Kingdom of Knuffel

Well i’m weird sometimes, like i want to be able to travel to far off exotic places but i don’t want to even get up to go to a nearby city…8U so does this mean i WANT to travel or i don’t? 8U paradoxxx.

Plaaaaaaay. I just want to sleeeeep. XD have fun tho!

I think exotic destinations are fascinating, but for me they are not worth the trip.
There are so many interesting places much nearer, which I can go by train or car, or reach in a flight in only a few hours.
I don't feel like spending 14 hours in a plane just for the sake of seeing the most beautiful place on earth.

I would change my mind if I were to make a very long trip though.
Going to stay there one or two months? Oh, then the trip is just a small requeriment.
But my trips are usually 7 to 10 days, so spending one going to the destination and another one returning from it feels like such a waste.

OMG plane rides are the worst
I hated the 12+ hour plane rides whenever we had to go back to China for the summer... I'd be nauseous the whole time QAQ

I do want to plan some bigger trips to places like Europe, Japan, Hawaii and the like... I feel like once you commit to a project like that it can become exciting? Exhausting but exciting haha.

If the process of the travel is fun, I love it. If the process of the travel is stressful, I want a very good payoff before I want to go, lol...

but family calls mean I end up travelling a lot anyhow, so it's easy enough to take an extra day on one end or the other and see the area around that particular branch of the family.

(Train trips are fun. I don't mind spending a few days on a train. But I don't enjoy airports, and long flights are not enjoyable. I've never done the travel-by-ship thing, maybe that would be okay?)

I think it matters a lot who you travel with.
I find that travelling with friends who are on the same frequency as you is very relaxing and fun, but if you're traveling with someone that you have to take care of, or who doesn't have the same goals, then it gets super stressful >__<

I never like traveling with my parents because they want to visit all the tourist traps and take 1000 photos while I just want an ice cream LOL

Tourist traps... sometimes those are worth falling into, but definitely not always, ha ah ha ha

I usually visit the farmer's market (or whatever local equivalent there is) first thing after arriving someplace new. And I usually pick up an idea or twelve of the next few places to visit by talking to the people AT the farmer's market.
Plus all sorts of new dishes to try and create.

I almost got into trouble, once, when I was on my own in the middle of a market in Nicaragua. I'd made the mistake of asking how to use this one (I thought it was a fruit, turns out it was a vegetable) item, and a fairly large crowd gathered (I did stand out a bit as the only non-local at the time) to argue about the best dish and how to prepare it.
Then a peace officer showed up.
I really thought I was in trouble because I was the center of this large loud crowd, and obviously a foreigner...
but no.
They just wanted to give me THEIR recipe, too.

Sad part is, when I got home again I only managed to find less than half the ingredients for ANY of them, and never got to try out making a single one. I don't know if I even kept the recipes... I should check. You never know what will happen in life, after all.

Oh wow these people are passionate about cooking with this vegetable!

Maybe you can try finding substitutes for some of the recipes? Would be better than not trying any at all right?

(On that note I actually just started a chat in the chat forum for sharing food~ Along with a incentive challenge hehe)

Passionate about it...

Or just bored, and entertained by the foreigner asking for their advice.

Hard to say which, really

Oooh, let me go check out your new chat thread! Food talk is fun!

(it's easier to substitute when you know what the thing that you're trying to substitute for is supposed to taste like, lol... I figure I'll just go there again some day for a longer time period, and rent a place with a kitchen instead of staying in a hotel where I can't cook. That way I can go out and get whatever I need, and maybe invite some of the locals to share a meal and come over for a cooking party. Then I can learn how to do it properly!)

It's super impressive that you're able to chat with strangers so easily! I'm envious of those mad social skillz you've got!

(That is true, hopefully we can travel more freely soon~ Having a place with a kitchen sounds great during long-time travel, then you're not living on outside food and can really get to know the local foods by cooking yourself eh~ Though again, I am impressed by the idea of inviting locals to share a meal, it sounds so nice but I am so awkward irl....)

Ehhh, the lovely part about travelling, is that if things go catastrophically wrong and you make an enemy instead of a friend...
Well, you're leaving!
You won't have to sit around dealing with the fallout for the rest of your life.

That was a very freeing realization. :)

Also, people tend to be more understanding when it comes to interacting with people who are clearly foreign -because it's not expected that they (or you) will understand all the unspoken cultural rules and customs.

Which means I tend to get along better with strangers when I'm travelling than I do with my own neighbors, who have expectations that I don't always know about and can't always meet.

Weird, but there you have it.

So.... it's less that I have social skills, and more that I abandoned any pretense to dignity, and cheerfully resigned myself to occasional failure.
Not really the same thing, ha ah ha ha. You should hear how awkward I am at work.