Was talking to Bird then Brandon and I realize there's one thing I've really learnt from traveling around the past few weeks, which is also the first time I've truly step out of my house to explore:
If you're traveling the world to see the scenery, the landscape, the architecture, or any particular physical attraction, you're better off looking at them over your computer 'cos Google does so good a job that their images are often much better than what you see on-the-ground. Seeing "things" is overrated.
Traveling is about living the moment; the life; experience what the locals experience; hear their language, watch their behaviours; and at the same time, it's a mirror: look at your own actions and listen to who you are when you are out of your comfort zone. Feel uncomfortable, then find comfort in the uneasiness. Live in your own fairy tale moment; dive into your own fantasy, but at the end of the day, get back to reality. You don't need to find your (old) self back, or rather, you won't. You'll become someone else (cliche, yes, but it really does happen, or at least I hope it does). And when you finally return to the comfort of your nest once again, many a time people seek out their old self and fairy tales once again become just memories, just like what happens to the fairy tales we read when we were young.
But that shouldn't be the case: fairy tales you've lived through are meant to be different.
This is why we don't watch them through Google.
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Everyone with a rational (or irrational) amount of wanderlust will tell you all these same old story, but no one ever talks about how they come about. And nope, it's not easy. You don't just change when you go on a trip and return. It didn't even happen to me when I went Vietnam for my OCIP/YEP, it was just another trip. I wasn't exactly disappointed but it felt just like yet another overseas trip; so much that I had trouble writing a post-trip reflection after that and the fire alarm was almost triggered with the amount of smoke I put into that essay (but yea, the kids were "lovely"; and I learnt to paint a mural wall, kinda).
But few weeks after that I went China with my family, and surprisingly, something changed. This time round, I made an (unconscious) effort to notice what's going on around the people there instead of around me (probably cos I was sick most of the time and had had enough of myself haha). And yep, I realized.
Growing up emotionally/mentally is kinda different from growing up physically: the latter requires little effort (well, just eat and wait for puberty to hit, no?) whereas the former takes a little more self-exploration to realize. And while my height's probably gonna maintain at 179cm (urgh, just one more centimeter!), I still have a few thousands more cities to explore it's practically limitless.
