Life

Good morning NYC, my insomniac city

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Photo/art credit to my dear sister
Photo/art credit to my dear sister

Nine-hour layovers can be pretty brutal. Three-hour flight delays on top of that can be maddening, especially when you’re sitting in the airport lounge next to piles of fried noodles and Chinese buffet food. (By sitting, I mean stuffing yo face like you’re in your PJs at home alone.) Yes, rich(ish) people problems.

Now if I had realized that a typhoon was on its way and that it ended up shutting down Guangzhou airport for the first time in history and that we only missed it by a hair, I would have felt extremely lucky. Yes, I won the lottery today! More dumplings from the buffet to celebrate! It’s all about perspective.

After a 15-hour flight and the rigamarole of deplaning, I was back in Manhattan. It was about 10:30pm. I picked up exactly where I had left off two months ago, minus the high heels. The air was crisp and breezy. My good friend and I went out in search of rooftop bars and cocktails. The first was a bit of a fail, but cocktails were being poured all around. Continue reading Good morning NYC, my insomniac city →

Life, Travel

Jimbaroo! You only love me when you’re drunk

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Bleary. Tired. I just got off an overnight flight from Bali to Guangzhou in China and will be heading back to NYC. Did not sleep. I thought the point of booking first class was to have a flatbed. For the past hour, I’ve been overindulging at the China Southern airport lounge. Many plates of eggs, bacon, and dumplings have been consumed. Also a giant bowl of wonton and noodle soup. No exaggeration. Giant.

Wonton noodle soup at Guangzhou airport

Mostly, I’ve been wondering how I lost my head and my heart in Bali. It happened so quickly. Earlier this month, I had left the Bukit peninsula with hurt feelings and my poor battered heart in my hands. I had stayed with an American surfer / furniture maker who had been living between Bali, CA, and Hawaii for the past 20 years. We met 4 years ago during my first trip to Bali and spent 24 hours together. When I came back to Bali earlier this month, we spent seven days straight together. Intense. Things got a bit tense between us during this period. Much was left unsaid. I felt like he hated me but wanted me at the same time. It was a mix of emotions, but when I left him and the Bukit a few weeks ago, I needed a lot of solitude and alone time to recharge and heal. I didn’t want to look back. I at least promised myself that I wouldn’t return to the Bukit unless it was on my terms and turf.

For my last two nights in Bali, I decided to return to the Bukit, this time in style. Continue reading Jimbaroo! You only love me when you’re drunk →

Travel

Decompressing in Ubud

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My day back in Ubud, the cultural center of Bali, yesterday:
  • 7am: Morning flow yoga at the Yoga Barn with about 50 other people
  • 9am: Green juice and fruit for breakfast
  • 11am: Rolling around in bed at Sarin Ubud Villas trying to get FaceTime to work
  • 12:30pm: Walking around rice fields
  • 2pm: Q-rak energy healing treatment – I still don’t know what happened
  • 3pm: Mahi mahi pumpkin pesto salad for lunch at Watercress
  • 5pm: More rolling around in bed reading lightly
  • 7pm: Ayurvedic massage – two women massaging 107 “marma points” in my body, which is defined as a site where flesh, veins, arteries, tendons, bones, and joints meet up
  • 8:30pm: Indian restaurant for a binge-fest dinner (my stomach is better!)
  • 9:30pm: Called Delta to cancel my flight to London (going back to NYC instead on Sunday)
  • 10pm: Texting with people
  • 11:30pm: Sleep
  • Overnight: Weirdest dreams ever

This basically encapsulates what it would like to live in Ubud. I think I could do this, except for the infuriating internet issues.

Looking out from my patio onto the rice fields
Looking out from my patio onto the rice fields

Travel

Nusa Lembongan with the Manta Rays

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The boat ride out to Manta Bay was choppy. The saving grace was the breathtaking scenery, like nothing I have ever seen. Turquoise waters in gradients of blue towards the shore – the canonical form of tropical waves. Massive (like, seriously, truly massive) waves crashing into naturally terraced rock formations, with the water cascading down from them like waterfalls in rapid cycles and large verdant cliffs looming overhead. In the near distance, there were many rock formations that gave me a prehistoric land-before-time type feeling. I was particularly taken by one donut-shaped large hollow rocky formation.

The boat was bouncing up and down, right and left. I hadn’t slept the night before from stomach flu, and I hoped it would all end for me right there very quickly. The hour-long boat ride passed with me getting drenched every other minute as the boat pitched forward, backward, side to side, water splashing me overhead. I wish I had photos, but honestly, it was too harrowing, and my bag was drenched. (Um, why did they tell me it was fine to bring my bag on the boat? Nevermind.) Continue reading Nusa Lembongan with the Manta Rays →

Life, Work

How to save the world

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Unfortunately, I don’t have any brilliant ideas on how to save the world. Earlier this month, while I was searching for files on my computer, one bothersome search result kept coming up – howtosavetheworld.pdf. What is that? Why does that file keep coming up on every search? Creepy.

