i’ve got about 2 weeks worth of vacation time this aug/sept and i’m deciding where to go. received the promotional email from malaysia airlines and it’s only $1300+ to fly to either london, rome, paris or frankfurt. and then another email from singapore airlines – 800 bucks to melb, brisbane or sydney and $1500(!!!) to auckland. my heart is pretty much set on london, but i have till next week to decide.

tentatively if i’m going to london, my itinerary would look somewhat like this - 1 week in london, 3 days in paris and 3 days in sevilla/barcelona. i’m not sure why i’m still thinking of going to paris – i’ve been there twice already – but there’s something magical about paris or maybe it’s the disneyland calling out to me. i fell in love with barcelona when i was there last may, i thought this will be a good time to revisit. since i’ll be traveling alone, it will be nice to just laze beside the beach with no particular agenda.

i’ve read through many travel blogs and the urge to backpack and travel with the dirty 6 letter word (budget) seems interesting enough. but i’m not gonna lie, i’m much of a brat. i like my hot showers, room service and privacy. can i still backpack and stay in 3/4 star hotel?

father’s day came and gone over the weekend. it’s a strange occasion to me. when my dad was around, it didnt seem like an important occasion to celebrate. but now that he has passed, father’s day seems to be very significant instead. i watched an episode of Grey’s Anatomy the week before – ‘how insensitive’ – and there was a scene in which Cristina was consoling a daughter of a patient who was dying from a heart attack with this monologue -

‘if your mum dies, you will feel a lot of things. first you’ll feel like you could have done more to help her but that’s not true. you’ve done everything you could. you won’t feel that way but remember me telling you this – you did everything you could. and it will hurt every time you think of her. but over time it will hurt less and less. and eventually, you will remember her and it will only hurt a little.’

i thought that was a very accurate insight.

what i probably miss most about my dad is his laughter. and sometimes, when i allow myself to do so, i think of my dad and the ways i could have made him laugh a little harder.

when i was in Barcelona last year for vacation, a very strange thing happened to me.

two men came up to me in the middle of the streets and they were asking me for directions. and then another man approached and flashed what i presumed to be a ‘police badge’ and he started questioning me, asking if i know if those two men are wanted for fraud, if i have my passport with me, where i am staying and all that jazz.

what he didnt know is that before the ‘interogation’, i’ve already seen these three men talking to each other. and come on! asking a tourist for directions!! how stupid are these scammers! in the end, i told him that i don’t have my passport with me and if he wants to see it, he can walk back with me (my hotel was about 15 mins walk away). i didn’t think he would so i just walked away.

seems that apart from the beautiful sceneries, Barcelona is also notorious for its scams and frauds. walking along the beach, there were immigrants (illegal?) selling pirated luxury items in a suitcase. one eye at the customers and another at approaching policemen. i’m not sure if this is something that could be ‘fixed’ by the government, but this definitely cannot be good for tourism.

i’m ready for an adventure , or what i’ll like to call  my ‘into the wild’ experience. without the dying part. or the hitchhiking part. or the wild part.