in trucks, in strangers homes, in a hotel stairwell, and we each had our turns passing out for a while in an internet cafe when completely sleep deprived.

I'll recount those stories a little as I go along, but once I get going to Korea, the focus is again on what is unfolding in front of me, rather than what has already been and gone.

Turkey .. is an interesting place to say the least. It is a mix of amazing architecture, kind-hearted people, and way too many overtly-eager men wanting a white wife. One of the more extreme examples of this behaviour was when I was sleeping at a house, and one of the friends of the guy we were crashing with stripped down to his boxers and got into bed and started spooning with me. A little furor and changing of beds solved the problem, but it was just sort of an insight into what they are comfortable doing after only having met you an hour before. On the flip side, we had countless strangers take us in for a night to sleep, eat, or just hang out with us as we wandered around exploring and trying new things. One of my favourites was actually the same guy who's friend jumped into bed with me - we were at a soup shop, eating what we could and trying to escape the cold night outside, when I asked him if he knew of any shelter or church / mosque that would let us sleep indoors. Even though he hardly spoke any English, and we spoke the same amount of Turkish, he said "my home, no problem". He was a good, good guy, and hung out with us, and took us to his friend's home to make sure we had somewhere to sleep the next night as well.  

This shot below was taken with my old Yashica Mat - it's a vintage square camera that I am totally in love with.  We were in Istanbul, just after new years, and were on a city train, and this random guy totally just started following us around the city, showed us the spice markets, walked us all the junk around the city on this massive trek until finally we got to a Nargilay joint(otherwise known in english as hookah). We were surrounded by people from all over the world - an ex-pat american currently living in Saudi Arabia, one of the funkiest families I have ever seen, who hailed from Kurdistan, and of course the local Turks who frequent the place.

the beginning of the end

“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” – Lao Tzu

I am down to 6 days and counting.

I still have three years of taxes, a whole life of posessions, and a very loved cat to still organise, and I've only just today had my last day or work.

It really takes longer than 6 days to organise yourself to move across the world, and I have, as per my procrastinating nature, left it all until the last few ticks on my non-existant watch to kick into high gear.

Mind you, i'm planning on kicking into high gear tomorrow.

Luckily, I seem to have a plethora of good friends flanking my sides, most of whom trump me exhaustively in the organisational skills department; proven by now being the proud owner of two tickets for my friend and I to the local theme park (http://www.everland.com/ - check OUT this rollercoaster!), and suddenly, I even have a place to stay, rent free with a friends aunt for two months! Another friend has taken on the daunting task of helping me pack. As you can imagine, i'm nominating her for a well-deserved saint-good coronation, namely because I am a wannabe collector.

...I have a half assed collection of the following items:

stickers

cameras

foreign money

vinyl toys

buttons i've found around the world

art supplies

beads

random scraps of fabric

film / negatives

old postcards

stationary

random musical instruments

books

...whoops.

I mostly just seem to consider most of my possessions lumped into one of these categories, hence making things a little more difficult.

But soon... ..actually exactly one week from this exact hour, I will be on a plane freshly landed in Korea.