Travel Blog Two

The problem is that long-term travel is statusful so it became dominated with necrotic narcissistic instagram culture. Travel ought to be miserable and boring. Nobody should want to share their travel pictures. If someone asks you about your travel you should feel anxious and redirect the conversation.

Anyways my travel story starts with me in Seattle, deeply unhappy. Life sucked. My job was making me miserable, I hated the city I lived in, and my personal relationships were killing me. I had a breakdown; there was no possibility of life continuing as it was. So I quit my job, cut some people out, let my lease run out, put everything in boxes, and ran away.

My first city was Buenos Aires. I picked it for the stupidest of reasons: the weather was good there at the time I was booking my flight, (it was not good when I arrived). This characterizes my travel decision-making.

One month out of the first three was spent really sick and in bed. Travel is hard on your immune system.

You finish vomiting, and consciousness starts flooding back. You're coming to and you're so glad it's over. You flush, and lightness and energy fill you. It's gone! That horrible thing inside of you is purged! A very pleasant emptiness. You feel so much better.

I did not go on tours or outings. I went to shrines or parks or tourist attractions out of a sense of obligation and my reaction was usually “okay”. Unless I was stoned, in which case it was amazing. I spent a lot of my time stoned.

I also played a lot of video games at internet cafes. Like, a lot.

I was mostly completely alone. I was lonely at first, but then I became enlightened, and I stopped feeling lonely. In a couple of cities I made friends or already had friends there, and in those cities I would be less alone. Sometimes I used this old app called couchsurfing to find people to hang out. Couchsurfing has great people, I recommend it. I only use the Hangouts feature not the couchsurfing feature.

Me and a friend I made on Couchsurfing in Taipei. The entire city smells awful and nobody should ever visit this stinky island. Weapons should go in and microchips should go out, that’s it.

I ate a lot of tourist food or fast food. McDonalds Hong Kong is the best in the world, McDonalds Taipei is genuinely revolting. I’m quite the picky eater so I didn’t try a lot of exotic foods.

If you feel like you’re travelling wrong, that you’re wasting your time, that you’re making a mistake, that’s alright. It’s okay if you’re miserable. Don’t let other people tell you how to travel, figure it out for yourself.

Anyways after a few months in the chaos of a three-leg 25 hour flight to Bangkok I forgot to take my antidepressants. And I felt okay. Clearly I was doing something right.

I spent a lot of time alone, thinking. A lot of time alone, reading. It’s embarrassing to say, but I really did go on a “find yourself” journey and found myself. Or more accurately, all the retarded shit I used to believe sloughed off me.

Everything is very different now. Hard to overstate. I feel like a new man. Woo!

I’ll write up some of my learnings soon.

I'm trying to bring Edgy 90's Guy back. Tempelhofer Field, Berlin.

Illegaly manufacturing edibles using peasant technology. I went to a stoner hostel and they acted tough but I tried their strongest shit and it was no biggie. Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Scarfing down a Curry Cup Noodles at 2am is an act imbued with meaning in my personal religion. Shinjuku, Tokyo.

I love hentai pornography. Akihabara, Tokyo.