Road to Happy Destiny

I first learned of Tana Toraja (trans: Toraja Land) in Indonesia around the end of 2013. I immediately knew that I had to pay a visit someday. Flash forward five years, and I finally make the dream come true. The Toraja region is located in South Sulawesi Island. It's famous for coffee, the unique traditional [...]

Last week, people across many parts of Asia celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival. Based on the lunar calendar, this is one of the more significant holidays for China/HK. (From http://www.hong-kong-traveller.com): "On this full moon day, families and communities traditionally gathered to celebrate the bountiful harvesting season, somewhat of the equivalent to the American Thanksgiving Day. Nowadays, families [...]

(Click here to read part 1!) It is the final days of the trek to Everest Base Camp, Nepal. During the trek to Lobuche, I was listening to an album that reminded me of someone special to me in Moscow, and I was surprised to find myself crying and overwhelmed by emotions. My friend Kayti [...]

I said in my last post that my motivation for completing the Everest Base Camp trek changed mid-way through. By 2015, my life was, to put it mildly, a train wreck. Without going into any details, I had hit a bottom and become utterly desperate, spiritually and emotionally bankrupt. At some point during the trek [...]

It's curious to me how my motivation for trekking to Everest Base Camp in June of 2018 changed as I was doing it. When I first learned that such a thing is possible (in October 2017, thanks to Facebook pictures by my friend Ben in Kathmandu -- hi, Ben!), I thought, "Holy cow!! That's awesome! I [...]

On July 22, 2018, I made my final (for the foreseeable future) trip to Japan, the country that captured my heart and that I called home for 3 years. Unlike previous trips in which I'd catch up with old friends, visit old haunts, and simply enjoy being in Japan, this trip had a PURPOSE: to [...]