On the plane ride from Osaka to Bali, I decided to find out. When I opened it, I confirmed that I had never seen it before, but there it was – “On Becoming and Individual or HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD” by David Cain, author of the site www.raptitude.com as it turns out. Oh boy.

The 46 slides include evocative images, quotes, and principles for changing your life to do something meaningful. How a propos… (eye roll).

“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.” – Albert Camus

(Um..yaaaahh, for real.) Continue reading How to save the world →

Travel

Traveling alone

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Sunset selfie on Gili Air enjoying my alone time
Sunset selfie on Gili Air enjoying my alone time

The other night in Gili Air, I was looking for wifi to cancel my flight (again). My flight was supposed to take off…in a few hours from now actually. I stomped onto the beaches of multiple restaurants demanding the code and stomped out. In one particular restaurant – Chillout Bungalows – I went for the multiple-entry stomping.

Suddenly, I heard, “Excuse me.” I looked up and saw a laid-back-looking blonde guy. I had noticed him looking at me with bemusement the last few times I had stomped onto the beach to decipher the piece of paper handed to me by the waiter and type in the “username” and “password” fields. Hands up in air! How the F is anyone supposed to understand these instructions????????

“Thank god!” I thought. “This guy knows the wifi password.” Continue reading Traveling alone →

Travel

Gili Air scuba

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Sunrise on Gili Air looking at the volcanos of Lombok
Sunrise on Gili Air looking at the volcanos of Lombok

When the wifi gods are cooperating with me, I’ll have to upload photos. I’m on a tiny little island called Gili Air near Lombok. It is part of an archipelago of three Gili Islands – Gili Trawangan (party island), Gili Meno (fairly deserted), and Gili Air (still very quiet but a bit in the middle).

I had considered coming here at the beginning of my Bali trip, but due to full boats and other considerations, I had crossed it off the list. When I was in Amed, I met a German family, and we snorkeled together. Afterwards, the father, Neil, approached me and told me I should go to Gili Air, to Manta Dive, and complete my open water certification. I really didn’t give it much thought except that I remembered SCUBA being on my 2016 New Year’s resolution list (well, less of a resolution and more of a strong interest). I decided to go for it. My full moon meditation/drinking sessions were wearing on me a bit, and I was ready to move on to a place where I could be fully alone. The next day, I was on a boat to Gili Air.

Gili Air is beautiful. Crystal clear turquoise waters, white beaches, and sandy pathways with directional wooden signs listing lodging and food locations. No cars or scooters – just horses. Several times a day, you will hear the haunting call to prayer in the distance (Bali is Hindu, but the rest of Indonesia is Muslim). While most of the island is populated with tourists – largely Danes, French, and Germans – it maintains a relaxed vibe.

Yo, check out that blue water in the background.

Gili Air island selfie

And those sunsets…hello-o-o-o?!

Continue reading Gili Air scuba →

Health & Wellness, Life

Loving-kindness practice

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On Christmas Day last year, I started a loving-kindness meditation practice. My sister’s birthday is the day after Christmas, and I took her to Kripalu retreat in the Berkshires for a sister Christmas/birthday mindfulness getaway. Our days were spent finally relaxing and feeling our own tiredness and attending sessions on yoga, meditation, and life reflection sessions.

The loving-kindness meditation was the focus of one of these sessions. The idea behind this type of meditation is that it helps you foster feelings of compassion, acceptance, and love towards all beings. For me personally, this form of meditation helped me become more open, less cold, less judgmental – and generally happier and more hopeful. Even when it came to the most horrific people in my life, I found a space within myself to wish them the best because as much as they were torturing me, they were certainly torturing themselves 10x over (er, probably even more!). I had escape from them, but they had no escape from themselves. Shudder! I hoped they could find peace (and leave the rest of us the hell alone!). Continue reading Loving-kindness practice →

Life, Travel

Spa day, Amed

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Over the past few weeks, I’ve been defrosting. I’m trying to lead a healthy life, feel real feelings, and be less of a corporate robot. It’s been working, and I finally understand why people have been telling me to take time to heal and not rush into a new job. I know even know what I really want or who I really am without the layers of having spent so much time playing different roles to be with different people and hold different jobs.

It’s almost like I’m letting the valve of my subconscious mind open in spurts to release pent up energy, and every day things get just a little bit clearer. Most notably, I’ve been feeling disappointment and pain a lot more and in a more real way that I had previously. When I was working, you could have told me the world was going to end, and I would have coldly and immediately started asking questions to diagnose the gravity of the situation, drafting up a workplan, and assembling a team to save it. And then having regular and daily check-ins as necessary to make sure we were on track. With only resolve and determination, only affected passion (no real emotion), and no real fear. Dead inside. When you’ve gone through so much shit and calamity and everything is crumbling around you, and you’re the only one doing anything about it, and it is exhausting but effective, it’s pretty easy to get in that mode. War. Survival. Live another day. Fight this battle but know there will be the next one coming up in minutes. Nothing could phase me. I was broken inside and despairing, but on the outside, especially when it came to work, everything was goal-oriented and transactional.

