Travelling is my life. It runs in my family, my father with his family and my mother with hers, and somehow it became a habit of us to move from one place to another. At first it wasn't a hobby, it was a necessity. My family happens to be in a condition where we're needed to move from one place to another. No, we're not running away from anything, it's just a way for us to survive.
My first distant travelling experience at 1997 was bizarre and exciting at the same time. It was the first time I ever flew in a plane and the trip took a couple days, which isn't surprising since we went from one end of the world to another with several stops along the way. We stopped at Taiwan, transit at LAX, and finally arrived at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. We lived there for a couple years until the 9/11 incident, which was just a couple months away from our green card. Afterwards things were tough for immigrants and we decided to return to Jakarta. Ironically, coming back to our hometown felt more alien than coming to the US.
We stayed there for a while and even then we did a lot of moving around from one place to another. I remember it felt rather unpleasant for me, I envied people that could grow up together with their neighborhood friends. On the other hand, deep inside I hoped to live abroad again.
At the end of 2010, we moved to Singapore. It was the very first time I ever been to that city-state. Things were pretty different over there compared to Jakarta and as any newcomer in a foreign land I had to do some adjusting with the environment around me. It was strange at first but feeling that very feeling again gets me excited, I felt alive. Things weren't doing so well at that time, so it was hope.
Life has its ups and downs they say and those times I felt like going on a roller coaster, we went up as fast as we went down. By the end of 2012 we went back to Jakarta. It was... something. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, my family decided to move again, and this time the place was very unfamiliar, in fact if we weren't planning to move there I wouldn't even know that country exists. I decided to stay in Jakarta, at least until I get my university degree, while they packed up and went on to The Kingdom of Bahrain.
Around a year later I finally had the chance to see them again. I don't usually travel alone by plane, especially to a middle eastern country that I know nothing about. I transit at Dubai, you can guess the airline I'm flying on.
Bahrain was nice but that's a story for another day.
The time I got back to Jakarta all that was on my mind was travelling. There's so many things to see, so many places to visit, so many people to meet in this world! It's my passion. It's who I am.
And here is where I'll share my stories.
