My most fearful moments traveling

Some of you might say that you are 'jealous' or 'envy' the life I live, or you wish that you were doing what I was. Although, I rarely share my travel woes on my blog but today I am going to compile them here in a neatly comprehensive list.

*drum roll*

NOT SPEAKING THE LANGUAGE - I love languages, I really do BUT those first couple people I try my new words on are terrifying. Are they going to laugh in my face? Correct me? Ignore me? Who knows...anything could happen. You very quickly learn from locals the words for 'I don't understand'. At least you can use this back at them later. >.<

BEING ENTIRELY ALONE - I love and hate this so much. The solitude is amazing, I read books, play guitar and wander around in parks taking pictures. Then I realize I don't have anyone to share them with, I thank the Webz for Instagram.

HOLIDAY MISHAPS - I miss holidays, like recently I realized I missed Mother's Day entirely. Not just by days... but just out right blanked out, until it was pointed out that it was Mother's Day in the country I was in. So Mother's Day is different in different countries, who knew. I swear I am not a bad daughter!!

In Canada it was the second Sunday in May, in Poland it was 26th...on a Wednesday.

UNREACHABLE - You don't have wifi, there is no one around. You're having a great time climbing a volcano or hiking up a side of the mountain to get a good sunset view. Then you place your foot down that funny way and you think to yourself 'if I died right now, no one would know. I should have told someone....maybe the receptionist back at the hostel?'

FOOD THAT SCARES YOU - You can eat Horses, Kangaroos, Ostriches, Deers, Rabbits, Snakes OH MY....Oh right last but not least a plethora of bugs!

Come on' I'm sure you found something gross on this list.

BEING SICK - Not only is the doctor scary enough in your own country. IMAGINE THIS...they don't speak your language, they can't read your insurance (or you don't have any), you have an embarrassing sickness, hidden fees? nobody knows. Most of all you can't crawl into your own bed. Trust me I actually get scared when I cough sometimes.

POST VACATION DEPRESSION - this is the one that terrifies me. I know that when I return home that I am not the same person as when I left but there is a fear that no one will 'understand' me that I have become unrelatable. People might get sick of me only talking about my travels...I might never get to travel again. 

I even thought to myself, 

'I wonder if anyone else have moments like this during their travels. Low and behold, there are!' 

And that idea turned into a Facebook group where people can ask questions, talk about their travel woes with a good group of people. :) No pressure. I'll just be rambling, I hope that it will be a good outlet. Uplifting and fun. 

What can I say? I am an eccentric dreamer...

Jenny Makes her 1st Travel Video (POLAND)

 'Poland' 

by Jenny and Monika 

A lot of you have probably already watched the video Monika and I made of Poland. Needless to say that I have to make sure it gets a spot on my blog. After hours of editing I recalled my fear that previously haunted me about creating video content. It is time consuming and well, not the most easily of tasks for someone that isn't skilled in this department. Making the videos though, were bundles of fun and I think I am getting slightly better at it.

It is really nice to be able to enjoy meals with someone and have a partner to travel around a country. Let alone a native to the country. We all know that I love learning languages and eating food. Let's see if I can continue to find people along the way that will assist in my video ventures.

I'm happy to take any advice in regards to making better quality videos but until then I am just going to have fun and see if I can get my friends to laugh with me along the way. I hope you found the video as funny and entertaining as it was to make.

<3  

P.S. If I am able to make videos during this Eurotrip the blog posts will most likely be less frequent. Maybe it is easier for some of you to watch or read. Let me know :) I would like to stay connected until I return home to Canada-land.

Kraków

Arrival at the main station after a 3 hour train ride I overcome with a quiet calm and little dash of bustle at the same time, if that's even possible.

We walked to the old town through a park where we enjoyed my first polish pretzel and looked around, I was smiling about the good weather since I arrived. It's not too hot not too cold. The breeze is refreshing and the smell of pastries is everywhere. 

There was delightful people dressed up and little polish nick nacks that you could buy. I figured that this was an excellent tourist hub. Did I mention that this this place is chalked full of history and culture! I couldn't even bare to retain all the information but I enjoyed learning all about it. 

Jewish district. Kazimierz in Polish.

In Jew town there was old shops like grocery stores, tailor, shoe makers that have been converted into a restaurant. 

The area had a cemetery, synagogues and lots of additional buildings I've forgotten. My most mentionable was these pen face sandwiches. A brilliant invention that should be sold all over the world, I thought: 'why don't we sell these at home?' 