Now it’s all starting to come out. Continue reading Spa day, Amed →

Life

Holy f***, I’m homeless!

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I have AirBNB guests now booked going into November! And I’m barely covering my rent…WTF. Yesterday, I found out someone tried to break into my apartment in NYC. I crouched in a tiny corner of Meditasi Bungalows to steal some wifi. I flipped my shit trying to coordinate with my AirBNB guest, my former cleaner, my current cleaner, and my super.

Oh well, let the great world spin! I wonder where I’ll live when I come back to NYC. We will cross that bridge when we get to it.

Otherwise, so far, I have invitations to:

  • Hike the Himalayas
  • Go on a road trip from Whistler to Banff and Jasper
  • Visit London and Germany
  • Hike a trail in the Adirondacks (that in all fairness, I need to organize)
  • Go to Colorado for meditation, hiking, drinking
  • Go back to Japan
  • Crash on someone’s couch for 1-2 nights
  • Medellin (potentially)
  • Malaysia and Indonesia is the latest

Also considering:

  • Visiting my half-sister, niece, and nephew in South Korea
  • Staying in Bali longer
  • Going to Barcelona for a month (post-mid August)

I will need to check for sublets or move to Buenos Aires temporarily. This may sound like a non-sequitur, but it makes total sense. Trust me.

Travel

Full Moon Meditasi

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“During the full moon, not much sleep. The energy is too strong. One day before and one day after too,” my new friend Smiling Buddha had said the day before.

I don’t know if it was the energy, the arak drinks, my neuroses, or the deafening sounds of roosters and other wildlife, but yes, I had tossed and turned all night and was up by 5am. I was plagued by the usual inertia. I really don’t want to do anything, but I’m also going to be miserable doing nothing. And I am certainly not going to plan a thing. Herein lies the basic problem of my general condition.

I managed to get myself up for long enough to half-heartedly check out the (ok, fairly stunning) sunrise.

Sunrise Meditasi

Feeling anti-social, I headed into breakfast and encountered Smiling Buddha, who informed me that we would be eating mackerel together that night and then drinking the champagne he had been saving for 7 months. Continue reading Full Moon Meditasi →

Life, Travel

Healing in Amed

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Yesterday, I woke up wondering why I had canceled my flight back to NYC. I was tired of living out of my suitcase and surfer life immersion. I had racked up $750 in data roaming charges. The weather forecast only looked bleak. Hello, Island of the Gods, were you sending me the wrong signal to stay? Did you mean go?

Now that I’m in Amed, I get it. The spiritual part of my journey is really only beginning. My Uber driver picked me up from McDonalds in Jimbaran, and we began our winding 3-hour drive, mostly in silence, me with my phone in airplane mode, reflective, hurt, and ready to move to the next phase. I had been emailing with a hotel called Meditasi earlier in the morning, and they told me to just show up, and I could see the options. It sounded like a perfect hideaway right on the beach with meditation, yoga, and good snorkeling. “I am on my way,” I wrote them from the McDonald’s parking lot before shutting down my phone connections.

The car passed through villages, mountains, and rice terraces. I started to feel better, a bit more distant.

Rice terraces driving up to Amed

Continue reading Healing in Amed →

Travel

My McDonald’s moment

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McDonalds Jimbaran

One obvious fact about me is that I travel a lot. A lesser known fact about me is that I have McDonald’s cheeseburgers in every country I travel to. It’s something I’m actually pretty embarrassed about, but whatever. I’m normally a pretty healthy eater, but it’s the ultimate comfort food for me in moments when I have to navigate new streets, cultures, itineraries, and plans. Maybe it’s that childhood Happy Meal effect (I mean, the food itself is not that great), but it does have an oddly grounding effect on me.

So now, I’m sitting in McDonald’s in Jimbaran, where I was just dropped off to find an Uber to Amed or some other destination. I met a driver in the parking lot going to Lembongan Island, so I considered that as well. Going with the flow, after all. After a week of being in two villas and living an alternative lifestyle and spending 24/7 with a person I barely know and his friends, I am ready for me time. Meditation time. No more 10-drink nights every night. Coffee when I want it. Wifi when it’s available. Not being overly budget conscious all the time. Continue reading My McDonald’s moment →

Travel

What surfing taught me about myself and life

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Me and Kik getting ready to go out to Padang Padang

One of the things I definitely wanted to do while in Bali was to go surfing. I’ve surfed twice before, once in Costa Rica and once in New York in the Rockaways. Spending the last few days hanging out with surfers, I’ve realized surfing is a mentality and that there is serious self-selection in those who decide to pursue it as a lifestyle. They’re people who’ve tried living other types of lives, maybe even holding “real jobs,” but they can’t live without the ocean and without waves. It’s a kind of religion. Everything is given up for surfing in an almost fatalistic kind of way. Weather conditions and tides are studied scientifically, as is the ocean in all its finer details. There’s a fair bit of partying and a “let it go, come what may” attitude towards life. People help each other out. Major activities other than surfing involve plenty of relaxation, partying, and watching the sunset with beers – a different beach every night. Continue reading What surfing taught me about myself and life →