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Our route so far
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Latest posts from our trip around the world
Brazil - legendary cities, incredible nature and horrible food
With 26 empty visa pages in my new passport, we were ready to travel South and Central America. Compared to Asia where we spent almost 2 years, this will be a much shorter trip - at most 6 months. The first things we had to do on disembarking our super comfortable TAM plane was put our jackets back into the bags (as the autumn in Brazil felt warmer than the spring in Belarus), change some money and take a bus to Botafogo - the area of Rio where we booked our dorm beds in the Rio Nature Hostel. Now there are legendary cities in this world - simple hearing of their name will stir some kind of emotion in almost everybody... [Read more]
Belarus - Easter bun and bureaucrats
"Where are you from?" - "I am from Belarus". - "Where? Belgium? Brazil?" These are the most typical comments I get from people when I tell them where I am from. They tend to think I pronounced it wrong and keep trying to give me suggestions of all the countries they know that start with a "b". I surrender and say "Byelorussia" instead of "Belarus". This always results in the inevitable "Ahh, Russia". Only a few people so far have surprised me with having heard of or even been to Belarus, a country which is not an administrative part or even autonomous region of Russia, but an independent state... [Read more]
Chernobyl - thoughts and facts
Chernobyl used to be the name of a city in Ukraine on the border with Belarus - now it's a name of one of the most horrifying nuclear disaster the human race has ever known. It entered the lives of Ukranian and Belarusian people on a peaceful sunny April day, right around Easter and before the May 1st yearly parade. Because the Soviet government wouldn't admit to the degree of the disaster and therefore wouldn't even broadcast that it happened until 2 days after the explosion (with a 20 second TV announcement), people didn't take a single prevention measure against radiation exposure to lessen the degree of impact... [Read more]
Kiev - walking tour and practical tips
During our stay in Belarus we took a 4-day trip to Kiev. I've always loved this city and at some stage even lived there for a couple of months. It definitely has a very special look compared to any ex-Soviet capital, first, due to the distinctive charm all the hilly cities on a river bank have and second, because it doesn't look Soviet. Although the best time to visit Kiev is definitely summer, April is not so bad either, mainly because it's so much easier to rent a flat (the best and cheapest accommodation option in any ex-Soviet capital)... [Read more]
Last months in China - living, travelling and applying for visas
This post is a really hurried update about the last three out of the six months we spent in China. Time flew, but in a good direction: we learnt enough kungfu forms to be able to continue independent practice, grew quite comfortable with Chinese (can have various dialogues, and even started reading books with a dictionary and watching movies). In fact, this half a year in China gave us so much inspiration for learning that we added even more things into our happy routine, for instance doing splits and playing erhu (two-stringed Chinese violin)... [Read more]
Videos of kungfu forms we learnt at Ren Gongfu in China
This is a video post of forms we learnt from our Master Ren Qiang during our stay in China. The forms might look like a weird dance but in reality consist of multiple combat movements combined into sequences for training purposes. Each of the movements inside the forms can have several combat applications which are studied as part of the form learning process, are perfected through regular form practice (fighting an imaginary opponent) and at a later stage through sparring (with a real opponent)... [Watch the videos]
Chinese New Year - a brief instruction manual to greeting it
First of all, if you are picturing dragons and lions marching through the streets at the energetic rhythm of drums and cymbals, the whole city drowning in red, delicious smells, deafening sounds and happy vibrations, your picture of the Chinese New Year is probably based on same movies as mine :-) The truth is, in a small provincial city of China and the rural area around it, at the time around the Chinese New Year it feels even quieter than usual, there are no spectacular public processions and all the delicious smells are confined to the borders of people's apartments... [Read more]
South Korea - temples, love motels, snow and gimbap
Things we did: staying at love motels, couchsurfing, eating a lot of gimbap, drinking a lot of coffees from FamilyMarts, visiting temples, markets, saw lots and lots of snow, beautiful mountains of Seoraksan National park, Tripitaka Koreana, singing karaoke, taking pictures of seagulls at Haeundae beach in Busan, night ride around Seoul, waiting for the plane at a Korean sauna and more. Things we learnt about South Korea: people's loyalty to traditions combined with highly progressive lifestyle, the relationship of cross-legged sitting and taekwondo kicks, Pentagon channel for American soldiers and more... [Read more]
Season's Greetings from China
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year - С Рождеством и Новым Годом! - Bon Nadal i Bon Any Nou! - Prettige Kerstdagen en Gelukkig Nieuwjaar! - 圣诞节快乐! Whether you celebrate Western or Eastern Christmas, New Year according to Gregorian or Julian calendar or both, Three Kings, Sinterklaas, Hanukkah, Boxing Day, Epiphany, Thanksgiving, Kwanzaa or some other winter festival that's missing in this list, we wish you a lot of fun during all the celebrations and all the best for the 2012 year!.. [Read more]
Living in China - part II: apples, visas, mountains, cooking and more
We are in Korea now and just a short stretch of the Yellow Sea away from Qingdao in China. Time in China has passed really fast. It always does when you are happy. Now we are back to travelling and again each day is different, so a month accomodates so many unique experiences, it's like a short lifetime. China has been our first real stretch of settled life since May 2010, in the sense that we got our own place, made our own food and our alarm would go off at 6 am. I must admit, in the three months that we lived there we did grow a few roots. Oh, the sweet charm of routine living after months and months on the road :-)!.. [Read more]
Why we decided to learn kungfu
Why do people count the span of a lifetime in years, and not in days? Wouldn't we be more aware of the value of a day if we knew we had only, let's say, 30000 days - in this specific lifetime - to accomplish whatever it is we are meant to accomplish or to at least figure out that life does have a meaning?.. One thing that a long trip makes you realize is that every day counts. Now that we've been travelling for over a year, we realized that we remember every day of the trip, very much unlike back home when we could sweep through the entire year with general descriptions of what we'd been doing and only a few real highlights... [Read more]
VIDEOS: Taiji Single Sword and Taiji Meihua Praying Mantis
Living in China - first steps and first impressions
This post is about things that happened and things we learnt about China since we arrived in this country. Things that happened include: police welcome, hutong, kungfu, kids, eating, moving and my birthday. Things we learnt are about: one-child policy, fireworks, internet, information, fixing stuff, driving, TV, social activities, family, calenders, laundry, music stuff, chinese tones, white weddings, shower, chocolate, horoscope, confucianist respect, prices and hospitality... [Read more]
How much does it cost to travel Asia for an extended period of time?