Afterwards we wandered back to old town to vendor window shop and grab some food.  Thanks to Monika's friend we had a place to stay. The video I'm going to put together will have more details about Kraków. 

If your ever in Poland I love this place! I highly recommend it. (Almost even took a teaching job here:P)

Seriously awesome open face sandwich, stay tuned for the movie. 

Arrival in Poland

Arriving in Poland was filled with wonderful waves of emotions. I was reunited at the airport by my dear friend Monika. Wow, I couldn't believe I had traveled so far!

We walked back to her house after taking a bus and a tram where I explored the nearby park.

Attended her work at her university's Japanese department, which I thought was a bit ironic. (Since that is where we met and I was just in Japan less than a month ago)

I ended up falling asleep since the total time from my house to hers was 28 hours. I was trying to do my best to fight off jet lag and stay awake for the rest of the day. After she was finished work we walked around and visited the square, saw the park from the outer rim and the opera house. 

It's been awhile since I've had a homemade meal and are at the table. All I can say is how grateful I am to be here, finally. 

We spent the rest of the evening watching some TV. And I tried my best to learn how to say some polish cities since they have proven to have an almost unpronounceable language with so many 'z,y and c's seriously! 

This is hilarious I was laughing my ass off. 

Give it a go. Haha. I had a whirlwind of fun already and I've only been here for 24 hours. Tomorrow we head off to Kraków. 

So long Taiwan

Here I am again off to the airport, I've been at this bus stop so many times now. Sending people off and going back to Taoyuan airport time and time again. 

My return to Taichung and the back to Taipei....

I've been here for a total of almost half a year and now it is time to move onwards to Europe. If it wasn't for Taiwan I wouldn't have been able to meet an abundance of lovely people. 

There are moments when you know you're in the right place at the right time and I am sure that Taipei was one of those places. Friendly people riding around with CD on their baskets, drumming parades on the street, night markets galore and a familia that came to warm my heart faster than I could have ever imagined. 

I made a group of friends that took me in and most of all showed me that there was always going to be a place that I would be welcomed back. Although I don't know when I will be back in Asia, I am sure that I am going to return to this side of the country. There are just too many countries left on this side of the world that I need to visit. 

I'm going to miss you Taiwan, you've been nothing but good to me. I'm sure that I'll be seeing a lot of the wonderful travellers I've meet here in the upcoming days. :) Until then, I'll see everyone on the other side. 

Esoteric Tao Experience in Taiwan

JI opened google map and hit the explore nearby for a vegetarian restaurant, I found one about two and a half blocks away. I started going there because they served a full platter of my favourite veggies. After a couple of visits the owner spoke to me about visiting a temple with him and his wife. I will be the first to admit that I love temples, in broken Chinese I arranged to meet them the next day and accompany them to this said temple to pray. 


I arrived the next day for dinner at 6pm, also asking my roommate to come accompany me to this 'cultural experience'. We were given a good serving of food where the owner's wife told us that it was free so as long as gave 100NT when we arrived at the temple. I wasn't opposed since the amount of food that they gave us was worth more than that. 

After we finished our meal we were escorted into a vehicle, now I know what you maybe thinking, 'stranger danger' but if you knew how friendly people are in Taiwan you wouldn't have second guessed the siutation to be a bad one. Of course i wouldn't have gone if it was just me. 

'' Our tickets to heaven''

A short car ride later we arrive at a building and ushered into a room with a shrine on the side with 5 kneeling placements. They didn't force us to do anything but to watch the first prayers and gave us some reading material 'The testimony of the American Pastor' a story of an Angel that tells the man in the story how to receive Tao through a folding paper analogy.

This is when it started to become a little transmundane, we watched the ceremony. As it continued on with multiple sessions of bowing, offerings and lighting of incenses, there was a parchment with our names written on it ( we 'registered' upon arrival). I didn't think that it would be written on anything but here it was being said in a chant in a language I didn't understand. I thought to myself that I didn't feel threatened but like a cryptic puzzle that I couldn't solve. More entertaining the thoughts that were going through my head and theirs.

• How does bringing/inviting foreigners to join/receive Tao as their god so they can go to heaven help them?

Talk about a random experience, maybe if I understood the language and they were so charming I wouldn't have gone. Next was a laminated card with our names on it and a short explanation of the three things we needed to know. The hole on head where the horizontal and lateral axis meet, this will shine the light in and out of our bodies to help us ascend into the heavens. Five words to me memorized and a hand gesture used for when we kneel then bow on the ground. I assume there are years of teaching that follows this but....not today.

