Hey blog world! It’s me, I am back writing here. I am feeling called to write here again. Since the last post, I have lived a whole lot of life, learnt a lot of lessons and now I am adventuring again. When am I not though? I am traveling through Asia with a special someone… my sister! It has been a long dream of ours to travel to Asia, specifically South Korea (since we are half korean and never been). So we saved up for a bit, we worked hard, and off we booked a one way ticket to Japan from California! We will be traveling until we run out of money or find a job, whichever comes first. Let’s see what happens! 

Here is what we have been up to, the fun, the hard truths and everything in between. 

Saying Goodbye to Morocco 

After nearly 3 years of living in Morocco, I slowly built my little community out there. It surely wasn’t easy as I was managing a surf camp full time like if it was my first born child. I learned so much and there was also a small itch in me that knew it was time to say bselma. I am so thankful for all the growth, all the amazing people I have crossed paths with, and the land I was on.

Leaving everything behind again 

It was quite special for me to be back home in San Diego after living in Morocco and being there with my family & friends. I went through some small and bigger growths being back where I lived the majority of my life. It was like a warm hug from an old friend you haven’t seen in a while with a whole lot of wisdom plopped on top haha. Everything was so familiar yet slightly different. I had a reverse culture shock going back that’s for sure. After some talking and planning, Anais, my sister and I were ready to begin this adventure!

One way ticket = freedom?

One way flight through ZIPAIR, I think our flight was under $300USD for about 11hrs flight LAX to Tokyo. Which is crazy! Here is the catch, ZipAir is low cost. You have 1 carry one and 1 personal baggage and the sum of them cannot exceed over 7kg. We somehow made it past the check in and security (it really depends who checks you in, some will check the weight and others don’t). Luckily we had each other and went to check in one at a time to “unload” our bags of weight. With this said, I now regret not packing lighter. You will want to buy things when you get to the countries you are in, you don’t want to haul 17kg of stuff on your back. I think the only frustrating thing is we knew we were going to experience colder weather in Japan & Korea and then we planned to make our way to Southeast Asia (warmer countries) so it was a bit tricky to pack! Your laundry days are going to depend on how many socks and underwear you bring so keep that in mind. 

Goals while traveling 

We put out some set places we were definitely interested in visiting like: Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Nepal, India, and maybe even Australia & New Zealand. 

We want to volunteer while traveling, we both volunteered in other countries and it is such a great way to get grounded in one place as most volunteering places you stay a minimum of 2-4 weeks, meet locals, and create longer relationships with people. 

Another goal, let’s see how long we last traveling together. 

We have successfully landed in Japan. Up next, our recommendations in Japan, what we did, and our funky observations. 

Oh yeah and we brought a banjo over to Japan, more explaining to do in the next post.