on being far from home.

"the endless thought of you" on flickr

(photographs are a mix from my trips to Melbourne & Perth)

next to photography, the thing that makes my heart swell with happiness is travelling. it is so, so exhilarating and exciting (but sometimes not so much that it makes my stomach do flips) to travel on my own. somewhere along the way of travelling on my own for the first time, i realized how much i love my solitude; the very thing that i had thought made me feel so lonely and trapped and made my heart ache turned out to be my most special, sweetest gift yet. sometimes i think the feeling of being on my own would never live up to being around people. i mean i do love being around people but being around too many of them for far too long a time wears me out and drags me down. i learned to appreciate my aloneness.

i am endlessly and probably most fascinated with the difference in the air between the places i travel to and that of home. i suppose growing up and living 19 years in the Malaysian heat and humidity makes me appreciate the cool air more than most. i still find it fascinating that the air smells so different from home and how the winds blow cold and icy. the sun shines a little more golden and the pavements are lovely (i don't know why but i just love pavements).

some places that i traveled to made me fall in love with them so much i thought it might be almost impossible for me to put them out of my mind and to let go of the head-spinning nostalgia. i wonder, still, how different a place is since the last time i've been there and if i will ever be lucky enough to go back again to that small corner of the world. i think my abundance of sentiment would make me a very emotionally unstable traveler but i will try my best! i remember listening to a lot of sad, melancholy music (Keaton Henson in particular) while i was on the tour of the Great Ocean Road and thinking a lot about how the wild, stormy ocean would be how my mind would look like if i could see it and i might fall into the water and not being able to live enough or experience more of life. i definitely will travel as much as i can and let every place mould me into a person that i'd be happy to be and i will avoid regrets because it is what troubles my mind most on sleepless nights.

also, trains. train rides are the second best therapy in the world (the first being either photography or self-portrait therapy).

p.s. i apologize profusely for not updating my blog as often as i've always done. ever since i've started on flickr, i feel that my energy has been spent more on more networking sites than writing and posting blog posts. i will try and change that now! i have missed writing so much. i should thank my lovely friend, Karen, for encouraging me to blog and Rosa, for inspiring me with her writings. i hope you will all have a fabulous week!! xxx

p.p.s. i have a couple photo stories that i've done in the past few weeks and i'm so excited to share them soon! keep an eye out ;)