At the end of the evening we were given a booklet that shared more information about The First Step To Chong-De Tao Cultivation. Alongside with apples, radish cake, a melon and an alcohol free beverage and this was all after thet served us fruit and water during our short teaching.

Why am I always getting myself into these interesting predicaments? Oh right...I remember now. :P

Wanderlust's recap.

I re-read over old blogs….I seem to always do this when I am on the plane and I don't know how long I will be gone for or what is going to happen to me in the upcoming weeks. I'm doing this because for me it reminds me that I have been in this very situation many times and that I will continue to do this.

A quick self reminder that I can do it, there is nothing to be worried about, stop letting that nagging voice get in the way of seeing it through to the end. I usually can silence this voice in my mind after a little hassle, phew there it is again.

I think over the major events in my life, leaving Edmonton and teaching English in China (twice!), buying a one way ticket to Thailand to meet my best friend Karrie and ended up backpacking through 6 countries (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Macau). The end of that trip was a defeating one getting deported from London, Heathrow back to Vancouver, Canada. at least the flight was free...

I obtained a 2 year working holiday visa for the UK, moving from England to the Hebrides, Scotland where the sheep outnumber the people, faced more than a few bumps along the way until finally settling in London, then one last pit stop home for a close friends’ wedding before my working holiday year in Japan.

From Japan I was lost on what the next step would be, I traveled to Sweden, Korea, Taiwan and lastly Indonesia before settling in Taipei, Taiwan. Making it my temporary home before the Eurotrip was born.

These are all the major life changing things that has happened to me, this isn't to boast or anything like that. This is just me reflecting on what really changed in my life, friends, environment, resulting in many alternative lifestyles.

I am aware that there is strength gained in facing adversities and going through tough times, whether it be heartbreak, being homesick or just lost in cultural confusion. I have been able to come out on top. *knocks on wood* I don't know why we let those nagging voices leak out of our psyche to poison our goals.

I have been looking for the place that I belong (some people say it comes from within and I don't doubt that this plays a part) I travel alone. Facing forward, there is something new that is about to happen which is why I am writing this post (minus all the little things that have already happened…impossible to count them on my fingers and toes!) I deem myself lucky to have done what I have and not to say that I have regretted a single moment.

Would I trade it all to silence the whispers in my head telling me that I need to be responsible, obtain stability and settle down. No, but I need to find something that will calm the nerves because every second I spend worrying about thinking about this is a second lost. I wish to evolve free from society's expectations (status quo).

I got to live like there is no tomorrow because one day this will be true. Dance like no one is watching, Sing like I'll never be heard, love like I’ll never be hurt…in my mind if I  don't I am holding back from being my eccentric wobbly self.

I want to live freely, I want to love honesty, I want to live like I am going to die tomorrow. That is enough for me.

Crowdfunding update

First of all, thank you everyone for all your support!!!  The amount of people that I have reached out to have responded in the most loving and compassionate way.

Most of all just being present for me which has gone above and beyond my expectations. I have personally contacted you to take a look at the campaign and some of you have taken the time to share! I've had over 750 people watch the video but it isn't quite enough, so I have to keep on trying.

In top of that, handfuls of fantastic people have gone above and beyond and contributed to my cause. <3

Current situation: I have already faced some scrutiny in regards to the project I have created. Trying to stay strong and most of all not giving up on this dream of mine. Internally I find it very hard to ask people for money, then again we toss a fiver as a tip - a Starbucks frappe - or something as simple as that extra beer at the bar. Financial support is a whole other ballgame.

The way I've done it is that it would be up to the the individual to put their money where they see fit. If it isn't something they support or feel right forking over hard earned dollars, it's really alright, I completely understand.

The internal flickers of hope that it is an obtainable task are there but I haven't stopped working working hard to find the right people to contact. 

First it was fellow travel writers who have become successful in what they love to do. Then Facebook pages and groups, hotels, travel agencies, magazines, radios channels, podcasts, crowdfunding forums and local establishments. 

I made an account on reddit and contacted Monster, Red Bull, Westjet, Stride Gum and North Face. (I have received a reply from Red Bull, WestJet and North Face) It's became daunting overnight and I had thought to myself before I give up I should start thinking about plan B... 

It's overwhelming and when it has the ambiance of non-profit case it instantly made it harder to sell. Without the physical evidence, it isn't easy to find people to will just outright believe in you without meeting you first hand. Even then... Strangers can love.

Any help would be greatly recieved but I think that maybe, just maybe I have bit off more than I can Chew. 

Either way, it is time for me to travel on.