turning 23 & having the trip of my life
Hello-lo to my blog and neighbors ~ doing some dusting here since it's been like a month since we last hung out. Things moved very very quickly in October as the year-end nears and something about the air changed, it being cooler and I'm not sweating profusely all the time when I'm without air conditioning.
The holidays are coming and in the first week of November, something that I've been looking forward for the majority of 2025 has just culminated on my birthday.
TLDR - I am home from our Vietnam trip and it was the best experience I have ever had in my life !!! so far
I turned 23 last week in a foreign city with the love of my life. My younger self would flip... She had always wanted to travel. She wanted to be a flight attendant when she realized she's taller than average. Then decided she'd go for tech so she'd have actual money to travel. Oh, hell, it's crazy it actually happened.
I'm at this age where I can do this for myself and I really went ahead and did it !!!! It is so surreal talking about it. I wish I could box up every waking moment I've ever had while we were in the streets of Old Quarter or taking in the hills and misty air of Sapa and just roll them all up in a film and watch it and remember. Of course, the closest thing I can do is to write about it.
I am cooking up a trip report for a local forum that had helped me and r plan for our vacation as my way giving back. I will maybe post some snippets here or pictures I like and finally avail an upgrade. I have so much to say and nothing at all at the same time... Hanoi was full of this warmth and energy that is different from the kind of bustling city that I am used to, and then Sapa was just unreal and straight out of a fantasy. I have never seen anything like it.
Everything about the trip was just so smooth and beautiful and I feel such an abundance of joy having planned and experienced it. We booked everything on our own, had my phone out all day for navigation, had the list of everything we wanted to do, eat, visit and look at. Growing up, I never had that freedom when I travelled with my family. It is another experience entirely to be so involved and to be so deliberate and intentional in that desire to soak up another culture that is totally different from the one you have known all your life. The education and enlightenment this trip has given me is unmatched and I for sure will keep working and do everything I have to do just so I can chase that feeling forever.
And you know how they say that you can only truly get to know a person when you've travelled with them? That is exactly what happened with me and r. Now and every day I have never been more certain she is the one for me. This trip was a milestone for our relationship and it just then again establishes my want and need to have her in my life, sorry I am short of any more other metaphorical or poetic way to put it. This is for life.
I am also excited to share the news that me and r had just moved in to a new apartment - FINALLY !!! I will probably talk about that more in the coming days since we had literally just hauled our stuff there the other night. We were lucky there was a better and bigger unit for us that had just done renovation and cleaning just beside the one we were staying at.
CONSEQUENTLY we had just ordered an inverter fridge !!! wow
Sorry for the screaming. Oh, everything just feels SO new and I am SO terribly excited about it all so I currently feel only very little of the fear I have in me. I will have to post pictures here soon !!!!!
I just wanted to share this to immortalize this high. It is not all the time that I feel this ~ Thank you, talk again soon ^^