During the 10 months prior to coming home I have seen so many places, been touched by so many hearts, and yet after being back for such a short time it feels as if none of this has actually happened. Honestly, it's just surreal to think I've been strolling down 5th ave 7 weeks ago or playing roulette in Vegas just 8 weeks ago. And a month earlier, I was baking in the sun in Fiji and exploring the terrain of Tom Hanks' "Castaway". But this all actually happened.
And during those 10 months in which I've grown more than I ever have the 19 years prior to the journey, opened my eyes (funny cause I'm Asian), and learned what living really means, NOTHING has changed back home. Literally. Nothing.
Yes, of course, people have new girlfriends and boyfriends, someone's grandma might have passed away, some road constructions have finally finished, and my old school mates have new jobs. *Such wow. Many amazing.*
But instead of describing to you all how horrible and despressed I (am supposed to) feel, constantly dwelling in surreal memories, I will let you be part of the most memorable things that I have come across during those 10 months that I know for sure happened to me.
The numeration doesn't actually correlate with the importance or awesomeness of these following events. While some of them might seem boring to you (because I've already blogged or told you about them), others may seem way more personal, interesting or scary, but they're pretty much all equally awesome.
1. Finding Elke and taking her to the top of Mt Stuart by sunrise
The story of Elke is the story of a special friend. She was once bought by my brother Wayne, who had been in Australia for 6 months in 2013.When Julie and I first arrived in Cairns, we checked into Corona Backpackers where Wayne had been staying previously, and where he had left Elke, because he couldn't take her on the plane. She was still sitting in the same room where he had left her a year back, and were surprised to find her scratchless and beautiful as ever. Elke had no idea that her second journey had just begun. We kept her in our car for weeks and showed her everything the Australian East Coast had to offer. The most wonderful time we spent with her was at 5:30am on top of Mount Stuart in Townsville, where we got to witness the sunrise together.
Finally, we had to say farewell to Elke, when we got to Agnes Water, because we couldn't bear her anymore. She took up too much space in the back of our car (where we slept) so that we'd have to squeeze in order to fit in. We left her in the hands of Cool Bananas hostel, where she is happily resting to this day.
2. The Dungeon
The Dungeon {duhn-juh n}: A smelly, stuffy hostel room in Brisbane's Citybackpackers that holds 30 people in bunk beds, lacks windows, and frequently has people's stuff stolen from.And my home for about two weeks that I shared with 29 other people. We became like a big, gross family, and even did yoga together.
3. Buying and sleeping in Gregan + driving on the left side of the road
Our first very own car! Our first very own home! Yep, we even slept in the back of the car every night for 5 weeks. It is supposedly not very legal to do so, but as long as you don't get caught, you're all good. Julie and I bought the Mitsubishi Magna Wagon off of two German girls in Cairns, who had named the car 'Gregan'. We had a great time with her, except for the last couple months, where we tried to sell her and nobody wanted her, so that I ended up selling her to a shady construction worker on Gumtree (Australia's Craigslist/Ebay Kleinanzeigen) for $300.4. Cutting my hair
One of the less pretty memories is the one of my weird decision to suddenly get all my hair cut off by a transgender in Bangkok (it was hot and my hair was down to my butt). No hate for trans people, but for people that don't know how to cut hair and call themselves hairstylists while charging you triple the price of a usual hair salon in Bangkok. I guess the language barrier played a big role as well. Maybe she thought 'a long bob with volume just like Jessica Szohr's hair' (even showed her a picture) really meant 'an afro that looks like a dust mop'. Because that's what I looked like afterwards. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but eventually Julie and I cracked up laughing while almost dying in the taxi on the way back to our hotel.Luckily, I got my hair fixed by the amazing Kristen Bramble later in Mackay.
5. Losing my phone in KL and finding one in Mackay
Minutes after Julie and I arrived at the Kuala Lumpur airport and got our baggage, I had my iPhone stolen. I was bawling for having lost my pictures and memories on the phone, especially from the trip so far. So Julie and I made it our mission to find another phone for me in Kuala Lumpur within the next couple days. And we did! But in order to get it, we had to go through the hassle of dealing with a Malaysian creep in his late 30's that would only sell us the phone if we gave him our Skype-usernames, because we said we 'didn't have facebook'. (Of course we didn't give him our real Skype usernames, but something like 'hotgermangirl20').Ironic enough, a couple weeks later I found an iPhone on the ground while clubbing with Julie and Krista in Mackay. After thinking, whether this was karma or a test, I decided to hand it to security and forever think about that decision.
6. Adventures in New Zealand
Some of the coolest things I've EVER done was the skydive in Abel Tasman and my swim with wild dolphins in Kaikoura. I won't elaborate on these, because everyone is probably already sick of hearing of people's skydives and adventures, but in case you aren't, there's a video of my skydive on my facebook.7. Picking up Helge from McCarran airport
I hadn't seen my boyfriend in almost 9 months, when I picked him up from the airport in Las Vegas on December 21st. It was just a surreal, magical moment. I love you!
8. Gaining 10 pounds in Vegas
Gaining weight is shit, but gaining it because you eat at a different restaurant every single day is amazing. After having ate a loooot of pasta and cheap tomato sauce during my time in Oz and NZ, I was relieved to arrive at my aunt's place in Las Vegas. She spoiled me by letting me use her car all the time, feeding me, taking me to hotels, casinos and concerts, and so on! I'm so grateful to have such a loving family.
9. Seeing the Mulligans again after almost 3 years
As most of you may already know, I was an exchange student in Arizona for a year during 2011/2012 and was lucky to be staying with Toni, Mark, Tara, and Collin. During summer 2013 Collin and Allie travelled through Europe and stopped by Germany, meeting my family and seeing my favorite spots in our region. For Christmas 2014, Helge (my boyfriend) and I were invited to spend the holidays with the Mulligans in Tempe, Arizona, which is when I finally got to see everyone again after 2,5 years. Will visit again soon!!!
10. Meeting Lucas
In Thailand, one of our first stops, we started talking to a guy in front of the travelshop 'Lomprayah' in Bangkok. He had a ukulele and spoke German with his friends, and since we hadn't met many Germans in Bangkok (and thought that guys with ukuleles must be fun), we started chatting to him and his friends. We were all waiting for a bus to pick us up and take us to 'Chumporn', a port in the South of the country, where a catamaran would take us to the island 'Koh Tao'. Thus, we had a little over half an hour to chat with the guys, and eventually realized that they were living in Wiesbaden, which is pretty close to where we are from in Germany, and the city that I used to work in.When Julie mentioned her hometown 'Nastätten', the ukulele-guy Lucas said that he used to live in a town called 'Holzhausen', right next to Julie's hometown. Funny enough, the village of Holzhausen (population of 1,000) is where I am from. As we excitedly continued chatting about our childhoods in Holzhausen, our minds were blown when we later found out that my brother Wayne and I had been at Lucas' 5th birthday party when we were little. Lucas knew that there still existed a picture of him and Wayne ('that little Korean boy'), so he e-mailed his father to scan it and send it to him. We exchanged our facebook names, and I received a picture a couple days later. Ironically, there's a globe in it.