Money, money, money... this post is all about it. Here we summarized all our travel expenses for the period from May 2010 till September 2011. The dry statistics is followed by an explanation of our travel philosophy and the tables with the actual numbers... [Read more]
10-day Vipassana course in Gambang, Malaysia
Here is a quick update on what's been happening in the last month. After Thailand we spent a week in our beloved KL, in the same hotel and same room that we always book here. Funnily enough, after so many times every arrival in KL gives us a feeling that's very similar to the one which you experience on coming home after a vacation, but of course a much subtler shade of it :-). In KL there was as always more Chinese and a little bit more work on some projects. Soon it was time to leave for our real destination in Malaysia - the picturesque location of the Vipassana retreat in Gambang... [Read more]
Vipassana - welcome to the real world
Vipassana is "insight into the true nature of things". (Remember: "Do not try to bend the spoon — that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth: there is no spoon.") Most realizations that you acquire as you keep practising Vipassana are of precisely this nature: there is no spoon, as matter is just extremely high vibrations, but our minds have never been trained to a degree (or vibrational range) necessary to experience it... [Read more]
A taste of "island life" in Koh Tao, Thailand
Dreams do come true. I remember before this trip we had a bit of a dilemma: I wanted to go live in China for a while and travel, and Jordi wanted to travel. Since it was two of us 'pro' and nobody really 'con', traveling it was. As it turns out, it was only an illusion that we had to choose. We visited China in the very beginning of our trip and left it with a feeling that it would be great to go back and finally get behind the facade exposed to tourists. That feeling kept lingering on in our subconscious mind, until we started talking about it and gradually shaped it into a plan... [Read more]
Our Chinese week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and why the China town of KL is the best place in the world to study Chinese
I remember that when we were leaving for this trip, every time we were asked how long we were planning to travel for, we would give a vague answer in the style "one year, maybe a little more, or as long as the money lasts"... Well, it turns out money is lasting surprisingly well so far, probably because Asia turned out to be as cheap as we expected it to be, but also because of AirAsia and our doing it wherever and whenever possible "the local way"... [Read more]
Philippines - beach paradise and how we almost sank in a kayak
Philippines appeared on our itinerary somewhat mysteriously, in the sense that I wouldn't be able to tell when we first thought about going there and when we finally decided to, but at some stage we just bought the cheapest AirAsia combination and went there without any particular expectations. What we found in this country was quite in line with what we had heard (that people are nice, the beach is beautiful and it's not expensive) but even better. People were great, the beach was in the style "postcards come to life" and money-wise it was fine. One thing that can illustrate what Philippines is about is this poster we saw... [Read more]
Indonesia - volcanoes, nicotine and surf
As we stepped out of Medan airport and started walking towards the city centre, we couldn't help thinking that quite contrary to our expectations Indonesia at the very first glance gave us a very peaceful feeling. Curiously this feeling never left during the next month and we felt exactly the same way in every single place we visited in Indonesia, including its two Javanese capitals – Jakarta and Jogjakarta, both labelled by LP as "chaotic, busy, congested" etc. etc. Yes, there was all the traffic, and the fumes, and the busy look, but somehow the vibe of all the cities we visited was very peaceful, as if the whole country had some kind of happy quiet heartbeat beneath the surface of all the usual city action... [Read more]
Vietnam - rain, family and hats
Vietnam for us was really special but not because of the country – it was because of the family. After almost a year of traveling we were able to spend almost a month with Jordi's father Jaume and his life partner Antonia, and Jordi's brother Albert. With Hanoi as the meeting point, we all planned our individual itineraries up till there: Jaume and Antonia came to Vietnam all the way from Viladecavalls in Spain, Albert - from Hoi An in Vietnam and we – from the rainy Phonsavan in the neighbouring Laos. (With Internet and mobile phones what would have been an incredible logistics feat a decade ago required no more planning effort than getting together for a family dinner :)... [Read more]