(1.01.2018) It Begins.

So lately life has been crazy (stay tuned for the next blog post to find out why). But long story short keeping up with my blogging daily has not been achievable with life being this busy; also the fact that I am rusty as anything as not helping. I thought diving back in to posting would be as smooth as jumping back in the water, but here I sit at 15 minuets to midnight (attempting to take advantage of my non-sleepiness). I feel like everything about this is challenging, taking good photos, editing and especially bringing it altogether in some cohesive way. How did I do this on the daily?! I am aware I am super far behind. However, I am still determined to catch up! So I will probably end up squishing some days together eventually.
I hope you get a nice little glimpse into my life as my year begins, hopefully it isn't too clunky and it's enjoyable to read. On the bright-side; it can only get better with practice.

1.02.2017

               


My New Year's Morning

technically began the few seconds after midnight where I lay in my bed and succumbed to tiredness, however, I didn't happen to get a photo of that. I honeslty don't even know why I bother staying awake till midnight, when i's just to struggle and then pass out. So for the sake of the blog, let's just say it began here. In the sunlit warmth of my bed, at some foggy time (most likely in the PM). This morning like most of my favourites, began with cuddles; magical cat filled cuddles and a breakfast that probably consisted of baked beans on toast; which if I am being honest is a personal favourite.

So to kick off one of my New Years resolutions right; I decided to head to the grocery store and attempt a "zero waste" shop. Now I have to admit I learned a lot from this task. But I also think I did pretty well and our waste this week will be a lot less than usual.












The rest of my day was spent very leisurely; as one's day off should. I read some of this spectacular book (which I have now finished). It was gifted to me by Nick, because I loved her first one so much. In fact both these books resonated so closely with me that I feel as if I should do a blog post on them.

  Later in the afternoon we payed a visit to some beautiful friends of ours, who have moved into a wonderful new house (with air-con). So they kindly let us take refuge there and escape the scorching Brisbane summer days; and as a bonus play Shadespire. Or like I did on this occasion have a nap then play; because staying up till midnight took it out of you.




Thanks for reading, I enjoyed looking back on this day (since it is a little late). I think this whole daily blogging thing will be just as therapeutic as last time once I get the hang of it. I also really hope that you enjoy reading, even if my life isn't super groundbreaking. I highly recommend looking back and paying some extra attention to the gifts in your day! Well it's surely past midnight now I have finally finished writing. Thanks again for stopping by and being a little part of my crazy life.

12/13-02-2017 Travel Trail (Day 12/13) Taman Negara. A Beautiful Rainforest. My Final Travel Trail!

Hello all you beautiful, patient people,

Welcome back to a long awaited Travel Travel blog. Taman Negara edition.

I have been home for over a week now and still haven't gotten around to finishing up my travel trails, but here I am back at it again. Determined to get it all finished, beautiful and documented. For you guys and also for me.
The reason it has taken me so long to write again is honestly because I've been having a hard time settling in back home. I think it always makes more sense (in my mind) to feel lost while travelling in an unfamiliar environment. I didn't really expect to feel so lost when I returned home to Australia.
Luckily for me, I have some beautiful friends, family and cats to keep my grounded and loved here at home.
Actually,
Tuesday after we got back it was my birthday; Yay 22 years old! Maybe one day I'll actually feel my age because I feel like I have lived about twice as many years on this earth than I actually have. On my birthday I was lucky enough to have some of my favourite people in the world come and visit me and I think that was the start of me fitting back in with my beautiful but normal life. Thanks to all you lovely people, you know who you are! You brought my heart all the way back here to Australia, when
I kinda left it somewhere along my travels.

So here I am, ready to jump back into my posting and reminisce over my beautiful holiday. I am going to show you all the photos I took in Taman Negara, as well as some of the food we ate and things we got up to. But I really wasn't there for long enough to experience much of it at all. As I have said before if I could go back I would stay in less places for longer amounts of time. But I did love everywhere I visited. In this post it was also nearing the end of the holiday, a lot of my days here were filled with chasing sleep. But I enjoyed myself, so I hope you all enjoy reading.

So without further ado, after the worlds longest introduction, lets finally hop in to the good stuff!



12-02-2017 Penang to KL to Tamen Negara..... A Long Day of Travel. 

Today begins in Penang. Crazy early. I'm not just talking about a little painful 5am start either. We woke at 2.30am. No human should be awake at this time, unless they are still awake from the night before. So with very sleepy tired eyes we trudged down to reception. We even had to wake up the sleeping night manager for him to check us out.
If you are somehow reading this. Uncle (the only name we were given), from Apollo Inn, thank you for sharing our pain at 2.30am. Sorry we had to wake you, we had a plane to catch.




Goodbye Penang, Goodbye beautiful view. Hello airport.

