Amanda Kingsmith

yoga teacher. world traveler. writer. podcast host.

akingsmith@gmail.com

Day 2: Tales of Taiwan

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When I left for Asia a little over a year ago, I set a goal to blog once a month, providing a travel update about life as a “digital nomad”. I was successful for 7/8 months. So, before I jump into other life musings, I feel it’s my duty to share about my time in Taiwan way back in May of this year.

Ryan and I flew to Taipei, Taiwan from Tokyo, Japan. We left Japan on a complete and total high. I had expected to like Japan, but not to fall so completely in love with it. Do you know that feeling when you arrive in a new city or country and you feel totally at home right away? That’s how I felt in Japan. It just felt right being there. There are few places in the world that have given me that feeling, so 3 weeks certainly didn’t feel like long enough to spend there.

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Day 1: 30 Day Blogging Challenge

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I’ve been working as an advisor with Praxis for 1.5 years now, and one of the modules that all the participants complete is a writing module. During this module, the major task they complete is 30 days of blogging.

After 1.5 years of advising participants on this writing module, I figured it was time to do it myself. The last time I wrote every single day for 30 days was when I participated in NaNoWriMo back in 2014 (I completed the 50,000 word novel but never actually published it).

Because I’ve written every day for 30 days before, I know 2 things: first is that I can do it, and second is that it will be hard. Not only is writing every day a time commitment, but it’s an exercise that tests you mentally. It’s on the busiest days and the latest nights when you want so desperately to just go to bed and call it quits that you have to make the conscious choice to go against the challenge you set for yourself. And it’s those times when you know that it is only yourself that you will be letting down if you don’t write. There is almost nothing worse than disappointing yourself.

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Month 7 Travel Update: Japan

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After 2 glorious months in Bali, I wasn’t really sure that it could get much better. But, I was mistaken!

Ryan and I met our good friends Steve and Julia when we lived down in Atlanta back in 2015. We’ve remained good friends since then, and they planned a visit up in Canada this past summer. While we were roaming the Rocky Mountains, we started planning our trip to Japan together!

Our trip to Japan had been in the works for a number of months, and we had 2 weeks to explore Tokyo, Mount Fuji + Kyoto with Steve + Julia before heading onto Hiroshima ourselves.

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Month 5 + 6 Travel Updates: Bali

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When I left you last, it was the end of January, we had just arrived in Bali and we were settling into life in Ubud.

We slipped into a routine quickly with most of our days spent at Hubud, the coworking space where we purchased memberships. After 4 months of having our community entirely online, it was awesome to connect with people who are doing the same thing as us in person. Working at a space like Hubud was the boost of confidence we had both been needing, as being a digital nomad and trying to create businesses online can be a lonely feat sometimes. I have moments where I find myself wondering if my wires are crossed and I missed something about what I should want out of life. Being at a place like Hubud reminded me that I need to continue to forge the path in life that makes me the most happy.

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Month 4 Travel Update Part 2: Bangkok to Bali

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The last time I wrote, I left you in Mandalay and it feels like so much time has passed and so much has happened since then. I am well into month 6 on the road already, yet I am still recapping the end of month 4. The days and weeks have begun to blur into one another and it feels like time is passing far too quickly. But back to month 4. Here we go…

We arrived in Bangkok tired, sick and ready to be in more of a developed city + country. It’s funny to look back on my travels in 2011 and remember how completely and utterly terrified I was of Bangkok then. I remember arriving in Bangkok from Greece and being so tired from jet lag, yet not allowing myself to sleep in the taxi from the airport to the hotel because of fear that I would be taken.

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Month 4 Travel Update Part 1: Myanmar

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Month 4 kicked off with us ringing in 2017 at the Golden Rock in Myanmar, but I’ll back up a bit and start from the beginning of our time in Myanmar. We arrived in Myanmar on December 28th, flying into Yangon (which used to be the capital city of Myanmar). Myanmar is a really interesting and unique country due to its corrupt government that didn’t allow tourists to enter for about 50 years. We had heard nothing but good things from people who had visited though, so we decided to visit for ourselves.

As we were about to touch down in Yangon, I looked out of the window and was greeted with the flickering of lights across the city. I was confused at first, until I realized that it was the instability of the electricity across the city. Stable electricity has never been a concern in my day-to-day life, and this was the start of my eye opening experiences in Myanmar.

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