Extreme preparation for the trip..

Prepare, prepare, prepare...never ending list of things to prepare..vaccination (2 more to go), visa (applying soon cos it starts from the approved date..), medicine (secure plenty from GP), travel insurance (getting quotes), read up about countries (jeff's duties), budget planning, clothes to bring, wat to bring..1st flight air tickets booked, 1st two nites accomm booked (above our planned budget for accommo!)...

and best of all, even prepared for travellers diarrhoea! had some blue cheese (mouldy mozzarella cheese) w wrap on sun..and ended up with 2 days of bad gastric, severe diarrhoea and 3 days MC. I've never had such loose bowels before and toilet bowl became my best fren! So u can see how well prepared we can get for our trip to even practice/prepare for this part! hahah..

The list of places/things we wanna do only seem to grow longer and not shorter. Greedy me wanna go so many places..and we may not last that long..haha. so shall wait and see cos it's causing me quite a bit of stress. Just decided on the first 2 countries and see how things go.. we are very thankful to a colleague who had linked us up with mama basu in India for possibly some volunteer work and I'm really looking fwd to that..

Setting up the blog was an achievement for us too. We took half a day to layout, design, name our blog...tada! done! haha...feels very proud of our 1st blog attempt. Pls do not laugh at us cos u all know jeff is not very IT savvy though he did use ICQ to court me back then...AND that was probably his last endeavour with the internet world. haha..so i can only depend on myself to set this up though i'm not any better. Afterall, my dear colleagues tot sun rose from the west when i joined FB!

With a netbook in hand, FB and blog setup, we are ready to update our whereabouts when we start travelling in abt 5 weeks time!

Foreword

It started with a regular pedicure session in Aug 08 and I was reading magazine to pass time. Chanced upon an article on a photographer’s trip to Sri Lanka, winning prize of a photography competition, to take pics of the post tsunami’s scenes after these years. I was reminded of my bucket list – gap year to travel/volunteer.

Travelling has been my love since young. After JC and before getting into Uni, I took on 3 jobs to earn and saved hard for my 1st backpacking trip to Europe! From then onwards, my yearly resolution is to travel at least twice a year and hopefully, cover the 6 continents in this lifetime.

The 1st few years of my working life were spent trying to identify my career path….then I met the man of my life, we bought a flat and I married him. 3-4yrs of married life went in a flash and the question of ‘to DINK’ (Dual Income, No Kids) or ‘not to DINK’ kept popping up in our conversations. It was hard to give up the freedom…hehe..

After the pedicure session, with a little inspiration from a couple who went travelling, numerous calculations of our saving plans on excel sheet, cut down our expenses (no more pedicure, facial, shopping, soccer channel for him, fine dining…), we applied for 6mths no pay leave (very thankful to our supportive organization and bosses!) and here we are counting down to our trip…YEAH!!!

Meh

I have always pondered how my life will be and where it will head.  Having grown up, received an education, experienced a few jobs, climbed a few ladders, bought my first home and married a pretty wife!

So what’s next for me? Bask in the joy of having children; watch them grow up and start their own family where the next cycle of life begins..

Guess I was hoping that life can be a little more exciting. It has been a challenging journey to bring purpose to my daily life.  Working with children and later working with voluntary welfare organizations forms part of that journey.  Therefore, when Meh brought up this 6 months break, it was a wonderful opportunity to broaden my life journey as well as break away from the cycle of ‘normal’ life. So here goes…

Hu Zi