Luckily for us, the plane flight back to KL was much less dramatic and high octane than our trip there. Also both plane flights were very quick. So naturally, I slept the whole way. Because last night sleep consisted of only a few hours (at best) it was a very welcome little flight.

So far so good, no drama. We arrived at KL airport safe and sound. But our bus was to leave at 9am, so we were cutting it pretty close with the timing. Waiting at the airport, we continued to order an uber. Since if I have learnt one thing, it's that it is best to avoid Taxi's like the plague.
But after at least 5 minutes of wasting time we didn't even have. He cancelled...ordered another ride...same driver...cancelled.
That's when lady luck decided to cut us a break and finally be on our side. A lovely man pulled up in his car and offered us a lift for the same price as the estimated Uber cost. A (very fast driving) angel sent from heaven, to get us to our bus on time.

It was still so early as we drove through the city of Kuala Lumper that the moon hadn't set yet and the
sun was only just rising.




We arrived safely and in one piece, even though there were no seat belts and he could just as easily have just kidnapped us to sell our organs. But luckily for us he was just a good samaritan wanting to make some extra cash.


Thanks to our lovely friend, we arrived at the beautiful temple of Sri Mariamman. We unfortunately didn't get to go inside as we were still tight for time. But we admired it from the outside, which as you can still, is still a beautiful sight. Even at 8am.


Our bus stop was behind this beautiful temple and we were lucky enough to be able sneak in a quick and surprisingly easy to find vegan breakfast from a little indian place just two doors up from the bus pick up area.




Then it was back on the bus from Kuala Lumper to Taman Negara. Apparently the bus driver was taking corners and driving like we were in some

sort of car chase. Luckily, thanks to my extreme napping abilities I slept the whole way. Which was probably for the best, since I really don't like travelling in vehicles, especially at crazy speeds. So I gladly dodged those hours of would-have-been anxiety.


We had thought the bus was going to take us all the way to our accommodation, since that is what our tickets said. But with little to communication we were dropped off quite a way from Taman Negara with instructions to get on the boat at 1.30. So we ate, we waited and sorted our boat tickets.

Another thing that was neglected to be mentioned was that we had to purchase a photography license, it was a small amount, paid per camera and the money goes towards the conservation of the rainforest. So that's another thing to keep in mind if you are lucky enough to be having the same journey as us.

Travelling on a boat is by far my least favourite way to travel. For those of you with horrible motion sickness like me, I'm sure you'll agree.









The boat ride ended up going for 2-3 hours, which would have been lovely except I was absolutely busting to pee... and surrounded by water. This made the boat ride a lot less pleasant. I would recommend going to the bathroom before your boat arrives to avoid the same issues as I had.



However, all that aside it was lovely to travel up the beautiful river, with towering rainforest either side. We even saw a couple cows on the river bank and some fishermen too. I would recommend doing the trip, it was beautiful. You can always catch a bus back (which we opted to do).

When the boat finally came to a holt I literally ran away leaving Nick with all the money and the bags, in quest for a toilet. Luckily for me a lovely lady at one of the riverside restaurants took pity on me and let me use her bathroom (even without the 1 ringgit cleaning fee... which I paid later, by the way).

Then after that, there was only a temporary moment of relief before we realised we had not been dropped at our resort. Nor did we get any instructions on how to get there. So my anxiety, naturally took that and ran with it. "We got off at the wrong stop" "Now we are lost, in the middle of nowhere." Of course there was no reception for us to contact anyone. Luckily for me Nick kept his head and as we trudged across the riverbank with my panic levels high. He asked a local who pointed us to a bus that drove us about 500m (which we totally could have walked)

FINALLY to reach our resort.
But the drama was not yet over
*Begin Rant*
We stayed at The Han Rainforest resort, which I don't mean to be a neg, but I would NOT recommend. Let's just say that I wouldn't consider myself to have very high standards. As long as I can shower, sleep and have access to a bathroom I am all set. But this was woeful. The room we were given had rotten food in the bins, clothes from the last guests and 5 minutes into my shower the water was flooding the floor. The drain was completely clogged.
I was going to just roll over and accept the fact that we got a bad room. But then I thought better of it and we ended up asking for a new one.
Because we were paying more for this "resort" than many of the other places we had stayed in Malaysia, that had much better quality and service.
I ended up writing a long letter of complaint to management and filled out a review, in hopes that no other guest in the future would have the same experience. Although the receptionist was rude, unhelpful and unapologetic. Management dealt with the issue well, very apologetic, gave us the new room and a complimentary gift basket (unfortunately not Vegan, but still great effort)
*End Rant*


With that our very long day filled with many curve balls finally came to an end. With vegetable instant noodles for dinner (which are a secret favourite of mine) and a well earned sleep.

