Okay, this is my first time starting a blog. Ever. So be kind! Haha.
Thought it might be a good time to share my experiences with others, in addition to the few photos I might be posting on FB.
I haven't actually left yet, it's still a good 33 days before my flight! But I've spent the past few months researching and getting ready for this big adventure. Just 2 hours ago I was at Raffles Place finally getting my visa done, after being told the previous time that my insurance wasn't good enough. Today before work I still need to do some module mapping research, and I want to go to the library to browse some travel and history books as well! Uh, I may not go to the library today though, much too lazy, and probably no time either. Still need to cut hair.
I've been thinking a lot about the purpose of travel. I don't like to go into something and just let it pass me by without learning something from it or 'fully experiencing' it. Especially at special moments, I like to savour it and honour it with a bit of silence and reflection. I guess most people don't know that about me. Exchange is going to be a whole chain of special moments. I'd like to know why I'm going, so that I can seek to fulfil it. Maybe it sounds a little too practical, but don't worry, I leave plenty of room for exploration. And even if I think I know what travel's about now, my ideas may change during my 5 months.
So. What's travel for? Off the top of my head, discovery, adventure, challenge! Which is the subtitle of this blog. Foremost I think is the discovery of self, people, and God. I guess this is accomplished through challenges and setbacks and plain ol' experience. But I think the one I hold most dear is adventure
Not the adventure of all the million books I've grown up with (which have taught me to love it) but the adventure of reality which always has a tinge of danger and fear. In the end, even for a risk adverse Singaporean like myself, risk must be attempted for any great adventure to be set upon. It's scary and forbidding, but that's life. Maybe travel is just a way to view 'normal' life in a slightly different way.
I'll leave now (finally, huh.) with a poem by Molly Holden, which I first read long ago, and which I like because it reminds me that it's not always planned events that are memorable. It's often the small unplanned moments that stay forever.
STOPPING PLACES
The long car journeys to the sea
must have their breaks, not always
in towns where there's no room
to park but at the pavement's edge,
in villages, or by the woods, or in lay-bys
vibrating to the passage of fast cars.
The seat's pushed forward, the boot's lifted,
the greaseproof paper
rustles encouragingly. The children
climb to the ground and posture about,
talk, clamber on gates, eat noisily.
They're herded back, the journey
continues.
What do you think
they'll remember most of that holiday?
the beach? the stately home?
the hot kerb of the promenade?
No. It will often be those nameless places
where they stopped, perhaps for no more
than minutes. The rank grass
and the dingy robin by the overflowing
bin for waste, the gravel ridged by
numerous wheels and the briared wood
that no one else had bothered to explore, the long inviting field
down which there wasn't time
to go - these will stick in their memories
when beauty spots evaporate.
Was it worth the expense?
but
these are the rewards of travelling.
There must be an end in sight
for the transient stopping places
to be necessary, to be memorable.