13-02-2017 Sleepy Day, Rainy Rainforest Walk



After yesterday's mammoth travelling effort, today turned out to be a very sleepy day. We slept in
until around 3pm, with the exception of sneaking out of bed (at some point) for a quick breakfast.
After a lazy morning of playing laptop games and having several solid naps we decided to finally venture out into the rainforest.
We didn't plan for nearly enough time, yet again. So today was our only day to explore the rainforest, it also started to rain so we ended up getting a little wet, which means I didn't end up taking as many photos as I would have liked.
But instead of a drawn out explanation I wanted to just include some of the photos I did manage to capture.

I didn't have the opportunity to see as much as I would have liked, nor to take any photos that did this beautiful rainforest much justice, but I will definitely be re-visiting when I have more time to hike and to see all the this beautiful place has to offer.
I did enjoy the small amount of time we had here. There is something very special and rather humbling about walking through a 130 million  year old rainforest, no internet, no reception, just you. A small speck in a giant rainforest and an even smaller speck to the whole world.

I don't really have much to write about for the rest of today's post. After our adventure we ate at one the floating restaurants along the side of the river. I didn't get any photos of the food because Nick and I were both so hungry we practically just inhaled it all at once.

Delicious, vegan, Indian food. The perfect warm meal for a good nights sleep. Because at 9am the next morning is was back to KL for a valentines night before heading back to Singapore to fly out.

So my beautiful people this is where I end this travel trail you can find what we did tomorrow in "My time in Kuala Lumper + Valentines Day blog" .
I am not going to do a post about my last few days in Singapore, most of it was rest and we stayed in the same place, so there isn't a lot of interesting new things to talk about. But I will include a few of the photos I took right at the end. After my final goodbye to this wonderful adventure.

So for now I am signing out of my Travel Trail for the last time. Remember to check out the post linked above for the 14th day of my Travel Trail.
I am so honoured to have had this opportunity, to be able to afford and plan my own travels around these two beautiful countries has been one of the best experiences of my whole life. The lessons were amazing, the people, the food the places, all of it was perfect.... even when it wasn't.

I am endlessly proud of myself for achieving this, (almost) by myself. For someone that suffers from depression and anxiety at the best of times I never would have thought I would take myself across the ocean, part way around the world, to do what I love (travel and blog). Regardless of the fears that I felt and struggles I faced, I made it! I now have a beautiful Travel Trail to look back on and a million more memories that I love.
So to anyone else out there that struggles with everyday things, like getting out of bed, eating 3 meals and working a job, just like I do. You can achieve things you never thought possible as long as you love them enough to trudge through all the fear and hurdle all the obstacles to get there.


I want to thank you all you guys for being with me and following my journey, for always being interested and encouraging me to keep posting.

I want to give a big shout out to my parents, who have been huge influences on my love for travel, as well as a huge help and support in every aspect of this trip; and the rest of my life. For always being there to calm me down and have endless answers to my ever complex problems.

I last but not least want to give a shout out to the amazing man who did it all with me. Of course, Nick. I could never have done it without you and I would never have wanted to do it with anyone else. Thanks for being forever patient and loving me, always. Thanks for making so many amazing memories with me that I will always cherish.

So now, with all the text aside. Enjoy my last few snaps of Singapore.
Thank you all again for reading and being part of my crazy journey, you're all amazing,

10/11-02-2017 Travel Trail (Day 10) My Time in Penang, Flight Drama and a Day at the Airport.

Hey lovelies,
So as promised here is a catch up post of my time in Penang. This was by far my favourite place and I wish I had had planned to spend more time there and I will surely be going back in the future.
I was only really in Penang for a whole "full day" as there was definitely a lot of trouble getting there. But once we were there everything was beautiful the people and the few places we visited were all lovely.
So as I mentioned we only unfortunately we had one day there so my blog won't do this beautiful place as much justice as it deserves, but I will do my darn best.
So without further ado, lets get into it!

Future Yam here: You might want to skip to the 11th the 10th was a big fat fail of a day where I complain.... a lot.





10-02-2017 Worst day of My life? Flight Mix Up, A Day in the Airport. Most Whinny Post Ever?


So the title pretty much sums up this day, it won't be a long post or an interesting day, but it was definitely filled with a lot of learning experiences.
Disclaimer: If you don't like text heavy, boring photos and whinny posts, skip to the next day, but I feel like I deserve a good whinge after this day.
So the story goes...

We made our way to the airport, 9am check out said goodbye to our beautiful room view and after another delicious soy caramel latte to wake me up, we ordered our Uber.
I don't know if I have already mentioned or not, by the experiences with Taxi cabs so far seem to be universally bad everywhere in the world. So we made our way to the airport in a Uber, which I would highly recommend if it is in your country of travel. They are fast, cheap, efficient and usually really friendly. So leaving KL and getting to the airport went all as planned, perfect smooth, not much traffic (for KL) and we got there with plenty of time to spare. But that's when it all fell apart.

 Not only KL airport very difficult to navigate once we finally made our way to the check in counter. (which there seemed to be a never ending maze of).The lovely (yet very unhelpful) lady behind the counter told us we had booked our flights for March, not February. Crushing blow. Then promptly dismissed us to the service counter.

So at this point I wasn't really panicking, which is unusual for me. Maybe it was all the Valium I take to fly or maybe it was my theory being true.
Because everything gives me anxiety, the things that really do (for "normal" people. ie. wrongly booked flights) are easier to deal with because I practice dealing with those emotions everyday when leaving my house, or talking to strangers. But regardless I was pretty fine.... for a while.

But in line at the service counter we were waiting for ages, it seemed the two people in front of me had serious issues figuring out whatever they were doing and my anxiety levels were slowly creeping up, as well as good old line cutting battle between me and the guy b
ehind me.
*Start Rant* 
What seriously makes people think their needs are any more important than anyone else's. Or that their time is anymore important. Or that they don't have to wait in line like everyone else. I don't care if you are a backpacker like me or a famous surgeon or celebrity (He wasn't by the way) everyone is equal, wait your F*%king turn okay?!
He stepped up closer and closer to me until he was standing beside me.
I step, he steps, I step he steps.
Until the point where Nick and I had seriously had enough of a bad day already that we yelled at him and judo chopped him in the throat (Or at least that's how I wish it went down) In reality Nick just sternly said "We were here first" which did the trick and he stood back in his place.
*End Rant* 

So of course the guy at the service counter said there were no refunds, no flight changes, no nothing.
But he could book us (a really expensive) same day flight to Penang. No thanks. We decided to try and book something ourselves. So as plane after plane flew out we literally sat in a McDonalds for hours, trying to figure out what to do next.
Which would have been a lot easier if I wasn't in full blown panic attack mode.
I didn't want to go to Penang, I didn't want to be overseas. I just wanted Jinty (My cat).
I was a sobbing, crying mess begging to be taken back to Australia. The reality really wasn't as bad as my mind had made it seem at the time. I was having a panic attack, you with anxiety know how I felt. It's like, uou honestly think the world is going to end and you are going to die and nothing will ever be okay again. But of course this wasn't the case.

After a call from my beautiful parents, a lot of tears from me and a huge amount of support from Nick they all talked some sense into me. Everything was going to be okay. Nick booked another cheaper flight to Penang with a different company and then we just had to wait some more.

 Lucky for me there seems to be Subway everywhere. (Which I think I might be a little addicted to) But nevertheless after I got some food in my belly things were starting to look up, we played some card games to kill the time and then went to check in to our flight.
So surprise, surprise another issue. It's kinda worring when you get to that point were you expect things to go wrong an you're just like "Oh yeah, of course. I mean why would I think otherwise? Makes sense." So it was a minor issue luckily. But the plane we booked was not in this terminal and we had to catch a bus to the other one. Which of course costed more money and I was already sleepy and grumpy as hell.



Two plane tickets, one day in the airport, one panic attack and one bus ride later we were on our way to Penang.



When the plane arrived at our gate. It was literally like a vessel sent strait from heaven after this killer day. I was literally asleep before the plane was even off the ground.

The plane flight to Penang is only an hour, but I got in a sneaky little nap. When we arrived in Penang I was tired and hungry and still shaken from the difficulty of my day.
So here is a photo of my beautiful and very (un)happy face. To document the fact that I made it through

Finally in Penang we ventured to our hotel and we got my favourite meal I have had all trip from a street vendor about two blocks from where we were staying.









The place we stayed was called Apollo inn and it was awesome. Not only were the rooms really clean and nice. It was the most comfortable bed from the whole trip, which was a really nice gift after a really hard day. In fact, there were even fireworks on the roof, which felt like they were meant for us to celebrate our arrival in Penang.

So with that long day, we passed out.

11-02-2017 My Day in Penang in Pictures. 






I am going to just post all my favourite pictures of Penang on this day. Because I was only there for one day and I wasn't there long enough to learn about the wonders of this beautiful city. But I will be going back one day to further explore. But until then I encourage you guys to go visit if you are travelling through Malaysia, it's beautiful. More so than my photos portray, but here they are:

Thanks you all for reading and viewing as always, it's been a pleasure blogging for you all. I absolutely fell in love with Penang, I hope some of my photos inspired you to visit this beautiful place one day.

I am actually writing this blog in the hotel lobby as I have checked out of my last place staying in Singapore. We will be flying home to Australia tomorrow, which is sad but also very exciting because I will miss my travels, but also get to see my beautiful family and friends again.
I hope I get a chance today to sneak into some wifi to write update you on what I did, but if not just be patient and I will get it up for you in Australia. As well as post of what I did during my last few days in Singapore.
Until then, thanks for being here through my whole holiday, I love you all. Wish me a safe flight!